Twitter considering new edit feature, according to rumours

Recent reports have suggested that Twitter could follow its rival Facebook in launching an post-editing feature, allowing Tweets to be amended after being published to a news feed.

While the facility is still only in the gossip stage and nothing is definite, a number of industry analysts have praised the idea, pointing to how it could help companies using the social site as part of an internet marketing strategy to keep errors – and embarrassment – to a minimum.

As all businesses know, spelling mistakes and grammatical goofs can be a pain in the neck, bringing professionalism – rightly or wrongly – into question, and potentially diverting more discerning customers elsewhere.

According to Matthew Keys, the edit tool – unlike on Facebook – could only be used once, and would only be available for a limited period following a Tweet’s publication. It is also believed that only slight changes could be made – although just how Twitter would define ‘slight’ is anyone’s guess.

Tweets, of course, can still be deleted. Indeed, many companies on the micro-blogging site will bin a post after picking up on a mistake and replace it with a new, corrected entry. However, this isn’t ideal; it means the Tweet would appear on a user’s news feed, disappear, and then reappear again further up. Since Twitter presents everything in strict chronological order, the fact that a mistake had been made would be fairly obvious.

With all that considered, it’s expected that many users of the network would welcome the feature. Still, it pays to read and reread text – whether in social media posts, press releases or promotional material – to make sure everything’s in order.

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Richard Bell

Richard is a Web Content Editor at Engage Web. He has had work published in a number of independent magazines and spends much of his spare time writing short stories.

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