We have all been there, done that; sent a tweet in haste, only to see we did a big typo. But the thing with tweets is that they are in a way cast in stone. The only way to correct a typo or change your statement is by breaking the entire stone; delete the tweet. Well, that might soon change with the Editable Tweets coming soon.
Jack Dorsey floating the idea of Editable Tweets
During an interview with Joe Rogan, Jack Patrick Dorsey, a co-founder, and CEO of Twitter said the company is mulling on introducing a feature that allows users to edit already sent out.
Over the years, there are many features Twitter has been releasing on its social media platform. Ironically, some of the things users have been asking for the most, have not been forthcoming. As you can imagine, the ability to edit a Tweet is among the top on that list.
Yet, Twitter has been working hard to release new features, which some would argue users are not even asking for.
Why Twitter has been adamant on enabling Tweet Edits
Dorsey explains that the whole idea of Tweet was based on the traditional SMS service. Once you sent an SMS, there is no way of taking it back and edit the message. It is pretty much a done deal.
However, Dorsey admits that it has come a time the company became more flexible on the matter. He disclosed that internally, Twitter has kickstarted the process of making tweets editable. Though it will probably do it in a manner that lets followers know that a certain Tweet has been edited. Pretty much what we see with Facebook edited posts.
Dorsey further said that the company is thinking of enabling followers to see the original version of an edited Tweet upon request. Alternatively, instead of making tweets editable, Twitter is thinking of introducing a 5-second to 30-second delay for sending a tweet to make it possible for the user to ‘change their mind’ and stop a sending tweet dead on its track.
However, this last move could very well kill the real-time nature of the conversational flow, which makes Twitter what it is. Killing this real-time conversational flow with delays in sending a tweet might just work not in favor of the company.