Twitter has been adding new features to enhance users’ experience and entice new users to join. The Recap feature is a useful one, summing up all the recent Tweets that a user may have missed out on while they were away. Now, in a recent blog post, the company announced two new additions – Twitter Video and group direct messaging.Before today, users could only create and view videos that were six seconds long, owing to the Vine app Twitter acquired in 2012. Direct messages could only be sent to users who were following a certain user, and were limited to one user per direct message.Now, direct messages can be sent to a group of people, regardless of whether or not said users are following you or not. This allows everyone to increase their networking opportunity while also facilitating the need to share something with multiple users. If you want to share some piece of news that you saw or continue an ongoing public conversation in private (or plan someone’s surprise birthday party), you can now engage all of the concerned users in one private conversation to exchange private messages back and forth.
Twitter Video allows users to upload 30-second videos as opposed to the mere six-second clips previously allowed. While Vines allowed for extremely short content (much like Twitter’s character limit), Twitter Video gives a 30-second limit; just enough to let users get their message across. Short and concise videos would also mean that Twitter carves out its own space in the video-sharing segment and stands out when compared to the likes of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Google Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Youtube.
The Twitter Video feature also, unsurprisingly, allows ad makers to post longer content. Perhaps drawing upon Facebook and Instagram’s model, it increases the company’s ad revenue by allowing advertisers to post content. It also allows users to get used to the idea of seeing videos on their timelines, hence making them more accustomed to the inevitable barrage of advertisements that are soon to follow.
This move was perhaps necessitated mainly as a result of the declining sentiment regarding Twitter’s outlook. Investors have been doubtful of the company’s ability to grow and attract new users, and the stock has been pushed down almost 37% over the past one year.
Despite claiming increased mobile revenue, Twitter has been unable to hit the heights it once reached following its IPO at the end of 2013. So, while 284 million monthly active users indicate a 23% year-over-year increase in users who login daily to the social networking website, Twitter needed to add something to boost investor confidence and perhaps also allow companies to see it as a profit-making platform via advertisements.
Whatever the reason, the reaction to this as usual will be for and against. One can expect traditional users to be offended by the new options, while newer users might be drawn to Twitter because of it. Whether increased group messaging reduces the number of public tweets sent, or whether Twitter Video cannibalizes Vines, remains to be seen. Twitter shares rose 0.72% in pre-market today.
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