If you’re an avid tweeter who has always wanted to add your own voice to a retweet, your time has finally come. Twitter has officially launched its “retweet with comment” feature, after almost a full year of testing.
The “retweet with comment” feature is a lot more in-depth than just being able to add your own words to a retweet. The feature also allows users to embed a tweet within their own tweets, which is a new way to post more than the usual 140 character limit. Twitter has officially advertised the new “retweet with comment” feature as the “revamped quote tweet.” While that may seem like a simple app update, it’s quite an improvement from the previous way of interacting with other Twitter users’ posts.
The original 140 character limit issued by Twitter was the one thing that set it apart from other social media platforms. However, now that Twitter has become more than just a means of socializing because of it’s heavy use by public figures, businesses, and organizations, Twitter had to give users a little more space to express themselves. Reportedly, the new “retweet with comment,” feature takes away from Twitter hostility that often arises due to users not getting credit for their tweets when someone shares them. According to the Independent , Twitter will notify a user if their tweet is embedded within another users tweet.
In the past, Twitter character restrictions have prevented users from giving complete details but some techies believe , that it also prevented users from posting tweets that made sense. Taiwan-based tech writer Catherine Shu stated that the new feature helps to preserve the meaning of the tweets by allowing users to keep the words they’ve already typed along with the retweet.
With all the possibilities the “retweet with comment” feature brings for users, it always has setbacks for social media apps and platforms. For example, the OneShot app which tweeters have used to get around the character restrictions in the past may no longer be needed. Other products like TwitLonger and JumboTweet could also be on their way out because of the “reweet with comment” feature.
The new Twitter feature is not available on all devices yet. Currently, the “retweet with comment” feature can only be used on the web and iPhone. Twitter users who have Android or Windows operating systems on their phones and tablets cannot use the new Twitter feature.
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