Now on Twitter: Group direct messages and mobile video camera | Hacker News Reader

Now on Twitter: Group direct messages and mobile video camera

blog.twitter.com

78 pointsalexbate29 comments

And yet still the worst photo sharing experience of any social platform. 5mb upload limit, constant upload failures with cryptic error messages, and clicking an image only to see a smaller version aren't a great experience.

I'm skeptical of what they'll do with video.

edit: lack of retina support for images is also inexcusable.

Let me know what you think of Twitter Video on iOS/Android once you get it. (I'm the designer on Twitter Video)

> clicking an image only to see a smaller version

I feel Twitter's UI has always been pretty sensible - but I've always been baffled by this quirk.

With the speed they are shipping updates for the official mac app it should be possible to use the group messaging in about 2 years.

You're being over-optimistic

And yet it's still one of the best Twitter clients on any platform. Thank you, Loren Britchter.

Have you used Tweetbot?

Oops, Tweetbot is kill. Something something API limits developer love walled garden.

I use it on iOS and love it, but didn't feel like paying $20 for a Twitter client on the desktop.

About 4 years ago, I was chatting with a journalist via Twitter and when we had to discuss details, he told me, "I don't check my email, just DM me"...which profoundly annoyed me. Now, I have to admit, if someone DM's me, I almost always immediately respond. Part of it is because DMs, for me, still pale in quantity compared to emails, so I naturally notice them faster. I think it also works because of why Twitter works overall...the truncated message length is both an impediment to communication and a lowering-of-friction...unlike email, I don't feel like I have to come up with a well-composed or complete response...nor should the DMer expect more of me (or else they should've gone through email).

So the group DMing makes sense...it's not an innovation, but continues to keep people in the Twitter system. Their photo app functionality had been crap for awhile, but between the extra steps needed to go through Instagram (nevermind the lack of previews), the photo app is just good enough to entice the user to not leave the Twitter app.

I'm surprised they haven't tried to implement Snapchat-like functionality, frankly.

This sentence grossed me out:

"The Twitter you experience today is rich and immersive, full of images, gifs, Vines, audio files and videos from some of the world’s most recognizable figures and brands."

Then you'll absolutely love their "strategy statement".

"Reach the largest daily audience in the world by connecting everyone to their world via our information sharing and distribution platform products and be one of the top revenue generating Internet companies in the world."

That along with: "Many of you use Direct Messages to reach the people and brands you’re only connected to on Twitter."

So the blog post's target audience seems to be their own users (you experience/use), but spoken in advertiser-speak. It's a not so subtle reminder that the user is the product.

Are group DMs supported through the API for third-party clients?

The direct capture and upload has been sorely needed, should make on-the-ground reporting much easier.

There is a third-party service called GroupTweet that has been doing something similar for years... http://www.grouptweet.com

Curious how this will affect their service.

Group DMs are not yet available through the API. Its not clear if/when they will make Group DMs available via the API.

As for GroupTweet, only a small subset of our users use GroupTweet for Group DM type purposes. I'm optimistic that this native functionality will educate the masses on the possibilities of Twitter Group DM's which will lead "power users" to look to GroupTweet to provide a more "full featured" group DM experience.

Working on a blog post to illustrate the GroupTweet advantages, but things like:

1) A GroupTweet Group DM account is permanent compared to a more ephemeral Group DM thread. No need to figure out who to add to the conversation each time, etc.

2) Never lose your messages. Full archival capabilities & storage with a GroupTweet Group DM account. Twitter will only display your 100 most recent DM conversations.

3) No limit on number of group members vs Twitter's native Group DM limit of 20 people.

4) Full control over who is included the the Group DM. With Twitter's native functionality, any group member can invite anyone else into the conversation. With GroupTweet, the group admin(s) have full control over who is allowed in the group, who has posting privileges vs read-only, etc.

5) With a GroupTweet group DM account, you get all the advantages of a full fledged Twitter account. Things like Twitter analytics, GroupTweet contributor analytics (which members are participating & sending the best messages), downloading your Tweet history, linkable messages, etc.

6) More customizable notifications. Not all or nothing approach for regular DMs.

7) GroupTweet Group DM's will work with every Twitter client. If you try and start a Group DM with your friends that are using Tweetbot, Hootsuite, or any other third party twitter client, they won't receive the message.

Here's my post from earlier this month re: creating a GroupTweet Group DM account: http://grouptweet.com/blog/how-to-create-private-twitter-gro...

A long, long time ago, email was invented. Then soon enough, someone created email lists (groups).

No one has invented anything new in this regard, since then.

Its a pity you're getting downvoted for insight. One problem twitter has is lack of innovation. Then again they have users who are self selected to be used to it, or are even happy with that.

Kind of the AOL of the modern era, if you think of AOL culturally in the 90s, twitter is in the same spot today.

There is also a lack of purpose, lack of elevator pitch. By that I mean I don't know what twitter is for. Originally, right after I found out about it WRT SXSW, its the AOL-ified IRC on top of SMS text messages. Then it morphed into brand spam delivery for AOL users who can't figure out RSS from either the spammer or recipient side, be sure to follow our corporate PR dept because... well just because. Now its apparently going to be the AOL of photo sharing for those too confused by the complexities of facebook photo sharing and snapchat. But what is it, assuming my joke about them being the AOL of 2015 isn't just a joke (or ... is it?)

I hear you and you're certainly not alone in your disdain for the platform, but it just doesn't square with my experience using it.

In particular I think it is a great tool for startups, as:

- We recruited most of our alpha/beta users over Twitter

- Our testimonials page is full of Tweets like this:

https://twitter.com/jhooks/status/558736048134438913

- We're still monitoring for support and issues people have and jumping in to help (which people seem to really like).

You are correct, and thank you for the support of the comment above. WRT Twitter=RSS, I cannot lament enough the fact that RSS has been treated like an abandoned child, only because there is Twitter. WRT AOL, well, there's also Facebook, which is a de facto Internet today (rightly or wrongly, that's a sad debate).

The old twitter, which offered RSS of users' Twitter timelines and searches made a lot of sense, it was a real shame to see it go.

Combining tweets about [subject of choice] inline with your favourite subreddits and websites, all filterable and searchable (with the right client) was a brilliant innovation.

"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski

So are they trying to be Whatsapp, only with a character limit?

Are these only on ios now? I can't see any option to do either of these things on android or the web

I don't like having private conversations on twitter for some reason, I guess having it is better than not but it's hard to feel excited about it. On the bright side I think this could be very useful for networking between famous people.

> On the bright side I think this could be very useful for networking between famous people.

Welcome to twitter.

So now when your friend's account gets hacked it can be way more annoying? Because that's seriously all my DMs ever are.

Share emoji.

But who will ever again trust an US company with private group communication after they put so much effort into converting into a salafist-stalinist-stasi-like surveillance state and after such a long time of the Snowden revelations there is still no real sign of the US people, the companies and the communities are able to get rid of their mentally distorted secret dictators?

It is such a shame. A nation that was the synonym for freedom is now the world role model for how a postmodern dictatorship looks like. Please, all you freedomlovers, finally wake up and change it, I do not see any sane alternative than reverting USA back to a free country...

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