Twitter now lets you read verified accounts without @replies, for an ‘on-message’ experience

In what is an interesting tweak for verified accounts, Twitter now lets you choose to see only the Tweets put out by that user, rather than all mixed in with replies to the account. This lets you get a clean stream of just tweets made ‘out to the public’ from the account, rather than conversations back and forth.

For now, these will be for verified accounts only. Twitter gives @bubbawatson, @NASCAR and @Pepsi as examples of ones that will get the behavior right away. Note that the view will be enabled by default, with an option to ‘see all Tweets’ with a toggle shown above the timeline.

This simplified profile, which we’re rolling out to verified accounts over the coming weeks, makes it easier to understand what kind of content the user shares on Twitter, and what Tweets you’ll see if you follow them.

Obviously this should be an immediately appealing option for brands, who will be able to display their account with only their ‘official’ message by default. I’ve often found myself wanting this option when visiting a person’s native stream and having to wade through all of the conversations that they’re having with other people.

It is a bit of a two-edged sword, however, as users will be exposed to an ‘on-message’ stream by default. This means that any back-and-forth over a brand’s customer service, for instance, will be hidden from view unless you click on the ‘All’ button.

So this will be a cleaner, crisper experience for brands and celebrities, but it does scrub the profile view free of some of the conversational flavor of Twitter. Remember that you’re unlikely to see any of those conversations by default in your own stream as these accounts are likely to be ones with large amounts of followers, ones that follow the brand but that you may not follow.

Still, I like the idea and would love it if this option came to personal, non-verified accounts as well. It will certainly increase the likelihood that a user will choose to follow an account with a coherent stream of ‘on-message’ Tweets, even if the message is hilarity, as it is with @stevemartintogo.

Image: John Norton