The famous microblogging portal is testing new features that will make the social look like a messaging app
Twitter is testing a new feature, already seen on many other social media such as Instagram or Facebook: the green dot that identifies next to the profile photo the users who are online versus those who are not connected to the platform.
For Twitter, this would be an absolute novelty that would bring the microblogging platform closer to chat and messaging. To give the news of the beginning of the test of the new feature to find out which users are online and which are not was the same creator of Twitter Jack Dorsey, who on his personal profile has posted two tweets with photos where he explained the new feature being tested. At the moment, being just a test, only some users, especially those most followed and that generate a lot of interaction, can show their online/offline status on the site or on the Twitter application.
Privacy at risk?
Some Twitter subscribers have already complained about this new feature because it could create privacy problems for users. For example, if a troll or an ill-intentioned person were to target us, they would know through the green dot when we are online and therefore when we are most vulnerable. To answer these first doubts, Twitter developers have made it known that the function for offline/online status information will be fully manageable by users and then through our profile we can disable it with a touch.
The new functions of Twitter
In addition to the green dot to indicate users who are online Twitter is also testing a second function that will change the responses and their way of being displayed. Until now, reading the various comments to tweets and keep under control the responses we receive is not very easy because they are displayed vertically. A right choice if we receive few replies but that can be confusing in case of high interaction on a tweet or a photo. For this reason Twitter is testing the collected responses per user. A bit like what happens now on Facebook with the comments grouped together that can be easily browsed. In short, Twitter after some time is trying with these two new features to get closer to other platforms for chat or messaging with the hope of creating more interaction within the social.