Twitter has added some new features to its mobile app, including a video feature that allows its users to film, edit, and share videos instantly, along with group messaging feature.
Users can now send messages to up to 20 of their followers at once, even if they aren’t all following each other. Before users were limited to only sending a message to one follower.
This means that there is now the ability to have private group conversations on the service.
The mobile app’s video feature now allows its users to shoot, edit and upload clips of up to 30 seconds straight onto their timelines.
“We designed our camera to be simple to use so you can capture and share life’s most interesting moments as they happen,” Twitter director of product management Jinen Kamdar said in a blog post.
“In just a few taps you can add a video to unfolding conversations, share your perspective of a live event, and show your everyday moments instantly, without ever having to leave the app.”
The decision to roll out a video recording feature has raised concerns as to the fate of Vine, an app Twitter acquired in 2012 that offers six-second video looping.
Jinen Kamdar said he wanted to differentiate the video function from Vine.
He said that there are no plans to integrate Vine into the Twitter app, adding that right now it makes more sense to keep the apps separate.
Twitter has far more users than Vine, 284 million monthly active users versus 40 million respectively.
Twitter is rolling out video functionality to its iOS app in the coming days, with Android coming soon.