Twitter is to add a bookmark feature to allow users to privately save a story for reading later.
The extra functionality came about after a company-wide HackWeek project.
Company officials have been sharing details on the social network and now want to garner feedback.
Keith Coleman, vice president of product, confirmed details admitting it was a “top request” from users.
✨🌳🍉Fresh out of HackWeek and coming soon — a new way to save tweets to read later. Been a top request (❤️🇯🇵!) The team would love your feedback as they dial in the design! #SaveForLater 👇 https://t.co/6oo2lhqFbW
— Keith Coleman 🌱😀🙌 (@kcoleman) October 10, 2017
Senior director of product Sriram Krishnan told followers: “We are working on #SaveForLater. As someone who reads a lot on Twitter, I’m so excited for this.”
We are working on #SaveForLater. As someone who reads a LOT on Twitter, I’m so excited for this. 👊 https://t.co/dLuOSszsyH
— Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) October 10, 2017
Product manger Jesar Shah confirmed requests had come from “many of you (especially in Japan!)”.
Hi Twitter! Many of you (especially in Japan!) have said you’d like to be able to easily + privately save Tweets for later. Right now, people bookmark Tweets by liking, DM-ing to themselves, or Retweeting. But this could be easier. https://t.co/iQ9W9mB1uV
— jesar 💭 (@jesarshah) October 9, 2017
She later shared a gif of what the roll out could look like. “Add to bookmarks” would be an option on the additional three dots menu, rather than contained in the prime real estate under a tweet.
For Hack Week @Twitter we started developing #SaveForLater. Here’s the early prototype that we put together in a week, which is likely to change. pic.twitter.com/c5LekvVF3l
— jesar 💭 (@jesarshah) October 9, 2017
We want to build this WITH you all! So we need your help. We’ll be Tweeting to ask for feedback, and share our thinking as we compare designs, experiment, do research, and more.
— jesar 💭 (@jesarshah) October 9, 2017
You can Tweet at us using #SaveForLater. More to come, we are excited to work on this with you all. Follow @tinastsh and me for updates.
— jesar 💭 (@jesarshah) October 9, 2017
That could change as people offer their thoughts about how #SaveForLater should work.
The introduction will remove the ambiguity some users have found by using retweets or the red heart favourite icon as a version of a bookmark.
Those workarounds could give the impression of people endorsing a statement or point of view when it was really a curiosity save. Others were sending tweets to themselves via direct message to read later.
Excited to build this long awaited feature with you all! https://t.co/XGNADQGbOc
— Tina 🇨🇭🇯🇵 (@tinastsh) October 10, 2017
Liked tweets started to receive extra attention when recent changes by Twitter meant a user’s followers would see them in their feed.
I don't like the idea that w/@twitter Likes now showing up in timelines, I'm inadvertently giving big exposure to things I haven't read yet
— Data Science Renee (@BecomingDataSci) September 22, 2017
Now that Twitter puts likes in your feed, you should know mine are✔ Bookmarks for later✔ Viral nonsense❎ Signs of total undying agreement
— Dylan McLemore (@voiceofD) September 25, 2017
While the new functionality has been welcomed, some say the development shows the techie gulf between Twitter and other social media platforms.
On the same day, Facebook was showing off a virtual reality tool which saw founder Mark Zuckerberg “in” Puerto Rico.
FACEBOOK: We are touring Puerto Rico in VR to promote relief efforts and Oculus ConnectTWITTER: Announcing bookmarks, available spring 2019
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) October 10, 2017
The latest addition comes just weeks after Twitter increased the tweet limit for some users from 140 to 280 characters.
A roll out date has not yet been suggested.