Social conversations made simple: Twitter experiments with new thread layout, Tinder plans to introduce in-app video chats

A major chunk of the global population is living in quarantine and turning to apps like Twitter, Facebook and Tinder to spend the surplus time at their disposal. In the wake of a global lockdown, micro-blogging site Twitter and dating app Tinder have planned to introduce new features in their respective apps.

To start with, Tinder, is all set to launch in-app video chatting later this year. Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, made the announcement in its earnings release on Tuesday. Video chat is undoubtedly one of the largest feature introductions for Tinder. It will allow users to video chat with their match instead of screening their dates through text messages.

Tinder has not yet revealed how it plans to tackle the problem of harassment over video chat but The Verge says that the dating app could either build its own offensive image detection system or seek third-party help to provide one.


"We are confident that demand for human connection will never dissipate and remain committed to fulfilling that need," The Verge quoted the company Match Group as saying.

"This period of social isolation would have been much more dire for single people - who no longer have other avenues to meet and connect such as bars and concerts - if not for our products," it added.

Twitter, on the other hand, is experimenting with a thread layout for iOS and web users. When the person who posted the original tweet is also responding to comments, it can be hard to figure out the flow of the conversation.The new way to display threaded conversations makes it easier to figure out who is responding to whom.

The new layout also makes it easy to track the evolution of a conversation. The official Twitter support account shared a video of how the new interface looks with branched lines and indentations. This also makes it easier for the entire conversation to fit in one view.

The new threaded conversation layout is likely to become a permanent feature if it receives a positive response from the users.