I tweet announced today began testing Notes, a way to write and publish long-form content on the social media platform. The official announcement comes a day after TechCrunch reported that the feature would launch soon.
A small group of writers in the United States, Canada, Ghana, and the United Kingdom now have access to Notes as part of an initial testing phase. Twitter says Notes can be read on and off Twitter by people in most countries. Users who are part of the testing phase will have access to a new “Write” tab, where they can write and access all their notes. These users will also have a new “Notes” tab on their profile that holds their published work to make it easier for their followers to find their long-form content.
With the new feature, users will be able to create articles using rich formatting and uploaded media, which can then be tweeted and shared with followers after publication. Users will have the option to insert photos, videos, GIFs and tweets into their Notes. Like tweets, Notes will have their own link and can be posted, retweeted, DMed, liked and bookmarked.
Twitter Notes has the potential to change the way some people use Twitter to share their deepest thoughts and ideas. The new feature can be especially useful for those users who rarely publish long article content and don’t want the hassle of setting up and maintaining their blog or website. It’s also worth noting that the feature marks one of Twitter’s most significant changes since doubling the character limit from 140 to 280 characters.
The new feature will address situations where it can be difficult to follow topics by allowing users to put all the text in a Note. Notes will also address the situation where users had to post screenshots of their Notes app in order to post a large chunk of text.
The introduction of Twitter Notes may present some competition to long-form blogging platforms such as WordPress or Medium, the latter incidentally developed by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. If Twitter decides to integrate newsletters into Notes, the feature could potentially compete with popular platforms like Substack.
Twitter also announced today that it is launching a new Twitter Write team that is focused on building tools for readers. The company is merging its newsletter subscriptions into Twitter Write, which is now the brand it’s using to encompass its long-form writing efforts, including Notes and newsletters. The Write team will focus on improving the Twitter experience for writers. The social media giant notes that its definition of writers includes journalists, bloggers, newspaper publishers, comedians, content creators, social media community managers, poets, screenwriters and more.
