Now on Twitter: group Direct Messages and mobile video camera

A few months ago, we mentioned some features coming soon, and today we’re excited to start rolling out two of them: group messaging and a new mobile video experience.

Converse with a group, privately

Private conversations on Twitter are a great complement to the largely public experience on the platform. You might prefer to read (or watch) Tweets but converse about them privately. You might want to continue a public conversation privately with a smaller group, or start one based on a Tweet you saw. Many of you use Direct Messages to reach the people and brands you’re only connected to on Twitter. Whatever the case may be, the ability to converse privately with groups gives you more options for how and with whom you communicate on Twitter.

The home timeline is a great place to have conversations but it’s also a place to find great conversation starters.

The group function lets you start conversations with any of your followers and they don’t all need to follow one another in order to chat. You can create a group in just a few taps. When you’re added to a group, you’ll get a notification. If you’re brand new to Direct Messages, here’s a good resource to learn more.

Capture, edit and share videos right from your Twitter app

Tweets have been more than 140 characters for some time. The Twitter you experience today is rich and immersive, full of images, gifs, Vines, audio files and videos from some of the world’s most recognizable figures and brands. And starting today, everyone will soon be able to seamlessly capture, edit and share videos right from the Twitter app, too.

We designed our camera to be simple to use so you can capture and share life’s most interesting moments as they happen. In just a few taps you can add a video to unfolding conversations, share your perspective of a live event, and show your everyday moments instantly, without ever having to leave the app. Viewing and playing videos is just as simple: videos are previewed with a thumbnail and you can play them with just one tap.

Our unique mobile video camera and inline editing experience lets you capture and share videos up to 30 seconds in an instant. Twitter for iPhone users will be able to upload videos from the camera roll as well (a feature that will be available on our Android app soon). Here’s more information on the new mobile video camera.

We’re rolling these features out to all users in the coming days. Starting now, you’ll be able to participate in group conversations other people start with you, and watch any of the public videos users post – like this one, the first Tweet using the mobile video camera, from Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris:

We hope you enjoy the improvement to Direct Messages, and can’t wait to see the videos you capture and share.

https://blog.twitter.com/2015/now-on-twitter-group-direct-messages-and-mobile-video-capture