In February this year, Twitter unveiled a service that allows researchers, and anyone who has the money to pay for the service, to unlock the Twitter archives, as it were. They’ve expanded their product range again; and now you can get a weekly email summarising the most relevant tweets and stories distributed by the people on your timeline.

Granted Twitter is not nearly as large a social network as Facebook is, it still has a large number of users. And those users are quite active.

With increased regularity, news and important information is beginning to enter the public domain through the likes of social networks first, and especially via Twitter, and then on into traditional media formats like newspapers and radio.

It is an extremely good tool for quickly acquiring information about topics you’re interested in, and many people are finding it harder to avoid checking their Twitter feeds, or simply tweeting to anyone who’ll listen.

Take Larry Carlat, who wrote Confessions of a Tweeter for the New York Times last year. I have seen people on my timeline become a bit like Larry.

Careful, out there, gang.

However, because Twitter only allows the average reader to search back seven days of tweets, this “Twitter digest” email summary can help put your mind at ease when you just can’t get to Twitter.

Twitter has more on how it will work:

Starting today [yesterday], you can discover the best of Twitter in a weekly email digest delivered to your inbox. This summary features the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter.

Stories feature a design similar to the recently updated Discover tab, emphasizing who shared each story beneath summaries to help you decide which ones matter most to you. Click any headline to finish reading the story, add your take by tweeting directly from the email, and see related Tweets from the people you follow.

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.

We’re rolling out this new email out to everyone over the next few weeks, so keep checking your inbox for new messages from Twitter. Like other Twitter email notifications, you can manage your preferences for this new digest in your Notification Settings.

I wonder if there will be advertising in the email?

[Source: Twitter]