Launch of Twitter Custom Timelines allow for curated tweets

Twitter launched a new feature called Twitter Custom Timelines that allows users to curate tweets within a stream. The new feature is available through Twitter's developer center (dev.twitter.com) or available to users through TweetDeck.  Users can select specific tweets that they want to include in a custom timeline, which provides a wide range of creative outlets. For instance, a news website may curate tweets related to an emerging news event, which will help provide a bird's eye view of a story.

See below for a spotlight example offered by Twitter in their developers' area.

Custom timelines are now publicly available and have a dedicated page on Twitter.com. The Twitter developer area also has a publicly available custom timeline API beta, but web developers will need to apply to be able to access the API. This will allow web developers to programmatically design their own custom timelines.

Rules for custom timelines

• Custom Timelines designed by users.
• Custom timelines have a name and description attribute.
• Custom timeline designers can add any public Tweet to the timeline.
• As new Tweets are added, they appear at the top of the timeline.
• Custom timelines are publicly available and have their own URL on twitter.com. Custom timelines are accessible publicly.