CNET:
Twitter is upgrading its popular direct message feature to allow users to receive messages from other users regardless if they follow each other. The move is part of its ongoing effort to try to boost user growth as pressure from Wall Street investors continues.
I’m not sure how or why CNET describes this as a “upgrade”. It’s like the people who run Twitter don’t actually use Twitter. This will open up a whole new way for spammers to abuse the service and, while it might draw in advertisers who want to send “personalized” direct messages to people, it will drive away more users than it could ever to benefit.
UPDATE: The Next Web points out this is “an optional feature” and “The new setting is turned off by default.”
As if anyone not desperate for attention (i.e. marketers) will turn it on. What a waste of effort!
I think they’re trying to get into the messaging game, seeing the success of WhatsApp, Line and those ilk. DMs without follows is basically SMS over Twitter.
I don’t see it working, though.
Grousing about an opt-in feature is kinda dumb. The original story even explained that it was opt-in, no “updates” needed, unless you only read the headline and not actually read the CNET story.
I can imagine a point where they’ll turn it on by default.
It might be ok if Twitter did anything about spammers. But they don’t.
Next thing they need to do is get rid of that spurious 160 character limit. Even if only for DMs.
“UPDATE: The Next Web points out this is ‘an optional feature’ and ‘The new setting is turned off by default.’”
Any bets on how long it stays off by default? I say, in a year or so Twitter will quietly change it’s TOS and new accounts will have it on by default, and a year after that they’ll change the DM functionality in their mobile app so that turning it off is no longer an option. After that it’s a done deal.