Twitter Launches New 'Threads' Feature for Tweetstorms

[MacRumors]

Twitter today announced the launch of a new "Threads" feature, which is designed to link multiple tweets together to make them easier to read.

Twitter users often share multiple numbered tweets on a topic or idea, and this practice is generally referred to as a "tweetstorm." With Threads, two or more tweets can be linked, simplifying and streamlining the tweetstorm concept.

When you create a tweet on Twitter, you can use the "+" button to add more tweets to the original tweet in the compose window. All of your tweets can be drafted ahead of time and then sent out at once using the new "Tweet All" button.

Tweets can also be added to a published thread using the "Add Another Tweet" button, and when browsing Twitter, there's a new "Show this thread" label that makes it easier to find a series of linked tweets.

Twitter says that the new Threads feature is designed for people who want to serialize a longer story or thought or provide ongoing commentary on a particular event or topic.

Threads is the second major change that's been made to Twitter in recent weeks, following a decision to increase the character limit from 140 to 280 characters to give Twitter users more room to express themselves.

Twitter says the new Threads feature is rolling out to iOS, Android, and the web "in the coming weeks."

Article Link: Twitter Launches New 'Threads' Feature for Tweetstorms

 

[AlliFlowers]

I wish the people who insist on using Twitter like this would discover forums.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

We've been working on this option for some time. This was the choice picked by the majority of those involved in the testing.
[doublepost=1513103797][/doublepost]

I wish the people who insist on using Twitter like this would discover forums.

I have more than 800,000 Twitter followers. What are my chances of getting them to sign up for some silly forum to read my message when I can already reach them through Twitter. It's nearly impossible to get people to move to another platform or follow you elsewhere.

A simple solution to your problem would be to stop following those that tweet more than the allowed characters in a single message.

 

[AlliFlowers]

A simple solution to your problem would be to stop following those that tweet more than the allowed characters in a single message.

It has nothing to do with them tweeting more or less than 140 characters. It's more that they mark a tweet with THREAD, and then expect people to be able to use it like an actual forum thread. It has never worked that way. And not everyone uses the web interface or the "official" twitter app.

 

[DavidLeblond]

Yeah, when I see "Thread!" I just keep moving on. And I glaze over 280 character tweets too. I'll read them on occasion, but I use Twitter at a glance.

Granted now I do spend a little more time on it because I have to tap around to get the latest tweets because for some reason they insist on showing me the same damn 5 tweets every time I look at it.

 

[Westside guy]

Admittedly I'm more of a Twitter lurker/follower than a tweeter, but - how is this appreciably different than just replying to your initial tweet with a second/third/fourth tweet?

 

[kurisub]

Now if they could just get around to updating their MacOS client.

 

[adamjackson]

..or Twitter users could start a blog and post a link to the blog in a tweet?

 

[CaTOAGU]

Now if they could just get around to updating their MacOS client.

Was going to say the same thing. Their apps are becoming more fragmented, different features across the main mobile clients, macOS client, Tweetdeck, web and 3rd party clients.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

..or Twitter users could start a blog and post a link to the blog in a tweet?

You'll see FAR FAR less viewership doing it that way. You'll be lucky if 1 in 50 who see it click the link. If you tweet it, you reach a MUCH larger number of people.

 

[bwintx]

I have more than 800,000 Twitter followers.

Handle? Just wondering if I'm already one of 'em.

 

[adamjackson]

You'll see FAR FAR less viewership doing it that way. You'll be lucky if 1 in 50 who see it click the link. If you tweet it, you reach a MUCH larger number of people.

but it's a far better experience for everyone. Twitter is building in features to improve UX without really considering why these tools need to be built.

I was an avid Twitter user, 20,000+ tweets a year from 2007-2012. I shared everything and still found time to blog 1000 words a day or make a YouTube video. The engagement I received from people who chose to read my blog post was really high quality....i.e. the haters / trolls can't really be bothered to read for 20 minutes off-twitter.com on a non-mobile optimized site. The people with great opinions, dialogue, thoughts an ideas would take the time and return to twitter to establish a conversation. If you tweet-storm 5 things using twitter's new character limit, you've written the same thing but the audience that reads it may not be the audience you want. I want people who take time to read a blog, not someone who read something I wrote in the form of a retweet and anonymously trolls me.

My point is, for long-form writing, there's value in sending people some place else to read it even if it's a static .txt file hosted on Medium or Tumblr.

Also, you're assuming people are going to use Twitter clients that adopt the new tweet-thread API into the interface. It's going to be a poor experience for a while to anyone not using Twitter's official applications.

 

[redboxcar]

It has nothing to do with them tweeting more or less than 140 characters. It's more that they mark a tweet with THREAD, and then expect people to be able to use it like an actual forum thread. It has never worked that way. And not everyone uses the web interface or the "official" twitter app.

Twitter threads are actually not expected to be like forum threads. A forum thread is like a little chat room within a larger community to discuss a single topic. A Twitter thread is used to link multiple, contiguous tweets meant to be read in succession. In essence, like taking a news article and breaking it down into 10 tweets... mostly because of character limits, but also for digestibility.

Admittedly I'm more of a Twitter lurker/follower than a tweeter, but - how is this appreciably different than just replying to your initial tweet with a second/third/fourth tweet?

I doubt it's much different, but you won't have the notation at the top that says that you're replying to yourself, and the biggest difference that I see is the ability to compose your threaded tweets and then publish at the end. Though, the current system of publishing each tweet individually can be entertaining.

 

[BWhaler]

Cool. When will Tweetbot support it?

 

[CaTOAGU]

Cool. When will Tweetbot support it?

The latest versions of Tweetbot for iOS and Mac have a feature called, "Topics" which is similar. The UI isn't quite as nice but functionally they do the same task.

 

[AlliFlowers]

Twitter threads are actually not expected to be like forum threads. A forum thread is like a little chat room within a larger community to discuss a single topic. A Twitter thread is used to link multiple, contiguous tweets meant to be read in succession. In essence, like taking a news article and breaking it down into 10 tweets... mostly because of character limits, but also for digestibility.

That is exactly my complaint.

 

[redboxcar]

That is exactly my complaint.

Fair criticism, but may I ask why? I actually would sooner read a 10-tweet thread about an issue or topic or opinion than a 5 min Medium post or a news article or similar.

 

[AlliFlowers]

Fair criticism, but may I ask why? I actually would sooner read a 10-tweet thread about an issue or topic or opinion than a 5 min Medium post or a news article or similar.

Because up until a few days ago (and currently not on anything but the official Twitter clients), you couldn't count on a thread being what the originator intended - which was basically a single rant too long to fit into a single tweet. So they prefaced the first one with "THREAD" and hoped they could get it out there faster than anyone else could respond.

 

[charlituna]

at this point I feel like if Twitter is going to try to support folks posting more than 280 character thoughts, they should just drop the limit all together. or make it something like 2000 characters.
maybe even monetize it. you want ad free Twitter, you pay $10 a year, you wanna be able to go 'high' limit, you pay $10 a year. you want both maybe you get a discount and its only $18 a year. a lot of folks would be willing to pay