Just past its 8th birthday, Twitter's list of innovations keeps growing. The social media site will soon debut pop-up notifications for all accounts, letting us know just when our witty pizza joke gets favorited.
These "Web notifications" will pop up whenever you get a direct message, a mention, a retweet, a follow, a favorite ... pretty much whenever you're surfing your timeline. (Via Twitter)
The notifications will involve built-in response actions, but according to Twitter, you might not be able to disable them for at least a while. As Time writes, "You may have to be on high alert for weeks — weeks!"
And according to The Verge, the notifications are "a proven method of getting users to spend more time using a social network — it's a move that was long overdue."
User activity on Twitter has become a growing concern for the micro-messaging giant as it searches for a way to retain a surprisingly absent user base.
According to The Wall Street Journal, 44 percent of almost 1 billion Twitter users have sent zero tweets and only 13 percent have sent over 100 tweets.
Among its new features, Twitter has rolled out image previews on Timeline, conversation view for tweets and photo direct messaging in hopes of attracting and retaining users.
And even more changes could be on the way. Twitter is rolling out a Facebook-esque profile view, modeled here by the band Weezer, and might even list how many people viewed a certain tweet. (Via Twitter / @Weezer)
And tweet views could prove controversial. As PC Magazine writes, "We're not quite sure if that's meant to encourage users to post more or discourage them … if but a handful of Twitter friends even see one's witticisms."
But in an interview with CNBC last November, former Twitter developer Narendra Rocherolle was optimistic about the future of the little blue bird.
"Twitter is becoming the news. It's co-opted everything, and it's going to be that channel. When you talk about an information network, it doesn't really have any competitors now."
Twitter will gradually roll out notifications in the coming weeks.
