UPDATE: Twitter is shutting down its Fleet’s feature next month[August 3rd]. More details here.
Twitter has been on a slumber when it comes to new features for the past few years. Since November last year, Twitter’s product team has been pretty active in teasing and churning new features for its app and here’s a collection of them:
Twitter Spaces
Clubhouse revolutionized social network with the launch of its live audio-only rooms in March 2020 and probably made Twitter’s product team pull up its socks as this format was gaining popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In November last year, Twitter began testing Spaces. Spaces was a new feature that let users on Twitter gather and listen in on live conversations.
At that time, Clubhouse was and is still is an invite-only platform and this gave the upper edge as anyone could join a Twitter Space. It’s worth noting that this format was only accessible on iOS devices and for select people only.
In May this year, Clubhouse caught up and became available on the Google Play Store. Twitter still continued launching new features to make Spaces even more enticing.
The social media giant began testing a dedicated tab for Spaces on the bottom navigation bar.
The new redesign will make Spaces more discoverable as it has been its main Achille’s heel. In the past, you had to be notified of a live Spaces when a person you follow posted about it, or a Spaces link got retweeted.
Also, you can set reminder to be alerted when a Space is about to go live. Hosts can now schedule Spaces too.
The company is also working on Ticketed Spaces which will let hosts earn revenue from their live audio sessions while also helping Twitter monetize its platform.
Another thing is that Twitter also brought Spaces to the web and also let anyone with more than 600 followers to host a Space.
Twitter Blue
How is this app free? Well, not for some paying subscribers. In June, the social platform introduced Twitter Blue, their monthly premium subscription plan.
The service is now live in Canada( $3.49 CAD) and Australia($4.49 AUD).
With Twitter Blue, you can now undo tweets with the “Undo Send” feature.
Twitter Blue also now has a Collection feature to curate your bookmarks into folders. Other features included with Twitter Blue include a Reader Mode, Colour Themes and the options for selecting custom app icons.
Twitter Super Follows
Twitter has also increased features with a focus on creator communities on its platform. Super Follows is their latest feature and it allows select number of users to charge their followers and give them access to extra content – from tweets, Fleets and ticketed Spaces.
Twitter already has a tip jar feature for some accounts that allows their followers to make a one-time payment.
Twitter Super Follows content revolves around several categories including Adult Content, Art, Astrology, B2B, Beauty, Comedy, and more.
To be eligible for the Super Follows feature, you’ll have to meet several requirements which include but are not limited to:
- Have at least 10,000 followers.
- Active on Twitter, having posted at least 25 tweets within the past 30 days.
- Be at least 18 years old.
In terms of revenue sharing, Twitter has yet to clarify if they’ll take a portion of the Super Follow revenue from creators as it does with Ticketed Spaces.
Fleets
UPDATE: Twitter is shutting down its Fleet’s feature next month[August 3rd]. More details here.
Twitter’s latest clone from other platforms is Stories which they are calling Fleets. Launched in November last year, Fleets got mixed reactions from tweeps.
Unlike regular tweets, Fleets disappear after 24 hours and do not get retweets, likes or public replies. People can only react to your Fleets with DMs. You can view these Fleets by tapping on your avatar.
It looks like this feature has been getting a lot of engagement and now Twitter wants to bring full screen ads.
The giant social network will be partnering with select advertisers. The ads will be visible to a handful of US users on Android and iOS.
Just like Instagram Story ads, Fleet ads will support images and video in 9:16 format. It’s also worth noting that the videos will be up to 30 seconds long.
Newsletter Integration
Early this year, Twitter acquired Revue email newsletter service to serve publishers and writers who have a following with their tweets.
It’s worth noting that Twitter will operate Revue as a standalone business.
Twitter added a a Newsletters menu item in the web app to join other items including Bookmarks, Moments, Twitter Ads, Analytics and Media Studio which can be found by clicking the three-dot “More” link.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out not only for Revue writers and subscribers but also rival newsletter companies like Mailchimp and Substack.
The latter has grabbed a lot of attention especially with journalists leaving mainstream publications and going independent with Substack newsletters.
Twitter has yet to announce how this new feature has been adopted so far.
More Features
Twitter isn’t looking to stop playing around with new features and new acquisitions. The latest one is Scroll which owns the Nuzzel service.
Scroll, a $5 monthly subscription service that let readers get ad-free access to hundreds of websites including G/O Media(Gizmodo, Kotaku), The Atlantic, Vox Media, Buzzfeed News.
Tony Haile, former Scroll CEO posted on Twitter that they’ll be integrating into a broader Twitter subscription later in the year to offer subscribers a clutter-free news reading experience.
