Twitter‘s new update includes three new features for its Direct Messages (DMs). Now, users can read receipts, type indicators, and web link preview to use them while using DMs. Twitter has been struggling to keep people using the app, and these new changes seem a way to look more like Facebook and its well-known Messenger, hoping to attract more users to the platform.
Read receipts, typing indicators, and web link previews will be available since September 8, Twitter announced in a tweet. All three new features will be available in group messages as well, indicating which people have seen the messages, images and links shared, or will note “Seen by Everyone” when the whole group has viewed those posts.
The changes could help Twitter’s messaging to be a more substantial part of its services, allowing the company to win “more followers.” DMs have been a forgotten feature in Twitter because it only allowed 140-character messages, the same number allowed in tweets. But recently this rule changed, and now, DMs can have the number of words the user needs.
Regarding web link previews, the images shown below the link might look familiar because the feature is similar to what Facebook offers in its messaging app or what Twitter offer to its users when they share a link in a tweet.
DM’s new features will be available if Android and iOS users have updated the app but according to Bustle, they cannot be enjoyed if a person is using Twitter from their computer.
An official Twitter spokesperson told Bustle over an email that these recent new changes will be available for cell phones using Android and iOS but not for computers. If people is using Twitter from a non-mobile device or a desktop, only the rich web links will be visible, meaning you will not know if someone is writing a message nor receiving your DMs.
New! Direct Messages are more dynamic than ever with read receipts, typing indicators, and web link previews. pic.twitter.com/VEU92V5Gqj
— Twitter (@twitter) September 8, 2016
It’s not the end of the world: you can disable Twitter’s new features
If you don not want to fill the pressure over responding a DM, Twitter allows its users to turn off these new options by going to Twitter’s security page. When users disable receipts, own they also disable the check mark that marks your sent messages.
It comes as a surprise how late the blue-bird platform has finally enabled these features to its direct message service. Twitters DM product had not seen much attention over the years, especially when it did not allow more than 140 characters.
Fortunately, on June 11, 2016, Twitter removed the character limit from its DM system and let users write freely to others, making this service more similar to a messaging app.
The platform has not announced plans to launch an entirely different app for direct messaging as Facebook did, but all these new changes could lead to an independent messaging platform if DM become the success Twitter wants them to become.
Source: Business Insider