I’m not likely certain why Elon Musk is so irritated by muddle in the primary X feed, however for some purpose, he desires to chop out as a lot as completely potential, in an effort to make it a extra “clear”, easy UI.
Which is likely to be extra engaging, I assume, however…
Musk’s newest suggestion alongside this line is to take away the date/time markers from the primary X feed, so that you just simply have a transparent, scrolling row of posts, with the primary submit itself being the main target.
As reported by Fortune:
“The proposal of eradicating date stamps could be restricted to the timeline of posts on X, based on the supply. If a consumer clicks by means of on the submit, the date of when the submit was created would then be seen. Musk has instructed staffers he believes the change will enhance the consumer interface of X.”
Which is alongside the identical strains as Musk’s push to take away all operate buttons and engagement counts in-stream, which would go away posts wanting like this:
iOS customers can now allow this show, by deactivating engagement buttons and efficiency knowledge on posts, as an non-obligatory setting, whereas they will additionally change on X’s side-swiping features to work together with posts, versus tapping guide buttons.
At one stage, X was seeking to implement this for all customers, at Elon’s request, nevertheless it now appears to have eased again on that push, making it an non-obligatory UI as an alternative.
Underneath this new proposal, nonetheless, X would even be seeking to take away the time/date indicator, together with the operate buttons and efficiency counts.
Which would go away the primary feed wanting one thing like this:
That may truly make common X posts look similar to X adverts, which additionally don’t embody a time/date stamp.
And truthfully, I believe that it will enhance engagement, as a result of individuals wouldn’t have the context of time to understand how contemporary posts are in the primary feed. So X might present you a submit from days in the past, and your instinctive response could be to the content material itself, to not the date that it was posted, which could enhance your tendency to react. As a result of possibly you’d really feel much less inclined to react to an older, much less well timed replace, feeling such as you’d missed the boat or pattern.
However as Fortune factors out, it might additionally result in extra misinformation being shared within the app:
“Some X staffers consider eradicating the dates will make the platform needlessly “complicated” and can possible make problems with misinformation on the platform worse. Traditionally, most customers of Twitter, and now X, solely casually scroll on the platform, hardly ever clicking by means of on particular person posts. The absence of dates from the timeline would possible go away most customers with out important context about data they’re seeing.”
So you may see a submit from days or perhaps weeks in the past, and react to that as if it’s latest information, whereas older updates could possibly be extra simply re-shared, and seen in a special context, primarily based on present occasions.
Primarily, because the X supply notes, it will add a degree of confusion within the app. However then once more, if it elicits extra response, possibly it’s value making an attempt?
It does instinctively really feel like a backwards transfer, however as famous, Elon is reportedly “obsessed” with revamping the UI of the app. It’s additionally value noting on this context that Twitter was lengthy criticized for its lack of innovation, and its hesitance to strive new issues.
Musk has proven that he has no such qualms, and possibly, a extra plain X feed, even with out timestamps in the primary timeline, might drive extra curiosity.
It’s exhausting to say with out experiencing it, and nobody’s going to take action except X makes it occur.
