All the new features that Twitter added in 2020

Twitter is celebrating 14 Years. They have been an innovator in social media and it totally depends on who you follow and how you want to use the platform. Until this year, Twitter added some new and exciting features that have helped users better interact with others on the micro-blogging website. The number of Twitter users across India country was estimated to be over 34 million in 2019 (Click Here)

Here is the list of new features that Twitter added this year.

New Direct Message Overlay:

Twitter has now launched its new direct message chat window on the desktop, which enables you to engage with the messages without having to leave your main tweet feed.

Add new tweets to old threads (Continue Thread)
In early February, Twitter introduced this feature for mobile users. While you are composing a new tweet from mobile, choose which older tweet you want to connect the new tweet to. Then click on the three dots menu in the older tweet and choose the “continue thread” option. The new tweet will now become part of the original thread.

Audio Tweets:
Last month, Twitter introduced a new audio tweet feature that is available to iOS users. This will capture up to 140 seconds of audio per tweet. A Twitter spokesperson told to The Verge that the feature was an early audio test and they are still exploring the best ways to meet the needs of people with different abilities.

Here is a step by step process:

Who can reply:

Now, you can choose who should reply to your tweets. The platform now offers users three different privacy settings for replies, which include ‘Everyone’ (standard Twitter, and the default setting), ‘Only people you follow’, or ‘Only people you mention’.

Here is the blog link from Twitter product team.

Hide Replies:

Twitter rolled out a new feature "Hide Replies" and they let all users hide unwanted replies to their tweets. This can be used to block replies that are spammy or unrelated to the content of the tweet.

Retweet with Comment Feature:

This feature will basically allows you to see how many people have retweeted to your posts with comments and how many have done that without comments. When you tap on the Retweet written under your tweet, you will find a new window that would allow you to see the tweets with or without comments.

Schedule Tweets on Desktop:

Scheduling a tweet has been much easier from the Twitter application (Desktop) and this feature was much awaited for a long time.

This will also allow you to save drafts of your tweets in the web app. However, the catch is you’ll be able to see them only through a web client and not on your mobile app.
This means drafts created on mobile will not be available on the desktop app. Although the company hopes to eventually have both platforms drafts synchronized.

Here's is how you can schedule your tweets:

Twitter Rolls Out Option to Follow Specific Topics:

Twitter has rolled out the ability to follow specific topics the same way one might follow individual accounts. To follow a topic, simply search for the subject you’re interested in. You’ll see a description of the topic listed atop the search and can then just press the ‘Follow’ button.

From your Topics menu:

Tap Topics in your profile icon menu.
Tap Follow some Topics to browse by category type, such as "Cloud Platforms", "Machine Learning", "Venture Capital", "Startups" tap the Follow button next to the Topics you’d like to follow.

Fleets:

Twitter brings in Fleets. This is much similar to Snapchat, Instagram, or WhatsApp stories feature. The fleets will disappear after 24 hours. This feature is available on the mobile version (Android/iOS). For now, Twitter says it determines which Fleets to display first based on recency and mutual follows.

To engage with followers on Fleets, the option to reply and react will be available when Direct Messages (DMs) are open.

Here is how to fleet:

Log in to your Twitter account.
On your Homepage, tap on your avatar at the top left of the Timeline.
You can write text, add photos, videos, or GIFs in a Fleet.
Click on Fleet to post to share your fleeting thoughts

To view someone else fleet:

Tap an avatar to see their latest Fleet
Swipe down to see newer Fleets and up to see older Fleets.
Swipe left or right to see Fleets from other accounts you follow.

React with Fleet:

In continuation of the above feature in Fleets, Twitter has also introduced a feature "React with Fleet" and this feature will occur when you click on the retweet button. As mentioned above, This feature is available on the mobile version (Android/iOS).

Steps below on how to React with Fleet:

Simply tap the "Retweet" button on a Tweet.
Then select "React with Fleet"

Upcoming Feature:

Read it before you Tweet:

Whenever a user will decide to tweet an article before reading it, then Twitter will prompt them to open it before they tweet it. This encourages users to actually read the content before sharing it with others. To empower users to have informed discussions, Twitter is taking an extra step to promote reading content.