Twitter Inc (TWTR) Unveils Custom Timelines

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Despite concerns that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) would continue having trouble rolling out new products in a timely fashion, the micro-blogging site has unveiled a new feature. It said via its developers’ blog that they are introducing custom timelines to provide more control over the way tweets are organized and delivered.

Twitter explains custom timelines

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s Brian Ellin said the custom timelines are an “entirely new type of timeline.” Users can name it, choose which tweets they want on it or use the API to program it. The site said the goal of these custom timelines is to make it easier for users to follow conversations around a specific event or topic on Twitter.

All of these timelines are public with their own page on Twitter.com so that other users can follow as the person who created the custom timeline adds more tweets. Custom timelines can also be embedded into websites because they are part of the company’s Twitter for Websites toolkit.

What can be done with custom timelines

Users who create custom timelines can share the best tweets they find on a specific topic or event which is happening at the moment. The creators of the timelines provide a setting for others to follow along on the event, making it possible for virtually anyone to be a sort of host for live news coverage via Twitter.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) provided a few examples, like Carson Daly, who hosts The Voice. He created a custom timeline so viewers could watch comments about tonight’s competition on Twitter more easily. Other examples the site gave were The Guardian’s question and answer timeline and Politico’s custom timeline from policy industry experts.

Getting started with Twitter’s custom timelines

Currently Twitter users can create and share their custom timelines via TweetDeck. The site said these capabilities will be rolling out to all users of TweetDeck “over the next several days.”

It also announced the custom timelines API beta, which will make it possible to program users’ own timelines or build tools to help people create their own custom timelines like TweetDeck does.

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