Twitter Search Can Now Be Filtered by News, Photos, and Videos

Twitter has added some cool new filtering features to its iOS and Android apps to make it easier to figure out what's happening in particular areas of interest.

Focused on discovery, both apps now offer the option to search for only pictures, videos, or news stories. Previously you could only search through usernames or entire tweets. The videos filter will be particularly popular among Vine users.Members also have the option to view All Tweets by toggling between top tweets and all tweets at the top of search results. This could be beneficial to people using Twitter for research purposes. It’s also worth noting that the results can be filtered to display only the tweets from people you follow.

(H/T Sprout Insights)

Twitter Experiment Allowing Private Messages To Anyone Now Over

Twitter often experiments with new features by rolling them out to the public to use and comment on. Some eventually become permanent and others are withdrawn depending on what users think about them. The latest Twitter experimental feature was allowing private messages to any user. Prior to this you could only send private messages to a person following you. The experiment allowed anyone to private message anyone.

That experiment appears to have been rather short lived. After less than a month since its release, the latest Twitter experiment has gone up in smoke.

Does this mean that feature will make a triumphant return as a permanent part of the platform or has it gone away forever? No one knows. As usual, Twitter is not talking (or tweeting) on the subject.

Twitter, as expected, has been pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing, stating that the company is constantly releasing experiments and that this feature was just one of them. There’s no word whether we’ll see it again in another iteration or if Twitter has something bigger plans for Direct Messages.

What do you think? Was it a good feature? Does it even matter?

Be sure to follow us on Twitter!