Twitter is constantly working on new features behind closed doors and then with limited number of users before rolling out to the public. This is a standard practice to ensure the new features work the best on the platform and early feedback helps with the decision of releasing or benching any beta features. Twitter users have been craving for an edit button, which has neither hit beta tests or reported to be under development so far.
One of the most demanded features in recent times, the editable tweets are not in the offing. In fact, when asked about it, Sara Haider, director of product management at Twitter, told Engadget that there's nothing to share about edit button for tweets right now. However, don't lose all hope as the response continued as Haider added that Twitter "is always working on ways to make the experience better."
Adding to that point of making the "experience better," Twitter revealed series of new features that will soon be rolled out to a limited group of people to test and find out whether it's worthy of a wider rollout.
"We're making some pretty big changes to the way conversations look and feel on Twitter, and we don't want to just unveil that one day and what if you don't like it or it's not working for you? We really want to bring our community along for this journey and be a part of this. We want to this kind of thing more often," Haider said.
Twitter talked about its new conversation features in an interview with Engadget at CES 2019. They include status updates like the one we've seen on Slack appearing next to the user's avatar, online indicators and "ice breaker" tweets to promote discussions on the platform.
"We want to develop a service for the people that are using it, and we have to involve people in that way. We have a platform that the world uses to speak their mind, why not use that as part of our development process?" Haider said.
Haider also addressed the biggest pain points of viral Twitter threads. Twitter is looking to organise tweets in a thread by making them more visually-appealing through collapsing replies or indentations.
While anyone would be able to apply to be a beta tester of these new features, Twitter will select only a few thousand. Selected users will be able to discuss features in real time with their followers and share any feedback on the features.
