The social network enabled a few lucky testers of its Android app to filter the tweets they’re receiving by selecting their favorite accounts using the Fave People tab.
Flipboard is one of my favorite apps in the world, both on Android and Windows 8.1, even though the latter is a bit more difficult to use on non-touchscreen displays. This being news about Twitter, my first statement might not make much sense, especially if you haven’t used Flipboard. What that magazine-style app enables you to do is add social media accounts and browse through them as if they were publications. In Twitter’s case, it even enables you to mute certain accounts, so you can focus only on the ones that matter. Do you see where I’m getting with this? Twitter has finally decided to implement in its Android app something that is extremely useful, a feature that lets you “hear” only the tweets from your favorite accounts, while silencing the rest.
That’s not to say that not everyone’s voice matters, but let’s face it, every one of us treats some of the people he interacts with or likes preferentially. In this context, it’s better to define the Fave People (as the feature itself is called), in order to make sure that you don’t miss any of their tweets. When you are following hundreds or even thousands of Twitter accounts, a feature such as Fave People could prove to be vital.
Twitter’s new feature, which will most likely go public in the not-so-distant future, was created with one goal in mind, and that is to make the tweeting experience a lot more customizable than it already is.
In terms of design and placement, the “Fave People” is right between “Home” and “Discover,” which means that at least for the moment, it plays a great role. The feature even comes with an explanatory note that shows up when tapping on the section for the first time:
“Keep track of your favorites
Tap the star icon on the profiles of your favorite people to see their Tweets in this timeline. You can also chose to receive notifications when they tweet from Settings.”
All in all, I’m glad to see that such features that enable us to tidy up our social lives get implemented in a social media app, and I wish more social networks followed Twitter’s example.
Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the world’s first Twitter hotel and the Australian sharks that joined Twitter.
