Skip to main content

Twitter is building two new ways to handle tweet replies

Replies on the bird app could be getting a makeover, as Twitter is apparently working on two new features that could shape how we respond to tweets.

On Wednesday, Jane Manchun Wong posted screenshots of two different reply-related features that Twitter is building. The first of Wong’s tweets featured a screenshot that showed off an option to “Start a Space about this Tweet.” And the second tweet Wong shared had a screenshot of a new “Pin Reply” feature.

Recommended Videos

Is quote-tweeting not enough? Twitter is working “Start a Space about this Tweet” so you can talk about it all you want pic.twitter.com/WtGFtpfNZt

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 11, 2022

If you’re not familiar, Twitter Spaces is a feature that allows users to host or attend a live audio chat known as a Space. Which means that the “Start a Space about this Tweet” would allow you to host a live audio chat about a given tweet. It is unclear if this option would only be available for one’s own tweets or if it could also be used, as Wong’s tweet and its replies seem to imply, to create an audio version of quote-tweeting other users’ tweets. If Twitter goes through with making this feature available and makes it so that all tweets could be subject to this option, that could indeed make for some intense quote-tweets and ratios. Those Main Character days on the bird app could be a lot louder, literally and figuratively.

Twitter is working on “Pin reply” pic.twitter.com/VGYVT4PmLs

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 12, 2022

Twitter is also working on a “Pin Reply” feature, and based on Wong’s screenshots, it looks like it would allow users to pin certain replies to their tweets to the top of the replies section. This one seems pretty useful as it would allow users to pin replies from notable accounts, or replies with helpful information, or ones with particularly entertaining responses, to the top of the replies section so that other users don’t have to scroll forever looking for those responses. And it’s a feature that users are probably already familiar with. This is especially true if they use YouTube or Instagram, both of which offer some form of that option.

Anita George
Anita George has been writing for Digital Trends' Computing section since 2018. So for almost six years, Anita has written…
Twitter API broke links, images on the website this morning
A stylized composite of the Twitter logo.

Twitter broke in several places this morning, likely due to Twitter's own API. Slow load times, broken links, and services like TweetDeck went down on Monday, displaying an error related to Twitter's API. This is not the first hurdle Twitter has seen due to its API under the new leadership of Elon Musk.

When using a link on Twitter or accessing a service like TweetDeck, you would see this message: "{"errors":[{"message":"Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint, please see https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api for more information","code":467}]}" That's not too helpful -- going to the website address in the error would take you to a page with the same error.

Read more
Twitter expands tweet character limit massively
A lot of white Twitter logos against a blue background.

If you often find that 280 characters are too few for you to be able to effectively express yourself on Twitter, then perhaps 4,000 characters will suffice.

Beginning on Wednesday, Twitter now lets you post tweets with a maximum of 4,000 characters, 28.6 times more than the mere 140 characters available when Twitter launched in 2006, and 14.3 times more than the current limit of 280.

Read more
Twitter will soon be a bit less irritating for many people
Twitter logo in white stacked on top of a blue stylized background with the Twitter logo repeating in shades of blue.

With or without Elon Musk at the helm, Twitter can’t seem to decide what it wants to do with its algorithmic timeline, currently branded as “for you,” which shows tweets it thinks you'll like, whether or not you follow the tweeter.

For years it’s been messing about not only with the algorithm but also with the extent to which it forces the timeline on users.

Read more