I’m not likely positive why Elon Musk is so aggravated by muddle in the primary X feed, however for some purpose, he desires to chop out as a lot as completely attainable, with a view to make it a extra “clear”, easy UI.
Which is likely to be extra enticing, 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 put up itself being the main focus.
As reported by Fortune:
“The proposal of eradicating date stamps can be restricted to the timeline of posts on X, in line with the supply. If a consumer clicks by way of on the put up, the date of when the put up 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 traces as Musk’s push to take away all perform buttons and engagement counts in-stream, which would depart posts trying like this:
iOS customers can now allow this show, by deactivating engagement buttons and efficiency knowledge on posts, as an non-compulsory setting, whereas they will additionally change on X’s side-swiping capabilities to work together with posts, versus tapping handbook 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-compulsory UI as a substitute.
Beneath this new proposal, nevertheless, X would even be seeking to take away the time/date indicator, together with the perform buttons and efficiency counts.
Which would depart the primary feed trying one thing like this:
That may really make common X posts look similar to X adverts, which additionally don’t embody a time/date stamp.
And truthfully, I feel that it could enhance engagement, as a result of folks wouldn’t have the context of time to know the way recent posts are in the primary feed. So X might present you a put up from days in the past, and your instinctive response can 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 perhaps 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 development.
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 probably make problems with misinformation on the platform worse. Traditionally, most customers of Twitter, and now X, solely casually scroll on the platform, not often clicking by way of on particular person posts. The absence of dates from the timeline would probably depart most customers with out very important context about info they’re seeing.”
So you would see a put up from days or even weeks in the past, and react to that as if it’s latest information, whereas older updates may very well be extra simply re-shared, and considered in a distinct context, primarily based on present occasions.
Basically, because the X supply notes, it could add a degree of confusion within the app. However then once more, if it elicits extra response, perhaps it’s value attempting?
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 attempt new issues.
Musk has proven that he has no such qualms, and perhaps, a extra plain X feed, even with out timestamps in the primary timeline, might drive extra curiosity.
It’s onerous to say with out experiencing it, and nobody’s going to take action until X makes it occur.
