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Twitter's new reply layout for iOS makes conversations easier to follow
Twitter threads can sometimes be a bit confusing to follow, especially if your account is public and anybody can reply. Now, the social network has started rolling out a feature that could help make them easier to parse and could ensure that you won't miss your actual friends' responses. Twitter Support has posted on the website that the platform's iOS app will now show responses to your tweets from people you follow as threaded replies.
Twitter will test auto-emojis to stop you from dunk-tweeting
Twitter wants us to be a bit more mindful of the way we use quote tweets, replies and retweets. In a bid to mitigate some of the problems these tools can cause -- pile-ons, ratio, dunking and so on -- it's revealed it's planning a couple of experiments in the coming weeks, designed to help us reflect more carefully on how we use the platform.
Twitter's improved conversations are now in public beta
During CES last month, we had an early look at Twitter's plans to change how it displays replies as part of its drive to improve conversations and make them easier to follow. As of today, you can apply to join Twitter's "conversations prototype testing program" to see what the proposed changes look like in practice.
Twitter removes @replies from 140-character limit
While many have embraced the short and sweet nature of Twitter's 140-character limit, the restriction can be something of a pain. So last year, Twitter made a few changes to help you express more with less. For example, it's now possible to quote a retweet without it affecting your character count, and you can attach images and polls without worrying about the restraint as well. Today, Twitter is introducing yet another change: you can now reply to someone or a group of people without those @usernames taking up precious space.
Twitter accidentally killed @ names in replies on iOS today
If you use the official Twitter iOS app, you may have noticed something missing today: @username handles in replies. I wasn't a fan of the reworked style when it popped up on my Android device recently, and neither were many of the people affected by the change today. The one upside however, was that since @names no longer applied to the character count, some users created a massive "Twitter canoe" mentioning everyone they could. Anyway, it has now reverted back to normal for all users, and in a tweet, the company explained: "an experiment around replies accidentally went out to everyone on iOS briefly."
Hey Twitter, hiding usernames won't help you
Once Twitter announced that links, pictures and usernames would no longer count towards a tweet's 140-characters, it also started testing changes to how @ reply messages look. This week my account was included in that test, and as a longtime user, I don't think this change is a good one. As you can see from the screenshots, it puts more emphasis on accounts "real" names. that would be fine, except I've spent ~8 years getting used to the usernames of people I follow and commonly tweet to. Now, I can recognize some of those names faster than the person's "real" one, because this is Twitter, not Facebook.
Tumblr revives Replies to restore the art of conversation
Were you miffed when Tumblr replaced its longstanding Replies feature with instant messaging, effectively forcing you to have private chats about a funny GIF? The social service heard your gripes -- it's not only bringing back Replies, but making them more useful. Authors can finally reply to their own posts, and you can reply to a post multiple times if you're embroiled in a conversation. To prevent chaos, Tumblr will let you limit replies to service regulars or only those you follow.
Jelly catches up with the rest of the internet by adding comments
Jelly tries to get answers to the questions that keep you awake at night. A question we've had since its launch, however, was why it lacked any kind of comment or thread system. Fortunately, that's Jelly's new feature. Once you've got an answer, but you'd really like to hear some more detail, you (or whoever answered) can continue the dialogue below. These replies are also public, so they could help everyone. Biz Stone's new project just got a lot more viable -- provided you can find someone to answer your question in the first place.
Twitter testing ways to hide @replies and hashtags
Twitter occassionally tests new ways to streamline its service; some features make the cut, while others are destined never to see a public release. Buzzfeed reports that in its latest experiment, the company has begun changing how it delivers the humble @reply, in some cases hiding usernames from users' timelines completely. The change, which is currently limited to beta versions of the official app, drops physical mentions in favor of grouped conversations, relying on that little blue/grey line to make engagement more intuitive. Like it did with native retweets, Twitter is looking into whether it can cut manual operators like hashtags and introduce more visual cues, which help new users understand how the service works (and it really needs new users). The latest experiment is likely to confuse existing tweeters, however, so Twitter will have its work cut out if it wants to please everyone.
wowTwitter is a Twitter just for your characters
I'm not sure how well this will scale, but it's an interesting idea: while it's certainly possible to just create a Twitter account for your World of Warcraft characters (so anyone interested can always see what you're up to), the folks behind a new site called wowTwitter have gone a step further, and recreated Twitter's functionality specifically for Azeroth's virtual denizens. It's very barebones right now, but basically, after you register, you can punch in any of your characters, "verify" them by changing something about them in the Armory (like unequipping the piece of gear on your wrist), and then you can send and receive messages on that character, with special channels created for the guild, your realm, and so on. I thought it used Twitter somehow, but it seems completely separate: they're running their own database and servers, so while the two work the same way (there are "@" replies and hashtags), they don't interact at all.Which means they'll also have all of the problems that Twitter has had -- when only a few people are using your database, it runs fine, but if it starts to scale up at all, then you run into lots of "Fail Whale" downtime. And I'm not sure we need a whole other system just for WoW characters (though this one does have the nice bonus of "claiming" your character so it can't get impersonated). At any rate, they're in beta right now, and actually hosting a cash money prize contest for the most characters verified and tweets posted, so a link from us will probably show them how ready their system is. If it's your thing, go forth and wowTweet!
