The feature was discovered by several users who quickly took to Twitter to complain. However, the company tests features all the time and this might never launch.
James Martin/CNET
Twitter's iconic "retweet" function was quietly and only quickly replaced with a "share" button recently.
The feature was earlier discovered by CNBC's Eli Langer, and was subsequently shown in several images that cropped up on the site. The familiar retweet button featureset was replaced with a "share" function that gave users the option to either share a tweet with others or add a comment before sharing the item. The feature was discovered on the Twitter iOS app.
Not long after it was discovered, the small test prompted outrage among affected users who balked at the idea of losing the retweet in favor of a share function. Not long after, however, the test was over and retweeting was back to normal.
Twitter is no stranger to experimentation. Back in September, Twitter posted a blog on its site, saying that it's constantly experimenting with new features, and in many cases, those functions never go beyond the stage of experimentation.
"It's rare for a day to go by when we're not releasing at least one experiment," Twitter vice president of engineering, Alex Roetter, said at the time.
So, was the retweet replacement an experiment or a sign of things to come? Twitter declined CNET's request for comment on the test, but the company has been clear in the past that it wants to maintain its uniqueness in the social space and not try to follow Facebook's lead. Since a share button would seemingly do that, it seems unlikely that Twitter would make that move.
(Via The Next Web)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment