Twitter has announced that it will be discontinuing its CoTweeting feature, which allowed two users to co-author a tweet. The company stated that the feature would immediately cease to exist and that users would only be able to view the set of co-tweets for a month before they were automatically converted to retweets on the co-author’s profile.
Background on CoTweeing
Twitter started testing CoTweeting last July, with the goal of learning how people use this feature to "strengthen their collaborations with other accounts." However, after several months of testing, Twitter has decided to discontinue the feature. Although there might still be hope for the feature to return in another form, as Twitter stated that they are "still looking for ways to implement this feature moving forward."
Elon Musk’s Statement
In a tweet, Elon Musk explained why Twitter took the step to discontinue CoTweeting. According to Musk, the social network decided to focus on enabling writers to add essays as attachments to tweets. However, it is not clear why this was a hindrance to writing.
Why Was CoTweeting Discontinued?
While Twitter’s official reasoning behind shutting down CoTweeting was generic, Elon Musk provided some insight into the company’s decision-making process. It seems that Twitter wants to focus on other features and functionality, such as adding essays as attachments to tweets. This could be a step towards introducing long-form writing capabilities on the platform.
Long-Form Writing on Twitter
Before Musk took over at Twitter, the company had introduced a long-form writing program called Twitter Notes. However, it was immediately axed under new management. Over the last few months, Musk has hinted about introducing long text attachments. In December, Twitter designer Andrea Conway posted some concepts to indicate how long text might look on the platform.
Possible Implementation of Long Text Attachments
In January, app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi posted a video showing that Twitter might curtail long posts at 280 characters with a "show more…" button at the end. If users click on it, the post will expand to show the full text. However, there is no confirmation that Twitter will stick to this implementation.
CoTweet’s Demise Not Entirely Surprising
The discontinuation of CoTweeting is not entirely surprising given Musk & co.’s recent decisions to slash projects and features such as ad-free articles, Twitter Notes, Twitter Toolbox for developers, Twitter Tiles (a new version of Twitter media cards), and very recently, third-party Twitter clients.
Timeline of Recent Events
Here’s a brief timeline of recent events related to Twitter’s plans for long-form writing:
- December 2022: Twitter designer Andrea Conway posts some concepts to indicate how long text might look on the platform.
- January 2023: App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi posts a video showing that Twitter might curtail long posts at 280 characters with a "show more…" button at the end.
Conclusion
The discontinuation of CoTweeting is just one part of Twitter’s larger plans for its platform. With Elon Musk at the helm, it seems that Twitter wants to focus on enabling writers to add essays as attachments to tweets and possibly introducing long-form writing capabilities. However, only time will tell if these plans come to fruition.
