Twitter Is Testing Threaded Replies And Status Indicators

Back in July this year, social network Twitter updated its Android app with a bottom navigation bar that makes it easier for the users to navigate around the app without requiring any hand gymnastics. Well now, Twitter has started testing two new features which the company hopes will make Twitter more “conversational”.

Sara Haider – Head of Product at Twitter – announced that the company is testing two new features to make Twitter “feel more conversational”. One of these features is “reply threading” which will show replies on Twitter in a threaded (nested, if you want to call that) manner, thus making it much more easier to read them – something similar to the comments on Facebook (and Instagram too).

Haider says these changes are being considered in an effort to make Twitter more conversational.

“hey Twitter, we’ve been playing with some rough features to make it feel more conversational here. Presence and reply threading. Still early and iterating on these ideas. thoughts?”

The online status feature would be intended to show followers if a user is currently online, and in turn make it easier to communicate with them. Fortunately, those following Haider’s tweet were quick to point out that such an indicator could make the harassment problem much worse, which she then responded to by saying that users would have “full control” over sharing their online presence.

There’s certainly a potential for these changes, namely the threaded replies, to make Twitter easier to read and follow, but it doesn’t seem likely to draw in new or lapsed users. There was no mention of a timeline for when these features might be released, and there’s still the possibility they might not be released at all.

It’s unclear when either of these features would roll out to the general public, though it seems they’re available to those in a select test group.