Twitter is on a roll! They seem to be announcing new features almost everyday. First, it was the Do-Not-Track option, the logo change, Hashtag Pages, Tailored Trends and now Expanded Tweets. Twitter announced on its official blogpost that the feature will be effective starting today. Expanded tweets offer more content for you and does not involve you being redirected to the site where the content is hosted.
Twitter had introduced the original concept of an extended tweet when it introduced its current design. This was limited to video and photo viewing. Soon enough Tweetdeck started showing video, image and soundcloud previews inline. The new Expanded Tweets includes all this and then some more.
Check out the images below.
Source: blog.twitter.com
Source: blog.twitter.com
Source: blog.twitter.com
Thus we can see that Twitter has partnered with various news and media publishing sites to deliver content on tweets you see, thus making tweets more engaging and bypassing the 140 character level in terms of information. The companies that have partnered with Twitter on this include The Wall Street Journal, Breaking News and TIME. Image and video partners include WWE, BuzzFeed, TMZ, BET, Lifetime and Dailymotion. The group will keep growing as many publications will now realize how Twitter will help get them their readers. On the revenue side, this is a brilliant move by Twitter as this will easily get them more media publishing partners.
Soundcloud Integration:
Soundcloud has also revealed itself as an Expanded tweets partner according to TechCrunch. This means that users can now listen to a whole song within the tweet itself just like Tweetdeck. It will also allow users to follow Soundcloud and the content creator right from the tweet itself even if someone else posts the link. Users will also be able to ‘Like’ and ‘Download’ audio tracks directly from the tweet. I think this is pretty awesome for Indie musicians in terms of exposure and building a fan base.
Alexander Ljung, Founder and CEO of Soundcloud tweeted confirming this news.
Today @soundcloud is unmuting @twitter! Our gorgeous widgets now embedded directly on twitter for any tweets wt soundcloud links.
— Alexander Ljung (@alexanderljung) June 13, 2012
Here are some images of the Soundcloud Integration into Twitter.
Source: Techcrunch
We are sure that these features will make using Twitter’s desktop and mobile interface even more engaging, useful and fun.
What are your thoughts on all these integrations? Will they make a positive difference for Twitter as a growing social network?
I was expecting it anyway as Twitter is definitely on roll with new add-ups