Twitter CEO Elon Musk has outlined new timelines for DM updates last weekendwhich confirms earlier stories of DM choices being developed on Twitter.
The largest replace right here is encrypted DMs, which is able to carry Twitter according to Meta and different messaging apps, offering elevated privateness for customers.
As you may see in this exampleposted by the Twitter designer Andrea Conwaywhen encryption is enabled in your Twitter direct messages, you will see a notification within the chat thread that “Messages and calls are protected by end-to-end encryption.”
This would imply that nobody however the chat members would find a way to view the content material of those discussions, which would supply extra confidence and privateness, however may additionally facilitate prison exercise, as not even authorities or authorized authorities may bypass the encryption. .
This was a key level of concern about Meta’s push to embody encryption in all of its messaging merchandise, however regardless of opposition, Meta is pushing forward with the plan, and Twitter appears set to observe go well with quickly, too.
In the meantime, having the ability to reply to a person DM will make it simpler to take part in a extra particular dialog, as opposed to including yet one more reply to a broader subject.
It example exhibits how the method will work the place customers can lengthy press any DM to reply instantly to it.
And at last, there’s the choice to reply to a message with any emoji as a response.
As you may see here, this course of will enable you to faucet on the three-dot menu and select any emoji as your response. Twitter can also be contemplating an possibility that might enable customers customize the default set of reactionshowever it’s not clear if will probably be a part of that preliminary deliberate launch.
Every of those updates could possibly be fascinating, and the transfer to automated encryption is a big step that Musk has been hinting at for a while. However on the identical time, they’re additionally comparatively small when it comes to enhancing the person expertise, so they are not probably to be noticeable drivers of curiosity or engagement.
Though it’s not clear how Twitter is doing on this regard. Within the weeks since he took over this system, Elon repeatedly famous that Twitter utilization was reaching report highs, however since December these updates have died down, with some stories suggesting that Twitter utilization has dropped considerably because the preliminary hype. .
Twitter can also be reportedly struggling to seize advert {dollars}, with a brand new Wall Road Journal report discovering that 70 of the platform’s prime 100 advertisers haven’t resumed spending on the platform on the identical ranges since Musk purchased the app. General, Twitter’s income is reportedly down 40% from final 12 months, which explains why the corporate continues to be wanting to minimize prices wherever it could actually, together with additional layoffs, regardless of Musk beforehand saying the job cuts have been over .
On this context, I do not see a lot impact of the DM settings. Maybe in the event that they have been supplied as Twitter Blue exclusives, it would assist drive extra adoption – however then once more, Twitter Blue, at the least proper now, solely contributes to a tiny fraction of complete Twitter consumption.
General, these are fascinating tweaks that might be very related to some customers, however are unlikely to assist enhance income or adoption. Which they most likely aren’t designed to do, however it’s fascinating to see how Twitter is specializing in such parts amid quite a lot of bigger points.
