Twitter has now revamped its ‘quote tweet’ functionality to make re-tweets a bit longer and more appealing. The original tweet will now be seen in an embedded form rather than in the form of a text, the micro-blogging company announced on Monday.
Twitter makes retweeting simple
Now with the update, in addition to the 140 characters original tweet, users will be able to add a commentary of their own within a limit of 116 characters. According to Mike Davidson, vice president of design at Twitter, the update is already been made available on the web and for iPhone users, and the Android version is promised to be “coming soon.”
“Say more with revamped quote Tweet! Rolling out on iPhone and web, coming soon to Android,” said Twitter.
The ‘quote tweet’ function was not very popular with users as it didn’t allow users to add commentary or re-tweets. Thus, the purpose of the function was being defeated altogether, and now with the update, Twitter has addressed the issue.
With the update, retweeting will be as simple as retweeting a user’s comment with a linkto the original tweet. There is also talk that third-party apps will also support the new functionality in the future.
Increase user engagement
Twitter wants to add to the advertising revenue it generates, and this will be possible only if users spend more time on the site. Therefore, to increase user engagement, the company has added this new functionality.
In August, Twitter came up with a feature that allowed users to see tweets from accounts that they do not follow, which was a departure from the previous practice of showing only the tweets, re-tweets and promoted tweets from accounts followed by users. Furthermpre, to up user engagement, Twitter announced the Recap feature in January. This feature served the users with the recycled tweets that they would have missed while they were away or when they logged in after a long duration.
In February, Twitter reported that its monthly active user base has jumped to 288 million from 284 million in the third-quarter.
