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Ben Woods
Europe EditorBen is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional Ben is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional online poker player. You can contact him via Twitter or on Google+.
Twitter’s CEO has revealed today that improvements are on the way that will see the private messaging functionality overhauled this quarter, as well as seeing changes designed to encourage new users to stick with the platform.
Another change on the horizon is the introduction of a feature that will give new users the option of having a pre-populated ‘Following’ stream, Dick Costolo revealed at the company’s first investor day, according to reports from a WSJ reporter at the event.
New Twitter users will get an instant timeline, no need to follow anyone, says @dickc. $TWTR
— Vindu Goel (@vindugoel) November 12, 2014
Clearly, this is designed to overcome one of the most daunting aspects about Twitter for a new user, which in turn should help to increase the stickiness of the platform.
Major improvements to Twitter’s private messaging coming this quarter. $TWTR — Vindu Goel (@vindugoel) November 12, 2014
Costolo also apparently has plans for more new apps like Vine, with the ultimate intention of building a little ecosystem of discrete apps. A little like Facebook has done by splitting out its messaging functionality, and with its purchase of Instagram.
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