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Rumor: Twitter may be changing @ replies and hashtags

Rumor: Twitter may be changing @ replies and hashtags
Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

  • Updated:

Images of an alpha version of Twitter’s Android app suggest the company is looking at streamlining ‘@ replies’ and hashtags (#), while its head of News Vivian Schiller called them ‘arcane’. The new system would automatically replace @ replies with Twitter names, as Facebook does with mentions.

@ replies are how you mention another user when tweeting, and hashtags are a way of joining a conversation on a particular subject.

This isn’t cut and dry, as Schiller stated later on Twitter that there were no plans to phase out the two iconic forms of Twitter communication. However, it could be that you will still write @ replies and hashtags, but they will not be visible. Some people in Twitter think they are off-putting and confusing to new users, and are looking for ways to make the service more accessible.

Over the past two years, it seemed that Facebook borrowed more from Twitter in terms of ideas, lifting both hashtags and @s and bringing them both to the social network. It has since adopted the automatic hiding of the symbols when you type, which is what Twitter seems to be testing.

As long as people can still use the functions of @s and hashtags, this shouldn’t upset the Twitter users too much. The danger is that like ‘new’ retweets, a new system might somehow change the usefulness of both. Watch this space.

Sources: The Next Web, Buzzfeed, Twitter

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