Twitter Is Coming to an Inbox Near You

Get ready for yet another set of emails. This afternoon, Twitter announced via a blog post [1] that it will be rolling out an email digest of the best tweets in a user's specific network, no doubt an effort to rope in more casual users to the ceaseless conversation on the social network.

Here's an explainer from Twitter's director of growth and international, Othman Laraki [2]:

"This new email digest also features the most engaging Tweets seen by the people you follow, even if you don’t follow those who wrote them. You can see who from your network retweeted or favorited these Tweets and click “View details” to retweet, favorite, reply or view the conversation around them."

The service has already drawn some ire from regulars on Twitter. Some, like Nigel Cameron, president of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (who has tweeted over 34,000 times) are turned off by the feature.

Ghastly. RT @dcabfab [3]: Twitter Weekly Email Digest techcrunch.com/2012/05/14/twi… [4]@tonia_ries [5] 2nd fail of the day for #discover [6] tab?

— Nigel Cameron (@nigelcameron) May 14, 2012 [7]

Yet, the feature could very well help to introduce and indoctrinate less frequent users to the service as one twitter user astutely pointed out:

You nerds scoff but an email digest of best/top tweets from people I follow is a great idea. Most ppl have lives and don't sit here all day.

— Dan Frommer (@fromedome) May 14, 2012 [8]

The service is clearly gauged toward a specific set of users that don't spend their days perusing the twittersphere like many journalists and media professionals. The move has the potential to open new eyes to the service and for all the complaining, seasoned twitterers out there, you can quit your complaining and simply turn off the email setting.