Last month, I wrote about Twitter’s woes, its decreasing user base and monetary problems. Things don’t seem to be faring much better for the declining social media site, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going down without a fight. Well, a scuffle, maybe. We’ve already heard about testing Twitter is doing with ‘tweetstorm’. If that term sounds familiar, it’s because it is – twitter users had already come up with it to describe a long string of comments made on an original post – either by the post writers or a combination of the original writer and comments from other users. The new feature would allow users to write as much as they want, and once they post, the rant would be split into the already established 140 character limit – essentially allowing users to post all of their stories uninterrupted by other user comments.
Another attempt at sprucing up its service was an added functionality to the inbox, separating messages from people users follow and don’t follow. What they are now releasing to both iOS and Android users is a news feature, particularly a feature that will let you see what news articles other people have read, or shared, or liked. It’s a feature that is already available on many other sites and apps, and one that I doubt will be enough to make much of a difference to users – or to investors, for that matter. The news feature much resemble that of many other apps that essentially serve the same function, so it’s not a new and exciting feature that is sure to attract new users, let alone convince existing users who are considering stopping tweeting to stay.
In short, it seems like Twitter’s attempts at elevating its service and thus gain more followers are too little too late. Frankly, in my opinion, the ‘tweetstorm’ feature seems much more attractive than the news feature. If Twitter can complete its testing and roll out that feature, it might spark some interest, although how much is hard to say at this time. It probably won’t be Twitter’s saving grace, but for Twitter users, the dedicated ones, the ones to love coming upon a long string of posts and comments, it might be a great feature. Then again, it’s not the hard core users Twitter needs to impress.