Twitter confirms it's working on a built-in Notes feature

Twitter is testing a new long-form blogging feature called Twitter Notes, the company confirmed in a tweet. The platform says the feature is currently available to a select group of users in the US, UK, Canada and Ghana, and that "in most countries" people can read notes on and off Twitter.

Twitter shared how this feature will work in two different GIFs. Users can click the "Compose" tab to start composing the note, and then embed the note in their Tweet when they're finished. Several authors have already published notes on the platform, which appear as long posts that may contain a mix of tweets, videos and images.

A small group of writers are helping us test the notes. They can be read on and off Twitter by people in most countries. pic.twitter.com/IUVVkr2vnl

Leaks and reports of such a feature have been circulating for months, including a Tuesday report from TechCrunch that initially suggested (but now confirms) that Twitter is working on the feature. In May, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong shared screenshots of a feature called Twitter Notes in some places and Twitter Articles in some places. It lets users create formatted blog posts complete with pictures, links, and embedded tweets. More screenshots of the same tool were shared in April by another app researcher, Neema Ovji, showing options for users to share posts with their followers or create standalone links to posts to share elsewhere on the web Were.

Adding long-form writing to Twitter could significantly alter the character of the platform, which has long been defined by short-form writing (previously, tweets were just 140 characters in length, before doubling in 2017 to 280 characters). until). Twitter, on the other hand, is arguably already full of long written punches, shared as threads of tweets or screenshots of others' articles or users' own writing (usually captured in the iOS Notes app). has been tweeted.

By incorporating longer writing into its platform, Twitter can potentially capture more of the value of these posts. Publishing articles or notes directly to Twitter will result in the text being indexed for marketing and search purposes. It could also coincide with the company's nascent newsletters feature. In 2021, Twitter bought newsletter firm Revue to take on rivals such as Substack, and has since integrated Revue newsletters into users' Twitter profiles. However, this feature has not yet gained widespread popularity.