A separate “News” tab for viewing channel posts in a unified feed has appeared in Telegram for macOS Beta 13.0 (283318). The @telelakel channel reported the discovery.
How the news feed works
The current implementation of the post feed has several key features:
• Two sections: The “News” tab is divided into two sections — “Added” and “For You”.
• Custom feed: In the “Added” section, users can manually curate their feed by adding and removing selected channels through dedicated interface actions.
• Personalized recommendations: The “For You” section curates posts based on the user’s interests. Categories of interest (each with its own name and emoji) can be selected manually and changed over time. However, it remains unknown what algorithm powers this feed and whether it will include posts from channels the user isn’t subscribed to.
• Navigation and speed: The feed interface includes a search bar, pull-to-refresh, a new posts indicator, and a button to mark posts as read. Directly from the feed, users can open individual posts and channels, jump to chats, and copy links. For faster browsing, media files, profile pictures, and stories are preloaded in the background.
Background and context
The messenger’s team has been approaching the creation of a unified feed for eight years:
• The ability to combine channels into a unified news feed first appeared in the Beta version of Telegram for macOS back in January 2018, but was soon disabled on the server side.
• In April 2022, a commit confirming the development of a news feed was spotted in the official Telegram for iOS repository, though the feature never made it to release.
• Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2021, Telegram held a series of large-scale contests focused on news ranking and data clustering, as well as identifying channel languages and topics.
• Until now, the primary way to read subscriptions sequentially in the messenger has been the gesture for jumping to the next unread channel, while algorithmic recommendations have been limited to the “Similar Channels” list and the “Channels” tab in global search.
@tginfo editors note that introducing an algorithmic feed in the spirit of X (formerly Twitter) could significantly reshape how content is consumed in the messenger. For creators, it is a potential source of free organic traffic without buying ads, and for Telegram itself — a way to boost audience engagement and increase impressions for official ads.
Currently, the news feed is disabled on the server side and remains in development — its mechanics and appearance may change by the time of release.
We share more news about features from test builds in our Beta Info channel.
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