Twitter will now let you record and share videos in Direct Messages
Twitter adds support for capturing and sharing video in Direct Messages Richard Woods / Neowin : Twitter now allows users to record and send videos through Direct Messages Tweets: Twitter Support / @support : Starting today, you can capture & share videos in your Direct Messages. It's rolling out globally on iOS & Android. pic.twitter.com/b5CgWyTQ3H
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second step of a deliberate build-out of Twitter's private side. A year earlier the company rolled out group Direct Messaging alongside 30-second video capture for tweets, and late in 2015 it shipped native video support in its developer kit so third-party apps could handle video without leaving Twitter's stack. Today's change closes the loop by letting users record and share video from inside the DM thread itself, globally on iOS and Android.
First-order effects
- iOS and Android users can now capture and send video without leaving a Direct Message conversation, removing the workaround of recording elsewhere and attaching.
Second-order effects
- Richer DMs give Twitter an engagement surface that competes with dedicated messaging apps for private sharing, complementing the public-timeline video tools it built through 2015.
Third-order effects
- If the cadence holds — group DMs, then video, and later audio DMs tested after audio arrived in tweets — Twitter's messaging layer evolves from a text utility into a full media channel running parallel to the public feed.
The trend: Social platforms are converging their public feeds and private inboxes into a single media-sharing stack, shipping the same formats to both surfaces one release at a time.