Twitter All Out With New Status Feature Test With Selected Users

Keynotes

• Some Twitter users have begun to notice a new Status feature that allows them to identify their tweets with one of many pre-written labels.
• In a statement to TechCrunch, a corporate official acknowledged the restricted test, while Twitter users have started posting images of the functionality in action.
• “We are testing a feature that allows you to add a status subject from a preset list to your Tweets for a limited period to offer extra context for your followers,” a Twitter spokeswoman stated.

Some Twitter users have begun to notice a new Status feature that allows them to identify their tweets with one of many pre-written labels. In a statement to TechCrunch, a corporate official acknowledged the restricted test, while Twitter users have started posting images of the functionality in action.

“We are testing a feature that allows you to add a status subject from a preset list to your Tweets for a limited period to offer extra context for your followers,” a Twitter spokeswoman stated. “So, whether you’re going to drop a hot Tweet thread, share your shower musings, or suffer from the Mondays, your Tweets can better express what you’re up to.”

According to the feature’s screenshots, many of the statuses appear to be aimed to replace the titles and emoji that Twitter users frequently use at the beginning of their tweets and Twitter threads. There’s an “A thread” status with the Spool of Thread emoji, a “Spoiler alert” with the Warning Sign emoji, and an “AMA” with a microphone. The ability to include this information in a Status should save users important character space in their tweets.

App researcher Jane Manchun Wong earlier found the in-development functionality in Twitter’s code. Statuses could previously be attached to either a tweet or a complete profile, but this current test appears just to let users connect them to single tweets.

You may click a status to see more tweets that include the same phrases. A demonstration of the Status function in operation is shown below.

We wouldn’t blame you if the functionality reminds you of old LiveJournal or AIM statuses. But what’s more intriguing is the feature’s origins in Twitter’s own history. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone highlighted how the platform was originally conceived as a “mobile status update service” designed to allow people to share what they were up to at any point in time in a blog post written over a decade ago.

However, by 2009, Stone claimed that Twitter had surpassed its original function and was now more of a general-purpose information network. The new Status feature does not appear to be functional.

The new Status feature doesn’t appear to be changing that tendency, but it does bring back some of Twitter’s previous purposes.

There’s no indication on whether or not the Status function will be expanded. It’s part of a growing list of in-development features at the social media network, which includes mixed-media tweets, which allow you to add both photos and video to a single post, a downvote button, and the ability to reward tweets.