Twitter rolled out a new version of its app for iOS and Android today. It's similar to what we'd already seen in the experimental versions (like the ability to swipe between timelines, and features meant to encourage you to interact with other users via direct and public messages). But there's one major difference: You can now send photos via direct message.
It's a big change to the way Twitter fundamentally works. Previously, when you uploaded a picture to Twitter it was public by default, which was why you couldn't send them via direct message. Now if you want to send a photo privately, that only you and the recipient can see, you can do that from right within the app.
This will probably be spun as Twitter taking on Snapchat, but that doesn't seem quite right. Twitter's photo messages don't expire like Snapchat's do. In fact, they can be saved to a device. But it does seem like a play to get in on the increasingly hot messaging market. The ability to send photos - along with a far more prominent Messages button - lets Twitter insinuate itself into the messaging wars. It comes just before Instagram is expected to announce its own private messaging feature, and gives the company the ability to threaten popular services like WhatsApp and Kik-and even more to the point, SMS.
Private messaging in lieu of SMS is already massive in Asia, and growing phenomenally in the United States. Carriers have lost tens of billions of dollars in SMS revenue in recent years, as services like WhatsApp, Kik, LINE, and WeChat have exploded, particularly among a very valuable youth market.
Given Twitter's strategy of steady incremental change in recent years, this probably isn't the end point of its play for messaging. But it certainly seems like a new beginning for one its oldest features.
Mat Honan is a senior writer for Wired's Gadget Lab and the co-founder of the Knight-Batten award-winning Longshot magazine.
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