Twitter has just announced two more new features that it hopes will get users back on the platform. The first feature adds group messaging option in the form of Direct Messages while the second feature enables users to upload video straight from their phone.
Twitter has been aggressively adding new features to enrich the user experience on its platform. It has had Direct Messages service for a while now where users could send private messages to their followers. Starting today, Twitter will allow these Direct Messages to be sent between a number of users. It will act as a private group or community where messages will only be seen by the people that are in it.
Twitter clarified in its introductory blog post that all of the users don’t have to follow each other in order to be in a group direct message. The conversation can be initiated with any of the followers and more users can be added later. Users who are added to a group direct message will receive a notification and, obviously, receive all the direct messages that follow.
The mobile video feature kind of goes head to head with Instagram and Vine. They both of the feature, but Twitter wants to make it even easier for them to shoot video and directly tweet. Twitter will also let you edit your videos immediately after you shoot them with a built-in video editor.
The mobile video capture and share feature is currently rolling out and will be available in the coming weeks. Once that does, users on Android and iOS will have to launch the Twitter app and then they can shoot video, edit and tweet it to their followers. iOS users initially will also have the feature to add videos from their camera roll. Twitter said that a similar feature will be heading to Android phone soon.