Twitter’s New ‘Topics’ Feature Lets You Follow Your Interests in Timeline

A new feature called ‘Topics’ beginning to roll out this week on Twitter lets you follow more than 300 topics across sports, entertainment, gaming, and more on your timeline, just as you are currently able to follow individual accounts, The Verge is reporting.

According to Twitter execs, Topics will make the platform “more approachable for new and intermittent users” and make it easier for heavier users to discover new accounts and conversations.

“We know that the main reason that people come to Twitter is to keep up on the things that they’re interested in,” said Rob Bishop who leads Topics team. “The challenge is it’s really quite difficult to do that on Twitter day to day,” he added:

“So what’s next? More topics, including on subjects that are popular internationally, Bishop said. The team is also working on a feature to mute topics, which could be useful for anyone who is trying to avoid spoilers for a popular television show, for example. Eventually, Bishop says, you may be able to “narrow cast” your tweet to followers of a particular subject, which is another ancient dream of Twitter users.”

If Topics succeeds, Bishop said, the average person won’t follow fewer individual accounts but will likely follow more.

The feature, which began testing on Android earlier this year, is set to roll out globally on November 13th.