Twitter has said it's exploring new ways to surface tweets when you return to your stream. Additionally, it's looking at giving users a snapshot, and what it describes as an instant, personal timeline.
Having a snapshot of the timeline is going to be helpful, especially when you've been away from the screen, and if it can surface tweets of importance, that'll be great.
I also found this interesting.
And we haven’t forgotten about Direct Messages. We have several updates coming that will make it easy to take a public conversation private. The first of these was announced today and will begin rolling out next week: the ability to share and discuss Tweets natively and privately via Direct Messages. Stay tuned!Updates to come enabling users to take public conversations private [blog.twitter.com]
