Twitter has started testing a new Quotes listing with a small subset of users that will replace the ‘Retweets and comments’ section on the main page on the tweets.
Not every user is happy with the new feature that aims to declutter the experience on the micro-blogging platform.
In May, Twitter rolled out a separate listing of ‘Retweets’ and ‘Retweets with Comment’ in each tweet, that allowed users who clicked on the ‘Retweets’ button to view both those Retweets with comments and those without all on one screen.
Twitter is now experimenting with a simplified ‘Quotes’ listing below the tweet.
“The dilemma for Twitter will be around clarity – do users understand the reference to ‘Quotes’ in this capacity enough for it to work as an effective listing change?” reports Social Media Today.
Social media commentator Matt Navarra spotted this new engagement metric.
“Twitter seems to be favoring using ‘Quotes’ instead of ‘Retweets with a comment,” he tweeted.
Reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong also reported seeing the new listing in the back end code of the Twitter app.
The new feature has received mixed reviews from the users who are part of the random test.
Some users said the placement of the new metric was confusing.
“This new putting ‘quotes’ on the right of likes is so confusing. I see the number and automatically think the tweet has an absurdly low number of likes @Twitter if you’re gonna keep randomly updating the UI then at least make it sensible by putting quotes in the middle,” one user commented.