Twitter‘s search engine now supports queries based on emojis, emoji reference website Emojipedia revealed on Friday. The addition of the new functionality to Twitter Search means users can now ennoble their queries with emojis or base them solely on ideograms and smileys that were popularized by electronic communications platforms in recent years. While the latest feature likely won’t change the user experience of the majority of people on Twitter in a significant manner, it can still be useful in certain scenarios. For example, up until recently, tweets consisting solely of emojis were almost impossible to find using Twitter’s search engine, which finally isn’t an issue anymore. The newly introduced functionality already works in both the Twitter Android app and the social media platform’s browser client, numerous users have confirmed. Seeing how the mobile app wasn’t updated through the Google Play Store since Monday when emoji search still wasn’t supported by the service, it seems that Twitter rolled out the new feature with a server-side switch.
The San Francisco-based social media giant has yet to issue a statement regarding its support for emoji-based search queries, but the company is expected to detail the functionality soon seeing how it traditionally announces all changes to its platform on its official blog. Due to that state of affairs, it’s still unclear why exactly did Twitter decide to commit resources to support emojis in its search engine, though the release of this feature is in line with the company’s mostly unpredictable pattern of additions and changes to its social media service that’s been suffering from an identity crisis of sorts in recent years.
According to the company’s Q1 2017 financials that were released earlier this week, Twitter is currently trying to improve its online platform in a way that will establish it as the go-to source for news and entertainment while simultaneously improving its value as a communications tool. This versatility-focused strategy is seemingly helping Twitter grow its user numbers, though its acquisition rates still aren’t translating to more earnings as the firm’s revenue declined for the first time ever during the first quarter of the year after advertisers started moving their marketing budgets to other online platforms.