Twitter Tests New ‘Articles’ Option, Potentially Enabling Long-Form Posts in the App

This could be interesting.

For a long time, Twitter’s been trying to work out the best way to enable people to share more expansive comments and thoughts in the app, which many people do already by adding screenshots of notes to their tweets.

Indeed, back in 2016, when then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explained that that company was looking at potential options to enable longer posts within tweets (which eventually resulted in the expansion of tweet length to 280 characters) he used a screenshot of text to communicate his logic.

Twitter’s since contained its ideas on this front, adding ‘Threads’ as an alternative, while it also purchased newsletter platform Revue, which it now prompts users to try out if they’re looking to post longer text updates.

But it may not have given up on the idea entirely – take a look at this new tweet test spotted by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong.

As you can see, Twitter’s currently working on a new option called ‘Articles’, which appears to provide a means to create blog posts within the app, which would then, you would assume, be shareable, in some form, via tweet.

How exactly that would work is unclear, but it is definitely something Twitter is developing – as a spokesperson explained to SMT:

“We’re always looking into new ways to help people start and engage in conversations on Twitter. We’ll share more about our work here soon.”

A generic response, so no further insight. But it is coming, and it’ll be interesting to see whether this does actually provide an option to replace screenshots of text, in a more compact, workable, searchable way than the current Threads process.

Some have noted that this will likely be a Twitter Blue option, or at least it’ll start that way, with paying subscribers able to create long-form posts that they can then share in the app. The true utility, of course, lay in the details of how it works, and how Twitter will present these longer posts in the app.

Will that feed into a Revue newsletter? Will these posts only live on your profile, with creators then able to share a sample in their tweets, referring users back to the full text? And if so, will there be value in driving referral traffic to long-form posts on Twitter, when you could drive them back to your own website instead?

Again, the true value will be in how it actually works, but it is interesting to note that Twitter hasn’t abandoned the idea of longer-form text in tweets.

Maybe new Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is a fan of the concept, which is why it’s coming back.

We’ll keep you updated on any progress.