This archive report was first published on 14 August 2019.
Twitter has been working on a new feature that allows users to follow topics, in addition to people. This feature is currently being tested on Android devices.
According to Twitter, the new feature will allow users to follow topics such as sports teams, like the New England Patriots, or TV shows and other common discussions.
Once a user follows a topic, they will see a handful of tweets related to that topic, in addition to the tweets from people they already follow. Users will also have the option to mute topics, so they don't see these tweets all the time.
Twitter is also exploring a way for users to create a separate timeline that includes certain accounts and topics they follow. The topics a user follows will be public, and it will be easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a topic.
“Twitter is about what is happening right now,” said Rob Bishop from the company’s product group. Human curation would be too slow to curate such topics, he argued.
Twitter is also testing a way to temporarily snooze notifications on Android devices, allowing users to avoid spoilers around TV shows or sports events.
None of these features are guaranteed to see a widespread release, but topic following stands a better chance than most. Twitter’s continuous challenge has been to help newcomers decide who and what to follow.
