Twitter is bringing yet another change to the table, it seems, as the company is testing a “news brief” feature. This new feature will not necessarily have that name, or anything of the sort, but “news brief” does explain this feature quite well. So, as per a new report by Mashable, which includes some screenshots, this update is being tested in the company’s Android application.
So, what will it actually do? If this feature ever becomes available, the app will basically place news stories at the top of your timeline, along with the “catch up on what’s happened while you were away” message. Twitter’s Product Manager, Wally Gurzynski, said that this feature is supposed to help people find “news” with ease, news that they may have missed since they last checked the app.
This update should, essentially, help you to see the news and stories your followers have been discussing while you’ve been away, at least that’s how Mr. Gurzynski put it, and based on his statement, the feature will be coming your way soon, as folks over at Mashable already got it. We’ve checked on several accounts and devices, but still can’t access this feature, though chances are we’ll be able to in the near future.
Now, some of you are probably wondering how often will this prompt appear, or in other words, how long will you need to be away from the app in order for it to appear. Well, we do not know, but as you can see in the provided screenshot, the “Good morning” message is included in that prompt, so it’s possible that you’ll get this prompt the first time you fire up the Twitter app in a day.
Twitter Has Been A Busy Bee
The company has been announcing changes left and right over the last couple of months. The company’s web interface is getting a fresh coat of pain, instead of a three-column view, Twitter is pushing out a two-column view, and upgraded UI elements, which will make the web UI more enjoyable to use, to some people, at least. This UI is still in testing, some people received an option to opt-in and test it, while others will have to wait until Twitter opts to roll out this new UI to everyone.
The company’s CEO said last year that the company is considering enabling the “tweet editing” feature, but that it is still discussing on how to do that, in order to serve users best. So, we may even see this feature hit Twitter during this year, even though an exact timeframe has not been given by the company’s CEO.
The company actually also released a toggle between latest and top news to its Android application. It’s always good to have options, and now you can choose whether you’d like your feed to be reverse chronological, or whether you’d like to let Twitter decide what it wants to show you, to pick top tweets for you and save you time by doing that.
A number of additional changes were pushed to Twitter’s Android application throughout 2018, but it seems like we’re in for more changes in 2019.