Twitter rolls out updated features for developers

PanARMENIAN.Net - The tweet is stretching further beyond its 140-character roots, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Twitter hosted an event Tuesday, April 2 evening in San Francisco for developers, and described a few updates to how content like photos, links and text snippets can be shown on the short-messaging service.

Among the changes, developers can chose to embed a link within a tweet that lets Twitter users tap inside a tweet to download a mobile app, or jump directly to content in the app if the user already has it on their phone. Retailers and others also can show a photo and short description within a tweet of a physical product like a handbag, with a link to the retailer website.

Twitter announced the updates in a blog post, and said the new features are being launched first with select partners, such as social network Path, mobile game Angry Birds and Etsy, the digital marketplace for homemade crafts and products.

The changes could be a preview of new ways to make money if, for example, mobile-game developers want to pay to widely circulate tweets that pitch new people to download their game apps. Many developers are paying Facebook for similar kinds of promotion on that service, the Journal says.

Twitter also has gone out of its way to stress friendly relations with developers, who have had a sometimes-awkward relationship with Twitter as the company has clamped down on services that offer alternatives to its core features.

The expanded content options for developers are part of the “cards” feature the company has been rolling out to let people and companies show more than just plain text in their posts. Twitter now allows select users to show short summaries and photos of news stories, for example, without a user having to leave Twitter.

Some photos and online video also can be viewed directly within a tweet without jumping from a link to another website. In its blog post Tuesday, Twitter said people who have used Twitter “cards” want to be able to share different types of content as well.