Days after IPO, Twitter launches custom timelines

Twitter engineers aren't sitting around counting their money in the afterglow of their successful IPO last week.

The company today announced that users will be able to create custom timelines in TweetDeck around conversations on any event or topic on Twitter.

Others' tweets can be added to a timeline by simply dragging and dropping them or by using keyboard shortcuts.

"Today we're introducing custom timelines to give you more control over how tweets are organized and delivered on the Twitter platform," wrote Brian Ellin, a product manager at Twitter in a blog post. "Share the best tweets about a topic you care about, or an event -- planned or unplanned -- that's happening right now. Whether you want to collect the best tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines let you give everyone a place to follow along."

Each timeline is public and will have its own page on Twitter.com, the company said. That way other users can follow along on any timeline in real time as more tweets are added.

Twitter also said the timelines can be embedded into other Web sites. Users also can share links to their custom timeline.

The move comes just days after Twitter launched its initial public offering last Thursday. After pricing its initial stocks at $26 a share, trading opened at $45.10 a share. On Tuesday, the company was trading at around $42 a share at deadline.

This article, Days after IPO, Twitter launches custom timelines, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed. Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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