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Thanks, we hate it – Twitter is testing advertising in replies

There are many features which have been welcomed by Twitter users after long tests but there are many more which are just plain awful.

Case in point, Twitter has just started testing a new feature which would add advertising into replies. The test is global but restricted to the iOS and Android app for now. If you are selected for the test you will see advertising after the first, third and eighth reply under a tweet.

Twitter revenue product lead Bruce Falck shared a GIF illustrating what the advertising would look like in the wild.

“As we experiment with this format over the coming months, we’ll focus on understanding how it performs and how it impacts the people and conversations around it,” Falck wrote in a thread.

Reactions to this news have been mixed. Creators seem to like the idea of being able to opt-in to have ads displayed in replies while getting a cut of the revenue. That is rather cool but as Falck told the user who asked about the above Twitter is “still working through it all”, so revenue sharing is not confirmed.

However, users who aren’t concerned with earning money through Twitter are not fans of the test. Many have pointed out that advertising interrupts the flow of a conversation.

We do wonder whether this feature will lead to fewer engagements on the platform as users try to avoid advertising.

One thing is clear, changes to platforms such Tweetdeck and the Twitter mobile apps are clearly to bring more advertising to more users.

The best suggestion we’ve seen though is a user asking Falck to just let users pay a subscription to remove advertising altogether. While we have mixed feelings about paying for a Twitter subscription, we do pay to remove advertising on YouTube and that improves the experience substantially.

For now we, and many others are not fans of this proposal.

https://twitter.com/TomNewspring/status/1448415307224141827

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