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Tag: Direct Messages

  • Twitter Launches Fleets, Disappearing Tweets

    Twitter Launches Fleets, Disappearing Tweets

    Twitter has officially rolled out its new disappearing tweets, called Fleets, to all users.

    Twitter has been trying new features and abilities in an effort to compete with newer social media platforms and remain competitive. Although one of the most popular platforms, some believe it has been eclipsed by competitors, in terms of growth and innovation.

    The latest new feature, Fleets, is designed to help users share momentary thoughts. According to Twitter’s testing, Fleets are especially good at helping new users feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts, an important factor in continual growth.

    Twitter’s Joshua Harris and Sam Haveson made the announcement:

    You can Fleet text, reactions to Tweets, photos or videos and customize your Fleets with various background and text options. To share a Tweet in a Fleet tap the “Share” icon at the bottom of the Tweet and then tap, “Share in Fleet.” Then, add what you think about it with some text or emojis. Soon, stickers and live broadcasting will be available in Fleets.

    Your followers can see your Fleets at the top of their home timeline. Anyone who can see your full profile can see your Fleets there too. If you have open Direct Messages, anyone can reply to your Fleets. If you want to reply to a Fleet, tap on it to send a Direct Message or emoji to the author, and continue the conversation in your Direct Messages….Fleets will be updated over time with new features, based on your feedback.

    Fleets should help Twitter compete with other social media services in its efforts to maintain relevancy.

  • Twitter Fixes Serious Vulnerability in Android Client

    Twitter Fixes Serious Vulnerability in Android Client

    Twitter announced Friday that it has patched a serious vulnerability in the official Twitter client for Android.

    According to the announcement on the company’s blog, the bug “could allow a bad actor to see nonpublic account information or to control your account (i.e., send Tweets or Direct Messages). Prior to the fix, through a complicated process involving the insertion of malicious code into restricted storage areas of the Twitter app, it may have been possible for a bad actor to access information (e.g., Direct Messages, protected Tweets, location information) from the app.”

    The company does not have any evidence the vulnerability was actually exploited, but is choosing to error on the side of caution. Twitter is contacting—via email or the app—any users who could have been exposed and providing instructions on what they should do.

    In the meantime, all Android users should update to the latest version, where the vulnerability has been fixed. iOS users are in the clear, as the bug appears to have only impacted the Android client.

  • Slack Group Messages Are Now A Thing

    Slack Group Messages Are Now A Thing

    As great of a communication tool Slack has proven to be for teams, one feature has been surprisingly absent until now – the ability to add more people to direct message conversations.

    The company announced group messaging as its latest feature addition this week. You can now add up to 8 people to a group DM.

    Optimized-Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 4.28.56 PM

    “With this new feature, you can break into a private discussion with up to 8 other people (9 total, including you) whenever you see fit,” Slack explains in a blog post. “The conversation will persist in your list of Direct Messages and you can return to that group at any time, or hide it when you’re done talking. Messages will show up in your searches and you can find group conversations in the Quick Switcher when you search for names (bonus: a new DM-only Quick Switcher view is available with the cmd-shift-k on mac, ctrl-shift-k on win/linux keystroke).”

    “With the introduction of group DMs, which will cover many of the use cases that previously required private groups, we’ve transformed private groups into the brand new ‘private channels,’” it adds. “Private channels will be shown mixed in with your existing open channels alphabetically, with small lock icons next to the private ones. When the time comes to create a new channel, you’ll find a new public/private toggle on the configuration screen.”

    To use group messages on your mobile device, you’ll have to update your iOS app to version 2.50. The feature was actually quietly added to the last version of the Android app, so there’s no update necessary with that one.

    Images via Slack

  • Twitter Really Wants You to Use It for Messaging

    Twitter Really Wants You to Use It for Messaging

    Twitter is taking steps to make itself a destination for messaging.

    Starting today, you will be able to receive notifications in your browser when you receive a direct message. Clicking on the notification will direct you to the DM interface on Twitter.com

    The option is available in your settings, and it appears to be opt-out.

    In order to compete with the multitudes of messaging options out there, Twitter is looking to make Direct Messages more useful to the average user. Desktop notifications make DMs feel more like a real-time chat, which could be what Twitter’s going for.

    Last week, Twitter ditched its 140-character limit on DMs. You can now send private messages that contain up to 10,000 characters.

    “While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun,” said Twitter at the time.

    Today is another step.

    This isn’t just for your average Joe Twitter users. This is big for businesses and brands, as Twitter wants them to be better at interacting with customers/fans.

  • Here’s Why Twitter Just Became A Lot Better For Customer Service

    Here’s Why Twitter Just Became A Lot Better For Customer Service

    Twitter is rolling out a major feature that should help businesses better take care of customer service and engage with customers privately. It could also encourage customers to engage more with businesses using Twitter in the first place.

    A couple months ago, Twitter indicated it would lift the 140-character limit constraint of direct messages, and this week, it officially announced that this is rolling out. Now, the limit has been raised to 10,000 characters.

    Do you think customers will be more willing to engage with businesses over DM with the limit raised? Share your thoughts about the change.

    Just for reference, here’s what 10,000 characters looks like:

    ten-thousand

    Here’s where that message would cut off in a Twitter DM before Twitter raised the limit:

    Screen Shot 2015-08-14 at 10.53.01 AM

    That’s an astronomical difference.

    The new limit is rolling out across Android, iOS, Twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter for Mac. The roll-out will take a few weeks to complete, but rest assured, if you can’t already, you will soon be able to send and receive DMs that are much, much longer. Twitter said this about he announcement in a blog post:

    While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.

    You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. In a word, nothing. Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today, rich with commentary as well as photos, videos, links, Vines, gifs, and emoji. So, start working on those sonnets.

    It’s interesting that Twitter didn’t mention customer service in that announcement, because that’s a clear use case for Twitter DMs, and customer service is already something the company has been talking up a great deal lately. So has rival Facebook. Both companies want to be an ideal place for businesses to engage with customers, and honestly, I’d be surprised if that wasn’t an underlying factor in Twitter’s decision to raise the DM character limit.

    Just a week ago, Twitter announced its Customer Service Playbook as well as a partnership with Sprout Social on new customer service tools. As the company noted, 80% of customer service requests on social are happening on Twitter, according to Socialbakers. It said it has also seen a 2.5X increase in the number of tweets to brands and their customer service usernames over the past two years.

    “Not only are customers turning to Twitter for help, Twitter is also significantly more efficient and effective for companies who are seeing a cost per resolution on Twitter that’s ⅙ of what they’re seeing in call centers,” said Chris Moody, Vice President of Twitter Data Strategy. “And companies that developed social care capabilities improved year-over-year revenue per contact by 18.8% over companies without social customer service, according to a study by the Aberdeen group.”

    Giving customers a better way to engage with businesses in private should go a long way toward making Twitter a more effective customer service channel for both businesses and customers alike. While some people are not shy about airing their grievances in public, others just won’t do that, and have legitimate concerns that they’d like to get handled without an audience. Much of the time, these concerns probably take more than 140 characters to adequately explain. Sure, you could always send multiple messages, but that just adds friction to the experience.

    As we’ve seen from Socialbakers data in the past, customer care response rates have been pretty abysmal, especially here in the U.S. which ranks near the bottom of the list of countries measured for both Twitter and Facebook.

    Twitter recently released some of its own research, and gave brands four ways to “build customer service relationships”. That came in the form of this infographic about four ways brands can build customer service relationships on Twitter:

    DMs can be incorporated into all four of these, and in fact could make it easier to do so. It’s especially easier easier to get personal in a DM, as private conversations tend to be more comfortable for all involved.

    Businesses should let it be known that Twitter DMs are an acceptable way for customers to reach them for customer service issues. Put it on your website, and display it on your Twitter profile. Let them know you’re there and available for a private discussion. Just don’t forget to actually be there.

    Do you think Twitter’s DM character count lift will make it a better customer service tool? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Images via Twitter

  • Twitter DMs Can Now Be 10,000 Characters, So Ramble On

    Twitter DMs Can Now Be 10,000 Characters, So Ramble On

    Twitter has officially dropped the 140-character limit …

    On Direct Messages. Now, you can ramble to your heart’s desire when sending private messages to another Twitter user. Twitter said it would be doing this a couple of months ago, and today the update is rolling out to iOS, Android, Tweetdeck, and twitter.com.

    The new limit is 10,000 characters, which isn’t really as many as you think (Facebook Messenger’s limit is double that), but it’s probably sufficient in most cases.

    “While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.”

    Honestly, character limits for DMs was always kind of ridiculous. Limits on public tweets? Sure, that’s what Twitter is. Changing that would change the core of the service.

    But limiting direct messages was dumb. If Twitter wants people to use it as a true messaging app (which it clearly does), this had to happen.

  • Twitter Is Dropping the 140-Character Limit On DMs!

    Twitter Is Dropping the 140-Character Limit On DMs!

    I don’t often use exclamation points in the titles of articles (even when they’re about Yahoo), but this one felt warranted. Is there anything more annoying about Twitter’s usability than that blasted 140-character limit on DMs?

    Well, maybe the inability to delete a tweet that includes a typo, but other than that, I think the DM limit takes the cake.

    I get the limit for tweets. The service has always been about short, simple messages, and there are apps you can use if you must say more. There is also etiquette for sequential tweets. But I never understood why this limit had to apply to DMs. It’s a private conversation, and private conversations can rarely be had in less than 140 characters per person.

    Finally, Twitter is doing away with this nonsense. Twitter’s Sachin Agarwal spilled the beans over in the company’s developer forums (via VentureBeat). He said:

    We’ve done a lot to improve Direct Messages over the past year and have much more exciting work on the horizon. One change coming in July that we want to make you aware of now (and first!) is the removal of the 140 character limit in Direct Messages. In order to make this change as seamless as possible for you we’ve included some recommendations below to ensure all your applications and services can handle these longer format messages before we flip the switch.

    We recommend taking the following actions in preparation:

    Review the new API additions below.
    Update your GET requests so you will be able to receive the full length of DM text.
    Adjust your app UI to accommodate longer DM text.
    We encourage you to test and deploy the above changes in advance, but you won’t be able to send longer DMs until we launch in July. In the coming weeks though, we will update this post to include directions on how to test these changes, as well as a more specific launch date.

    You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. Nothing! Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today.

    You hear that? July! That’s pretty soon. Private communication on Twitter is about to get a lot more enjoyable and a lot less annoying.

    This is only the most recent in a handful of Twitter announcements regarding DMs. Less than two months ago, Twitter brought back a feature that lets people enable the ability for anyone to DM regardless of if they’re following that person. Additionally, Twitter added Group Message functionality earlier this year.

    With private communication apps being so hot, Twitter is smart to improve its own such functionality anyway it can. So far in 2015 it’s making some good strides. Will the DM one day get its own app?

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Brings Back ‘Anyone Can DM Me’ Feature

    Twitter Brings Back ‘Anyone Can DM Me’ Feature

    Twitter just announced the launch of a new feature that lets users accept direct messages from anyone, even if they’re not following the sender. Historically, two users have had to follow one another in order to exchange DMs. That will no longer be the case when a user allows others to send them.

    That’s right. You have to enable the feature. You’re not automatically going to be opened up to private messages from strangers. So don’t let people freaking out about it on Twitter or articles about people freaking out about it on Twitter fool you. It’s totally opt-in, and it can only be a problem if you let it.

    There’s a new setting that allows you to receive direct messages from anyone. You should see the option on the Security and Privacy page of your settings once the feature has rolled out.

    You’ll also be able to reply to anyone who sends you a direct message, even if they don’t follow you.

    “Direct Messages are the best way to take your public Twitter conversations private,” says Twitter senior software engineer Nhu Vuong. “Today, we’re changing how direct messaging works so that it’s even easier for you to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people, anywhere in the world.”

    Twitter launched Group Messages in January.

    “Communicating with people you may or may not know in real life just got easier,” says Vuong. “Previously, if you wanted to send a Direct Message to the ice cream shop down the street about how much you love their salted caramel flavor, you’d have to ask them to follow you first. With today’s changes, the ice cream shop can opt to receive Direct Messages from anyone; so you can privately send your appreciation for the salted caramel without any barriers.”

    If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because Twitter experimented with the feature back in 2013, before shutting it down.

    To go along with the new DM functionality, Twitter also launched a new DM button on its iOS and Android apps:

    The new DM changes should prove helpful to businesses who want to give consumers another way of engaging with them or simply contacting them. Twitter may not have the user base of Facebook, but Twitter users spend a lot of time on Twitter, and they also talk about brands a lot while they’re there. Still, not everyone wants to say everything in a public setting, and a DM might be a more comfortable venue for some. Most businesses will likely want to activate the feature.

    It would still be nice if Twitter provided an additional feature to leave that activated while blocking certain problem accounts from being able to send messages.

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Video Arrives (Along With Group Messages)

    Back in November, Twitter said it had a bunch of new features on the way, including a new video experience, and some updates to Direct Messages. At the time, they announced the ability to share and discuss tweets natively and privately via Direct Messages, but said that was only the first of several updates.

    Group Messages

    On Tuesday, Twitter announced Group Messages, which enables users to have private conversations among groups of people.

    “Private conversations on Twitter are a great complement to the largely public experience on the platform,” says product director Jinen Kamdar. “You might prefer to read (or watch) Tweets but converse about them privately. You might want to continue a public conversation privately with a smaller group, or start one based on a Tweet you saw. Many of you use Direct Messages to reach the people and brands you’re only connected to on Twitter. Whatever the case may be, the ability to converse privately with groups gives you more options for how and with whom you communicate on Twitter.”

    The feature lets users start conversations with any followers, and you don’t necessarily have to follow each other. You can create groups, and you’ll get notifications when you’re added to other people’s groups.

    Twitter Video

    A native video experience on Twitter has been anticipated for quite some time, but when Twitter teased a couple months ago, it became clear that it would be here soon. It’s here, and it’s a mobile feature, which enables users to capture, edit, and share videos from the Twitter app.

    “We designed our camera to be simple to use so you can capture and share life’s most interesting moments as they happen,” says Kamdar. “In just a few taps you can add a video to unfolding conversations, share your perspective of a live event, and show your everyday moments instantly, without ever having to leave the app. Viewing and playing videos is just as simple: videos are previewed with a thumbnail and you can play them with just one tap.”

    You can capture and share videos up to 30 seconds. iPhone users can upload videos from their camera roll right away. Android users will be able to do so in a future update.

    Twitter’s foray into video couldn’t have come at a better time, except maybe much earlier. Facebook has been touting its enormous growth in video, and is really sticking it to YouTube when it comes to brand videos. According to a recent report from SocialBakers, brands on Facebook posted over 20,000 more Facebook videos than YouTube videos last month.

    We spoke with marketing consultant Brian Honigman about Facebook video vs. YouTube in terms of marketing strategy. The subject of Twitter’s impending video offering came up, and he believes Twitter could “seriously disrupt Facebook’s strategy of edging into the viral niche,” though “Facebook has a serious head start and always will.”

    Twitter does still rule the real time realm, and though Facebook is trying harder than ever to change that, Twitter’s native video offering could be a huge factor in helping Twitter remain relevant in that space.

    Both Group Messaging and the new video experience are rolling out to all Twitter users over the course of the coming days. You won’t have to wait at all to participate in any group conversations that others start with you or to watch videos that users with access to the feature (like Neil Patrick Harris) share.

    Images via Twitter, SocialBakers

  • Recently Launched Twitter DM Feature Was Just An Experiment (One That’s Now Over)

    Last month, Twitter added a setting to users’ accounts that let them enable anybody to send them direct messages, even if they didn’t follow the user. Apparently, that was just an experiment, and it has come to a close.

    Traditionally, to send someone a direct message, they have had to follow you, meaning that for a private conversation to take place on Twitter, two users would have to actually follow one another. That changed with the experiment, when Twitter added this to the settings:

    Twitter DMs

    But that’s no longer an option.

    Twitter never formally announced the feature, and it didn’t announce that it was taking it away.

    Gigaom’s Matthew Ingram asked Twitter about it, and was linked to the company’s blog post about experiments.

    “We are constantly evolving the product,” Twitter’s Alex Roetter said in the September post. “Some changes are visible –– they may help you protect your Twitter account or make it easier to share photos; others are under-the-hood changes that help us suggest relevant content in real time and make Twitter more engaging.”

    In that, he noted that the experimentation has picked up in recent months at Twitter, so expect to see more features come and go as the company tries to get the formula right (which is all the more important now that it’s public).

    [via TNW]

    Image: Maryland GovPics, Flickr Creative Commons

  • With Public Offering Nearing, Twitter Looks To Go A Little More Private

    Twitter is reportedly considering expanding its private messaging offerings.

    Earlier this week, the company started rolling out a new feature that lets users receive direct messages from users they don’t follow. Historically, the feature has only worked when a user is following the other user. There’s a new setting option that allows you to receive messages from any follower.

    A new report from All Things D, citing multiple sources, indicates that this is just the beginning of Twitter’s private messaging focus, as it nears its IPO with competing threats from apps like SnapChat, KakaoTalk, WhatsApp and Line.

    While apparently the company hasn’t set anything in stone, its efforts may include a standalone messaging app, not unlike Facebook’s messenger app. Given that Twitter still views Facebook as a direct threat, and Facebook is actively adding more “public conversation” functionality (even letting teens post publicly now), Twitter’s move to counter these things by offering more private options is probably for the best.

    Twitter has obviously always been a public platform first and foremost, though it’s also always had privacy controls, but it looks like we’re going to be seeing more of a “be everything to everyone” approach moving forward.

    It makes you wonder how long the 140 character limit will stick around.

    Image: Maryland GovPics, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Twitter Lets You Get DMs from Anybody, If You Want

    On occasion, you need to communicate with someone on Twitter and you don’t want everyone to see it. That’s fair – maybe you’re complaining about an embarrassing product that you bought. Maybe you’re a Congressman and you want to send a nice picture of your package. Whatever, I won’t judge.

    That’s where the direct message comes in – Twitter’s more private communication. It’s always been a little bit clunky, in that Twitter only lets people send direct messages back and forth if the two accounts follow each other. Users can also send direct messages to any other user that follows them, but they won’t be able to receive a reply unless they turn around and follow back.

    That’s all changing – if you want it to.

    Twitter has unveiled a new option that allows you receive direct messages from anyone that follows you – you don’t have to follow them back.

    Here’s the relevant option, now located in your settings:

    Note that you have to go into your settings and enable this – so if you like things just the way they are, please ignore this and continue on with your day. It’s a small change, but it fundamentally changes how DMs work. Now, if a business or brand has this option checked, all you have to do to send them a complaint, comment, or question is follow them. The days of the “follow back to DM!” tweet may be coming to a close.

    H/t The Verge
    Lead Image via Maryland GovPics, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Twitter Experiments With News By Direct Message With Event Parrot Account

    Twitter has been running a lot of experiments lately, and the latest one deals with helping users keep up with what’s happening in the world. It’s being conducted using an account @eventparrot, which has already accumulated nearly 10,000 followers despite not having tweeted yet.

    It may not be tweeting much anyway, however, as in the bio it says followers will receive direct messages that help them keep up.

    Event Parrot

    Twitter discussed its experimentation process a little bit in a blog post last month.

    “We also experiment with features that may never be released to everyone who uses Twitter,” wrote Twitter VP, Engineering, Alex Roetter. “Those experiments are perhaps even more valuable because they help us decide what not to do –– which is important as we work to keep Twitter simple while improving the user experience. Ultimately, our goal is to learn and keep making the product better; we aren’t necessarily looking to launch all of the experiments we roll out.”

    “In recent months, that trend has picked up –– so much so that it’s rare for a day to go by when we’re not releasing at least one experiment,” he said. “We’re able to run tests more frequently because we’ve built a more robust experimentation framework, which we use to run tests not only on the web, but also in our mobile apps: Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. With the majority of our users accessing Twitter from a mobile device, it’s important for us to be able to test on mobile. Over time, you’ll continue to see us test and introduce new features first on mobile. For example, we recently introduced the people button which suggests accounts for you to follow.”

    One of the ways some of Twitter’s experiments have been surfacing has been through these experimental accounts like Event Parrot.

    It used the account @MagicRegs, for example, before rolling out its new personalized recommendations. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of these accounts popping up in the near future. Twitter must have quite a bit of experimenting to do with the IPO on the way.

    [via TechCrunch]