Twitter starts testing ‘CoTweets’ to let users co-author tweets – TechCrunch

Twitter has started testing a new “CoTweets” feature that allows users to co-author tweets, the social media giant confirmed to TechCrunch. The company says it’s testing CoTweets for a limited time to find out how people will use the feature.

“We continue to explore new ways for people to collaborate on Twitter,” a Twitter spokesperson said. “We are testing CoTweets for a limited time to learn how people and brands can use this feature to grow and reach new audiences, and strengthen their collaborations with other accounts.”

Users who have access to CoTweets see the feature appear in the tweet composer via a pop-up prompting them to “tweet with CoTweets”. Twitter notes that you can invite another account to share ownership of a tweet with you. If they accept, a CoTweet will be created showing you both as co-authors. If you select someone to share ownership of a tweet with you, they will receive a request which they can choose to accept or decline.

Considering Twitter says it’s testing the feature for a limited time, it’s clear the company wants to see how people are using CoTweets and then tweak and refine the feature before officially rolling it out to all users.

Twitter has been working on its CoTweets feature for some time now. The feature was first extracted from the app code by the mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi, who, back in December 2021shared references he found that indicated Twitter was working on a way for two people to become co-authors of a single tweet.

The new addition of CoTweets is another indication that Twitter is thinking about how its platform could be leveraged in different ways beyond being a virtual town square or real-time news network. The new feature could also be useful for creators who want to showcase brand deals with companies.

However, the co-tweets feature could have a number of other use cases besides branding deals. It could be used to publish combined statements of organisations, companies or people; to promote work with multiple authors or creators, such as podcasts, newsletters, or news articles. And it could also be used for fun by people who want to team up on tweets.