We aren’t sure just what it is about minor Tweet details that give Musk a lot of hope in believing that they’ll change the way people perceive Tweets, but he has been cracking down hard on the suckers, giving people more context about whether their Tweets are shared or not. Musk hopes that doing so helps trigger more interest in Tweeting more often.

Tweet Vanity

On this front, Twitter’s latest update comes in the form of a new display of Tweet bookmarks in the details display, better known as – the listing of Tweet info that pops up when you click. In this example, shared by app engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, more metrics are coming to the lower line of your Tweet, which is:

  • Total Retweets

  • Total quote Tweets

  • Total likes

  • Total bookmarks

There’s also the Tweet view count, which Twitter had launched back in December, and was also initially tacked onto the end of that lower stat line, before Twitter updated the format just this January, making it appear less ‘clunky’.

Now, Twitter has added bookmarks to the display anyway, which does seem pretty clustered, thus not really being a valuable stat. However, while that’s true, more data is always better. Perhaps there are some insights that we can glean from each element. The real question is – why is Twitter adding a bookmark counter at all?

The main culprit here is Musk, who seems to be convinced that providing more context as to how people interact with their Tweets, will make them more inclined to share more often. Well, to his credit, there is some truth to what he says. Back in December, Musk felt that the bookmarks function had been behind an ‘Obscure UI’, which had likely stopped a lot of users from utilizing it. He then vowed to make bookmarks a bigger element, while looking to simultaneously add bookmarks into each Tweet’s like count.

It seemed that Musk was trying to boost bookmarks as an alternative to likes – because sometimes, there might be content that you’re interested in reading, but wouldn’t want to necessarily ‘like’ as such. Then again, ‘shadow-liking’ through the use of bookmarks means that you’re effectively amplifying that content either way, somewhat negating the alternative functionality argument.

The Wrap

None can say for certain what the motivation is, but for now, users will have more context as to how people are interacting with their Tweets. Perhaps, in the future, bookmarks can be used differently to dictate algorithmic search. Or something. Anything. We’re hoping that it becomes a new, standalone future someday, instead of simply existing as a ‘re-skin’ of likes.

Sources

http://bit.ly/40kGBfT