While a Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the report, we know it is looking for ways to spark user growth, and the assumption that this could make the site easier to read might push the feature forward. Of course, longtime users and information addicts are worried we'll lose the current sorting option. At this point, it seems that all we can hope for is that it's not the default, but even that assumes the current sorting option won't be snatched away, either all at once or gradually the way Facebook did it.

Update: NBC News Director of Branded Content Josh Sternberg cites sources telling him the algorithms are strictly opt-in -- hopefully that's true, and they stay that way.