Not to be outdone by today’s Snapchat announcement, Twitter has a few updates of its own to share with the social media world. Ones that might even make you use it more. Huh.
Starting today Twitter users will discover two new features within the social media platform’s orbit: group direct messaging and a native mobile video camera. Two things that technically should have been around for a long time, but we won’t go and subtweet ’em because of it.
With the introduction of group DMs, users are able to chat with a group of friends — or brands, celebs, etc — privately. It only takes a few simple taps to begin a group chat, but there is something you should know. If you’re starting the chat you need to be followers, but the cool part is that everyone else in the chat doesn’t have to be following one another to join (#groupDMperks). One thing we’re sure people will be demanding immediately is the ability to slide out of your DMs just like people can leave a group chat on iMessage.
In addition to group DMs, Twitter users can now also tweet videos directly from within the app. You can capture, edit and share your (30 second max) videos without ever leaving the app unless you want to do some major editing. Viewing videos is just as easy as capturing them as all users have to do is click on the preview thumbnail within a tweet and watch away. Twitter released this feature courtesy of Neil Patrick Harris (FYI, there’s an Oscars tease).
These two new features are great and all, but Twitter hinted at more to come, so we’re kinda already on the edge of our office chairs waiting to see what’s next. Maybe we won’t jump ship/bird for Snapchat just yet.
Are you excited Twitter finally brought group direct messaging to the social media platform? Let us know in the comments.