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Twitter hints at messaging moves
WhatsApp with this plan? Facebook's $19b cash dangle, perhaps?
Twitter has issued a couple of big, meaty, hints that it wants in on instant messaging.
The avian network already has a messaging service, in the form of “direct messages” that are sent between two parties but don't ever appear in public. Such messages, known as DMs among the Twitterati, aren't very widely used because most apps don't make them easy to collect.
Twitter's hints about enhancements to DMs appeared, of course, as Tweets. Here's the first.
Over the next few weeks, we're rolling out an update that makes deleting DMs more consistent across web and mobile. http://t.co/VNtDXzwuvp
— Twitter Support (@Support) July 18, 2014
That Tweet links to a support page explaining “We're restructuring back-end elements of our direct message system. As a result, users may be unable to send some URLs in direct messages.”
Here's the next hint.
We're also making an update to the Twitter iPhone and Android apps that will allow you to access your entire DM history.
— Twitter Support (@Support) July 18, 2014
That missive suggests that Twitter users will soon be offered an archive of all their direct messages.
Whatever Twitter is up to, and whenever it delivers, the move will attract much attention because the company has wobbled of late, parting ways with senior execs, attracting criticism for possessing a worryingly inactive user base failing to get Wall Street Smiling.
With Facebook's $US19bn buy of messaging outfit WhatsApp generally deemed not (yet) to have represented a stupid way to spend money, perhaps Twitter likes the idea of becoming a better messaging platform? ®