Don’t have time to waste time on Twitter? Now you can keep up with all of the people you follow with a “best-of” weekly email from Twitter. The micro-blogging service will now be sending out weekly email digests that will feature a summary of your Twitter stream. Popular tweets by the people you are connected with on Twitter will be featured in the mailing, as will popular links to stories. You may have already received one of the unsolicited emails, as they began rolling out this afternoon.
Othman Laraki, director of growth at Twitter, announced the new newsletter-type email with a post on the Twitter blog. He stated that the emails are designed similar to the “discover” tab for the recently updated iPhone and Android Twitter apps. Which of the people you follow shared a particular story will be displayed below each story, showing you who it was popular with. Also, you can see related tweets from the people you follow and tweets can be sent directly from the email.
Note that not all of the tweets in the digest email will be from people you follow. Some will be tweets that were popularly retweeted by the people you follow.
If you don’t enjoy this new Twitter feature (or are annoyed that Twitter didn’t ask your permission) there is a link at the bottom of the email that will allow you to unsubscribe. Alternatively, you can change the option in your notification settings directly on Twitter. I’ll let the emails come for a few weeks before I decide whether or not I enjoy them. Of course, if they begin putting ads into the emails, the entire feature is a no-go for me.