Twitter Inc. has been talking about automatically generated news feeds for about a year now, and the microblog service has finally begun testing the first public version of the new feature.

While the purpose of Facebook is obvious to most users – keeping up with friends and family – Twitter has a little more difficulty in justifying why less tech savvy people would want to bother with it. The slight learning curve when joining Twitter has long been a barrier to entry for some, and that is exactly what the new instant feeds are meant to fix.

Currently, when signing up for a new Twitter account, users choose a username and password, then browse their contacts for accounts to follow, and then browse some of the top accounts for more people to follow. After that, they are taken to their news feed where only tweets made by the few accounts they followed are shown.

With the new instant feed system, the process is roughly the same, but new users are also given the option of having a custom timeline created for them based on their interests and the interests of other Twitter users in their contact list. Science fans might see tweets by NASA or the Curiosity Mars Rover. Sports fans may see tweets from their favorite teams or leagues.

The new instant feed also adds several tutorial windows that better explain some of Twitter’s features such as direct messaging and retweets.

Twitter’s evolving model

The new instant feed will show tweets without requiring users to follow those accounts. This is a significant break from Twitter’s previous model of Followed/Followers, and it is unclear how this change will affect businesses and brands who rely on follower metrics to measure reach and engagement.

Twitter has recently been testing several new features designed to make the site easier to navigate and provide more flexible ways to communicate. Last week, the site added a private group chat feature, as well as native video sharing support.

Earlier this month, Twitter also began testing a “while you were away” feature, which would show users some of the top tweets they missed since the last time they checked their timeline.

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