Twitter vows to improve replies, revamp other features

PanARMENIAN.Net - The first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one. Twitter, which on Wednesday, February 10 reported disappointing earnings at a critical time for Wall Street's faith in the company, is now telling investors one of its core functions — having a conversation with someone — is confusing and needs to be revamped, the Verge reports.

The number of monthly active Twitter users, excluding those who use the service via SMS, fell from 307 million to 305 million last quarter, prompting the company to explain its path to recovery in great detail in letter to shareholders.

"We are going to fix the broken windows and confusing parts, like the .@name syntax and @reply rules, that we know inhibit usage and drive people away," the letter reads, echoing sentiments expressed by CEO Jack Dorsey over the last few months. "We're going to improve the timeline to make sure you see the best Tweets, while preserving the timeliness we are known for." Twitter says it's also going to improve how it acclimates new users to the service, speed up the act of tweeting, and make it easier to be "more expressive" with text, photos, and video, whatever that means. "Relentlessly refining Twitter will enable more people to get more out of Twitter faster."

Dorsey reiterated Twitter's commitment to fix replies on an earnings call. “We have some really weird rules around conversations,” he said. “Nobody understands, and we just need to fix those things." He also made mention of Twitter's onboarding process, calling it "not ideal" and pledging to address how the company guides Twitter users through their first few weeks on the platform.