It’s surprising how Twitter has managed to become an incredibly well-known social space and maintain a solid stand throughout the years among its vicious peers, like: Facebook and Orkut. Who would’ve thought that Twitter would survive and become one of the most popular microblogging applications worldwide? “Twitter’s fourth quarter report of 2014 said that the service had an average of 288 million monthly active users.” Indeed, social media has a more significant impact on our lives today than it did 5 years ago. Twitter has become an indispensable communicative tool that constantly shapes how we interact with each other, for example: friends on twitter have become more trusted sources for news, thanks to the sharing button. In addition, you can’t now have a successful business going unless you have a Twitter account or a Facebook page on which you get to market your product and reach a bigger audience. There are so many examples for how social media networks, such as Twitter and Facebook run our lives today and for this reason, the pressure on those networks to stay up to date with popular demand is massive. This month, Twitter is rolling out some twitterific new features to help make a more responsive, secure and less abusive environment among its users. In this article we reveal 5 of the newest features on Twitter.
5 New Delicious Features on Twitter
So what’s new on Twitter? Here are some of the latest updates on the newest tweaks on Twitter with some concerns on certain features on Twitter.
1) Direct Messaging – DM anyone even if you aren’t following them
One of the new features on Twitter is related to Direct Messaging. Tweeps can now send each other direct messages even if they don’t follow each other. This means that you can get messages from anyone even if they aren’t following you and you can in turn send direct messages to anyone you aren’t following. This updates comes to reduce heated discussions on the public timeline and allow people to take their conversations in private. In an effort to make the Twitter environment a better and a more private place, users can be added to group conversations. The good thing is that you can always control this feature and disable it or block those you don’t want to DM you.
“Direct Messages are the best way to take your public Twitter conversations private. Today, we’re changing how direct messaging works so that it’s even easier for you to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people, anywhere in the world,” … “We’re rolling out these changes starting today to all users around the world. And we have lots more in the works to improve Direct Messages on Twitter, so that the private side of Twitter is just as fulfilling as the public side.” Twitter said on its official blog.
2) Homepage – Your homepage remains visible even after logging out
The second of our list of new features on Twitter involves your homepage. According to Twitter, you will be able to see your homepage even when you log out of Twitter. In this way, you will be able to follow up with your favourite news and events on Twitter.
Why?
Let’s face it, Twitter’s bland homepage isn’t appealing to non-tweeps. However, sparking life into the homepage will give other people a look into what they might get if they decide to create an account on Twitter. It will include glimpses of different categories, like: “General news sources” and “TV shows and stars,” which appear to be “curated from popular accounts on the service”. Nonetheless, this feature is currently available for users in the United States and hasn’t been rolled worldwide yet and paves the way for more features on Twitter in the future.
3) Anti-Abusive Filter – No more abusive tweets
Among the new features on Twitter, this one is the best and the most important. It looks like Twitter is finally carcking down on cyber-bullies and trolls who threaten other tweeps with abusive tweets and messages via ” an updated violent threats policy, as well as a new filter that could block threatening messages before they are even seen by the intended victims.”
“Our previous policy was unduly narrow and limited our ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior,” Shreyas Doshi, director of product management, said in the company’s blog. “The updated language better describes the range of prohibited content and our intention to act when users step over the line into abuse.”
This excellent move came after a leaked internal memos from CEO Dick Costolo last February urging to reduce trolling on social networks. If Twitter catches an abusive or threatening tweet, it will require the user to delete that offensive tweet and provide a phone number to the company. Moreover, abusive accounts may even get banned for abusing other users on Twitter. “The company said it recently employed an algorithm that analyses tweets based on their content and the context of the message.”
“This option gives us leverage in a variety of contexts, particularly where multiple users begin harassing a particular person or group of people,” … “And as the ultimate goal is to ensure that Twitter is a safe place for the widest possible range of perspectives, we will continue to evaluate and update our approach in this critical arena,” Doshi said.
This proves that Twitter is concerned about the welfare of its members and is leveraging its standards leadership and technology innovation to stand out among its peers in the market. So if you have been exposed to any form of abuse on Twitter, you can now sleep with your eyes closed and make sure that you will no longer be bullied on Twitter.
4) Retweet With A Comment – Make your retweets more awesome
Features on twitter are getting better and better. Retweeting with a comment is a new twitterlicious feature in a string of new features on twitter introduced by the service to make its platform more exciting and interactive. In the past, you could embed quoted tweets by cutting-and-pasting the URL. Call it Retweetception, “retweet with a comment” enables users to tweet within their retweets.
What’s so “awesome” about this?!
This should definitely be considered as one of the best features on Twitter. For starters, you can get around the 140 character limit on Twitter when you add in your own comment. What’smore, you don’t have to embed quoted tweets by cutting-and-pasting the URL, you can still do that by just one press on a button, however, you can’t embed the full retweet and comment. You will no longer have to shorten the original tweet to share it with your tweeps. Unfortunately, this feature is now available on Twitter’s site and iPhone app and will be available on its Android app soon.
5) Goodbye ‘Discover’ tab, hello Tailored Trends!
Last but not least on our list of new features on Twitter, the fact that Twitter has replaced the “Discover” tab under search page with “Tailored Trends” means that it will not base activities to users on the people they follow, rather it will “showcase trending topics under the search page on its mobile apps. You can see the update by clicking the search bar and seeing all the “Tailored Trends” along with a short description of each topic.”
Twitter will also put more focus on Recaps and MagicRecs. ” Recap is the selection of tweets marked “While You Were Away” that pops up when users open the app. It shows what all that has been trending on the user’s network. MagicRecs, on the other hand, provides recommendations of what to read and who to follow.” The new features on Twitter are retroactive as Twitter users are rejoicing.
Enjoy your new Twitter!
These notable new features on Twitter foreshadow a different Twitter experience than what we’re all used to. It also indicated how the service is growing and is making a visible effect on people’s lives all over the world. Do you like the new features on Twitter? Tell us what you think!