Read Receipts And Web Link Preview Come To DM On Twitter. Could They Be Planning A Surprise IM Service Too?

I noticed a message earlier when I replied a direct message on Twitter that I could now see read receipts and when I checked the Twitter handle of course on Twitter, I saw the tweet below;

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Twitter-read-receipt”]

That wasn’t the only thing they announced, they also introduced web link previews to DM (direct message) threads as well. Just like you see in apps like Messenger and WhatsApp but for Twitter which has been accused of not being quick for adopt social media trends, this is a good move but like they say, too little, too late or maybe not too little. An example would be the edit button which Kim Kardashian West famously requested last year July to which CEO Dorsey said they would consider but till date, there’s no such button at a time when the service has become popular especially on Facebook. There’s also the “Save a tweet” feature which could be of great benefit to them as well and is used by hundreds of millions of users daily. At the last count, it was 250 million users.

That said though, Twitter’s focus on the DM cannot be ignored. In August of 2015, they announced that they were increasing the 140 character limit in DMs to a whopping 10,000. That was a big move at the time and just before then in January of the same year, they introduced Group DMs (private multi-person conversations which can include up to 50 people). Both moves which focus on direct messaging on the platform were seen as potential boosters to the low used DM feature on Twitter.  But this leads to ask the question below;

Could they be moving towards a standalone messenger app like Facebook? This would mean that we could be in for a big surprise soon because Twitter desperately needs to do something big in order to turn the page.  Earlier this week there were reports that Twitter may soon be sold to the buyers like Google who are said to be interested. But for a company that has tried moves like signing a deal with the American NFL and opening up its live streaming app to all users and has not seen a turnaround in fortunes, then it may be time to do something as big as a Twitter standalone messenger app and if you’ve been following tech companies, then you’ll know that the saying no smoke without fire is true mostly in the tech world.

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