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Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

Twitter’s Notes lets you go beyond 280 characters and include photos, videos, GIFs and Tweets.

Danny Goodwin on June 22, 2022 at 12:43 pm | Reading time: 2 minutes

Twitter is testing a new feature that would eliminate the constraints of its 280-character tweet limit and allow users to publish long-form tweets.

Twitter confirmed the test via a tweet.

When this will become available to all Twitter users? It’s unclear. Twitter noted: “We’re excited for the moment when everyone can use Notes, but for now, our focus is on building it right. A large part of that is engaging with writers and building community.”

For now, Twitter plans to test it over the next two months with a small group of writers from Canada, Ghana, the UK and the U.S.

Why we care. This could be the solution to those long Twitter threads, introduced in 2017. While those numbered threads had the ability to generate more engagement (e.g., reactions, replies), they were also incredibly hard to follow – especially spin-off conversations.

What it looks like. In Twitter Notes, it looks like you will be able to add:

• Formatting: Bold, italic and strikethrough text; insert ordered/unordered lists; add links.
• Media: You can add one GIF, one video, or up to four images.
• Tweets: You can either embed tweets by pasting URLs or from bookmarked tweets.

Notes also has a “Focus mode,” that makes the article composer full-screen.

You can see some screenshots shared in a thread by @wongmjane.

The continued homogenization of social media platforms. Just about every platform right now is trying to duplicate popular features from other platforms (especially TikTok) in an effort to stay relevant. Twitter is no exception.

But this new-to-Twitter feature – if it becomes widely adopted – would basically put an end to what initially made Twitter unique: its reliance on brevity.

Elon Musk approves. Earlier this year, in response to a long (and interesting) thread by former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong about Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, Musk pointed out that long-form tweets were long overdue on Twitter.

Formerly known as Twitter Articles. This feature was first spotted in February.