Step aside AI and VR, we’ve finally stepped into the technological future – with threaded tweets! Twitter users have only been begging for this since the social network’s inception, and the apparently difficult-to-make technology has officially launched.
Along with creating longer tweets (what up, 280 character count?!), threaded tweets have been the plea of Twitter users everywhere. Now, after a decade, the tool for creating tweetstorms has been integrated into the social network.
“A few weeks ago, we expanded our character count to make it easier for people to fit what they’re thinking into a Tweet,” Twitter stated in a blog post. “But we know people also may want to serialize a longer story or thought, or provide ongoing commentary on an event or topic. That’s where this update to threads comes in!”
When posting a thread, the initial tweet shows up in the timeline as normal to two more tweets from the thread. In order to read the rest of the thread, followers need to tap “show this thread.”
While threads have, in a way, been possible since 2014 when Twitter implemented linking replies to original tweets, this new tweetstorm thread system is the newest user-created feature that has become an official component within the app. Other user-created features include: the retweet, the @ mention, and the hashtag.
Apps dedicated to threading tweets have been in the works dating as far back as 2008 (Twitter launched in March of 2006). As Twitter has become a major platform for sharing and dissecting news, threading is the quickest way to share an entire story in one, concise place.
To use, write out your first tweet, then hit the plus button in the lower right-hand corner of the tweet composer, and a new area will pop up within the composer where you can write your tweet.
Keep doing this until the thread is complete, hit “tweet”, and watch as the entire thread posts all at once. Should you need to update the thread, you can go in later and hit “add another tweet.”
This has already been making major use as political and entertainment news is being threaded via Twitter. Now, we have the next decade to enjoy this as we wait for the next big Twitter thing!
Staff Writer, Taylor Leddin is a publicist and freelance writer for a number of national outlets. She was featured on Thrive Global as a successful woman in journalism, and is the editor-in-chief of The Tidbit. Taylor resides in Chicago and has a Bachelor in Communication Studies from Illinois State University.
