Twitter has kicked off a series of tests meant to polish a new feature for the microblogging platform called Bookmarks, which is essentially the formal name it has given to the “Save for later” functionality announced last month. The Bookmarks feature is designed to let you mark Tweets for later viewing, i.e. add them to a separate section of the app. Tina Koyama, one of Twitter’s product designers, explained via several tweets that the company intends for the tests to evaluate the different designs and functions it has selected for Bookmarks but didn’t clarify how long the experiment is set to last.
It consequently remains unclear when and where the new bookmarking solution will appear, though it is expected to sit alongside other functionalities of the service like Direct Messages and Moments, as seen in the mockup below, presumably so as to allow users to easily access their Bookmarks at any given time. The feature offers a more straightforward alternative to existing tools on Twitter meant to flag Tweets that you wish to view at a later time, not to mention that it also keeps those bookmarks private, whereas retweets and likes are public. The bookmarking tool can also prove helpful at times when you wish to save posts on Twitter amid the rapidly moving stream of Tweets on the site, which may otherwise be left forgotten as you keep scrolling through the never-ending feed.
Although the feature is relatively late to the social media game, the bookmarking tool should still be a welcome feature that could prove to be useful to Twitter’s more than 300 million monthly active users. That is in addition to other features Twitter has recently introduced to its platform aimed at improving its scope and general versatility. Earlier this month, Twitter finally expanded the character limit for tweets from 140 to 280 characters to let you create them more freely without worrying about cramming your thoughts. The character limit expansion is applicable to most languages save for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. The bookmarking feature, on the other hand, should roll out to all users once its testing is concluded.