Twitter Now Has “While You Were Away” Feature

Twitter is definitely looking for ways to boost participation on the social network. With their new Bing Translation feature, they are trying to ensure that language is no longer a barrier to engaging with other users. The microblogging site has now launched the “While You Were Away” feature. Essentially, users will now be able to come back to Twitter after an absence and be able to catch most of the top tweets by checking out the “While You Were Away” heading.

With this new recap feature, Twitter has taken another step to define itself from just another reverse chronological timeline. This recap feature has been first launched for iOS apps and is set to come soon on Android and desktop platforms. iOS Twitter users will now be able to open their app after a period of absence and find three tweets at the top of their timeline. The question that many might be asking is how do you determine which tweet is essential and which one would not hold so much importance to the user. Twitter stated that these recap tweets would be defined by the level of user engagement and some other factors. As users scroll down the page, they will be able to find their regular timeline.

According to a Twitter project manager, this initiative is brought about by the will to let users catch up with their world no matter the amount of time that they spend on Twitter. The feature might be the solution to Twitter’s user retention problem.