Twitter has shared ideas for new features it is considering. According to concept art released by the company, the new features would allow you to share tweets with a specific group of friends, separate your tweets based on personas, and block certain phrases from appearing in your replies. More details below
1. Tweet to trusted friends
Many people have multiple accounts on Twitter. One for their professional life and one for personal. The new feature being considered by twitter would allow users to achieve the same effect via a single account. Users would have a toggle when tweeting and can choose if they want to share with the public or 'Trusted Friends'. This would be similar to Instagram's close friends feature for stories.
See also: What's new with Instagram and WhatsApp?
2. Facets for topic wise tweets
White 'Trusted Friends' would allow you to tweet to a particular group of people, 'Facets' is another feature that will give users more control over who sees their tweets. The feature would allow users to categorize their tweets not just as personal, and professional but also by topic or hobbies. For example, you could have all food-related tweets as one category. In theory, users would then also be able to follow accounts for specific topics and not see all tweets from that account.
3. Block certain phrases from replies
Another feature the company is considering is to allow users to block certain phrases from replies. When tweeting you would have the option to block certain phrases. This list would be displayed below your tweet along with a warning for users to not use them when replying. This will not block users from using the phrases but you can choose to move such offending tweets to the bottom of a conversation. There has been a lot of discussion about bullying and problematic language on Twitter. This could be a step in that direction.
These features were first reported on by The Verge. Twitter has made it clear that it is not developing any of these features currently. These are just ideas they are considering. The company hopes that by tweeting about these features early they can get user feedback and further refine their ideas.
On the 6th of May, Twitter released its tip jar feature. In a blog post the company wrote, "Today, we're introducing Tip Jar – a new way for people to send and receive tips. You’ll know an account is Tip Jar is enabled if you see a Tip Jar icon next to the Follow button on their profile page." The tip jar feature will allow content creators on the platform to monetize their work. Something that has been missing from Twitter for a long time. However, after the feature was released, people noticed that if you tipped people via PayPal, the person receiving the money would be able to see your home address. Naturally, this raised a lot of red flags.
The issue was caused by PayPal and not because of Twitter. However, users still believe that Twitter should have given more information when announcing the feature. By tweeting about features it is considering early, Twitter may be able to identify and prevent such issues in the future. Are you a Twitter user? What features would you like to see on the platform? Subscribe to Whitepapers.online to stay up to date with tech news.
Feature image: Twitter @a_dsgnr