Twitter continues to transform hand in hand Elon Musk. The social network has announced important changes inside the application that make its operation more reminiscent of that of the competition’s social networks, such as TikTok. Specifically, the little bird application intends to further promote the content recommended by its algorithm. All with the aim of getting the user to stay more aware of the space.
See the tweets you want to see. Starting today on iOS, swipe between tabs to see recommended tweets’For you‘ or the tweets of the accounts you are ‘Following‘“, the application has stated in its support account. These are precisely the two options that TikTok offers the user when browsing inside.
See the Tweets you want to see. Starting today on iOS, swipe between tabs to see Tweets recommended «For you» or Tweets from the accounts you’re «Following.»
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 11, 2023
With the change, which is already reaching users through an application update, the star-shaped icon located in the upper right corner of the home screen – designed for the Internet user to select how they want to see their timeline of messages- disappears. Instead, the user will find themselves with the ability to toggle between two different feeds by swiping their finger.
The first of them, the one that appears by default when you enter the platform, is called ‘For you’, and that is where the application now begins to show you tweets suggested by the algorithm that have been published by accounts at which that the Internet user does not follow. The other screen, in fact, is called ‘Following’, and it is where the user can consult the tweets of the people they follow.
At the moment, the changes have not reached Android terminals or the web version. Hopefully, over the next few days, all iPhone users will start to encounter the change.
Everyone wants to be TikTok
Elon Musk made it clear before the purchase of Twitter was closed in exchange for 44,000 million dollars. In a meeting with employees of the social network held last spring, he made it clear that he wanted the tool to pay attention to TikTok when recommending content to Internet users. Now, with the arrival of two differentiated ‘feeds’, one for recommended content and the other for accounts that are followed, the short message app looks a lot more like the chinese platform.
This is not the first time that Twitter has adopted TikTok’s own tools. A few months ago, Musk’s ‘app’ began to give video more prominence on the platform facilitating the discovery of this type of content and beginning to allow vertical recordings that occupy the entire screen of the ‘smartphone’.
Despite Twitter’s recent additions, this is by no means the ‘app’ that has been most noticed on TikTok in recent years. Meta tools, especially Instagram, lead the way. Both this and Facebook have greatly promoted the consumption of vertical videos, called Reels and that work as a clone of the recordings that one finds on TikTok. They have also started to show much more recommended content to Internet users.
weathering the crisis
The enormous success of the Chinese ‘app’, which continues to add users and which has long since left behind the barrier of 1,000 million monthly active users, is due to the fact that the competition is trying to replicate its operation. Unlike most technology companies, TikTok is managing to weather the slowdown in business and the drop in advertising revenue, which represents practically the entire business of most social networks.
In November, the Asian app was on track to generate $10 billion a year in advertising revenue, more than double what it billed for all of 2021, according to an estimate from research firm Insider Intelligence. In addition, according to the analysis firm Sensor Tower, Internet users spend 96 minutes a day scrolling on TikTok. Consuming one video after another. Triple what the average user of the bird’s ‘app’ spends inside.