diamond geezer

 Friday, February 12, 2016

When Twitter started in 2006 things were simple, you followed people and what they said appeared in reverse chronological order on your timeline. In 2009 they added retweets, interrupting the flow somewhat, but maintaining the precedent that the most recent action appeared at the top of the list. In 2013 they started adding tweets from people you weren't following as part of a move towards the promotion of small amounts of sponsored content. In 2015 they introduced the "While you were away..." feature which showed the best of what you'd missed, not always from the people you were following. And this week, in a minor online revolution, they plan to introduce further algorithmic non-chronological posting into the timeline. Many people are very upset.

One of the joys of the current version of Twitter is being able to follow a personally-selected group of feeds in real time. If one of the people you follow tweets something [I'm having a cup of tea] [Oh damn, Thingy's died] [Goal!] you'll see it almost immediately, and meaningful chronological sequences appear. Indeed you can count on seeing it, a certainty which can be important if you're trying to maintain a conversation or follow an unfolding event. Imagine what a mess it would be if stories popped up in the wrong order, or if key messages failed to appear because Twitter chose to show you something else instead.

TfL have imagined, and are taking action.

They run more than 20 Twitter feeds providing news and information to the travelling public. And they've decided that there's no longer any point in continuing to provide real-time information.

Our social media mission remains the same as it ever was, with all our activity designed to empower customers through accurate and timely information, customer service and provision of travel tools.

However, in the last few years, Twitter has introduced various changes to the way it serves content to its users, and these have impacted upon our ability to reliably deliver these real-time status updates to our followers.

Now selected content on Twitter is shown out of sequence, we will reduce the amount of minor alerts and focus on providing up-to-the-minute alerts for major issues, as well as a renewed focus on customer service across our various accounts.

To clarify, major disruption will still be tweeted, but real-time updates about minor delays and less important issues will no longer appear. And this isn't because TfL can't provide the information, it's because they no longer think we'll all be able to see it.

February 2016: ‘New home timeline’ emphasises the role of personalised content meaning only our high impact and important updates would be likely to reach customers in a useful and relevant way

Specifically, according to TfL's Digital Blog, it means this...

Account	Previous content	New content
@TfLTrafficNews	Real-time traffic disruption	Travel advice and alerts for major disruption
@TfLBusAlerts	Real-time London Buses disruption	Travel advice and alerts for major disruption
@circleline (and ten other tube line feeds)	Real-time service updates and news	News and alerts for major disruption
@LDNoverground	Real-time service updates and news	News and alerts for major disruption
@LondonDLR	Real-time service updates and news	News and alerts for major disruption
@TfLRail	Real-time service updates and news	News and alerts for major disruption
@TramsLondon	Real-time service updates and news	News and alerts for major disruption
@TfLAccess	Accessibility news and info including real-time alerts related to escalators and lifts	Accessibility news and information
@TfLRiver	News and real-time Thames Clippers service updates	News and promotions
@SantanderCycles	News and service updates such as suspended docking stations	News and promotions
@EmiratesAirLDN	News and real-time service updates	News and promotions

For example, if the table is correct then you'll still see...

@metline Severe delays between Baker Street and Aldgate due to an earlier fire alert at Kings Cross. Good service on the rest of the line 5:58 PM - 11 Feb 2016

@TfLBusAlerts Buses around Victoria, Westminster & Marble Arch are exp serious delays due to a burst water main on Bressenden Place, SW1 5:50 PM - 11 Feb 2016

@LDNOverground Between Sat 13 - Sun 21 Feb, there's no Highbury & Islington - Shadwell Overground service https://t.co/TK81gz3en8 8:00 PM - 9 Feb 2016

@EmiratesAirLDN Make Valentine's memorable and book a unique experience on London's cable car this weekend ❤️ https://t.co/XQDvfKWe3d 12:55 PM - 11 Feb 2016

...but don't expect to see...

@jubileeline Minor delays while we fix a signal systems failure in the Neasden area 6:56 AM - 10 Feb 2016

@TfLBusAlerts Route 184 is diverting via Church Hill, Brunswick Park Rd due to a broken down bus blocking Waterfall Rd, N14 (S/B) 5:41 PM - 11 Feb 2016

@LDNOverground Canonbury station: No step free access to platform 4 while we fix faulty lifts. 9:20 AM - 11 Feb 2016

@EmiratesAirLDN No cable car service due to high winds. 8:44 AM - 8 Feb 2016

Essentially TfL have raised the bar on the kind of information they intend to tweet. Major disruption, news and promotional messages will continue, and if you tweet a customer service request then feed managers will still try just as hard to send a personal reply back. But the less mundane stuff will vanish, which is bad news for anyone using Twitter to keep tabs on the current status of their favourite tube line or step-free access at their local station. Apps which rely on a real-time feed of information will also likely be broken as their bread and butter information dries up. Instead users will have to rely on the Status updates page of the TfL website, which isn't as customer friendly as TfL like to think it is, and hides away a lot of the information Twitter makes explicitly public.

Worst of all, this reduction of information appears to be entirely unnecessary. If you've read Twitter's latest blogpost, you'll know that they aren't intending to introduce a non-chronological timeline.

Today, we're excited to share a new timeline feature that helps you catch up on the best Tweets from people you follow. Here's how it works. You flip on the feature in your settings; then when you open Twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you're most likely to care about will appear at the top of your timeline – still recent and in reverse chronological order. The rest of the Tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order, as always. At any point, just pull-to-refresh to see all new Tweets at the top in the live, up-to-the-second experience you already know and love.

The tweak, if you opt in, piles a stack of top tweets and potentially promotional material at the top of your timeline. But underneath this are all the tweets you would have seen anyway in the order you would have seen them before. And at any time you can refresh to see all the latest tweets, in order, unencumbered by timey-wimey jiggery pokery. That's my understanding, at least, because Twitter haven't yet tried messing with my timeline. But I fully expect to be able to view all the tweets of everybody I follow in chronological order, not just because Twitter have said so, but because they've also confirmed I'll be able to turn the new feature off.

What I think has happened here is that TfL have jumped to conclusions and decided to kill off part of their information service as a result of a rather large assumption. Never mind that customers should still be able to see real-time updates in real time, just as before, TfL have decided to withdraw specific information to ensure it's no longer available. I'd suggest it'd be better to wait and see what happens before pulling the plug on something customers find genuinely useful. This is a backwards step, and a pointless one at that, on a medium that will continue to run backwards.

6.30pm update from the TfL Digital blog: Our use of social media

"We recently shared some thinking about how we provide the best service to our customers via Twitter (‘TfL Social Media – Adapting to Twitter’s Changes’). This has been taken as suggesting that we’re stepping back from providing the full range of information we currently provide our customers and that we object in some way to the changes being proposed to Twitter. That was not our intention, so we’ve taken down the post.

We’re not going to make any immediate changes to the current range of information we put out on Twitter, which means customers will continue to get everything they are used to receiving. We’re working with Twitter to ensure that we make best use of their platform and bring customers the messages they want to receive."

posted 07:00 :