Twitter took a page out of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook on Wednesday, adding photo tagging and photo album options to its iOS and Android apps. In recent months, Twitter has been adding a lot of Facebook-like features and many people are asking, "Is Twitter the new Facebook?"
Once you download the new Twitter app for iOS or Android, you will be able to tag your friends in any photo that you tweet. As soon as you upload a photo, the app will ask you if you want to tag anyone in the picture. Then, you tap on your friend's face and type their name into the field. Voila! Your friend is tagged and Twitter will now let them and everyone else know that they are in the photo you just tweeted.
The new photo tags don't require using the @mention, which could possibly hint that the latest rumors about Twitter ditching the # and @ symbols could be correct. Still, even if Twitter does decide to simplify its language, don't expect it to happen overnight.
The newly updated Twitter apps also include the option to tweet multiple photos in one shot. These new tweetable albums are a really great new feature that is sure to make Twitter users more inclined to post pictures. The photo albums and tags are also geared towards making Twitter more social and interactive.
Twitter can sometimes seem like a foreign place that is more geared toward networking, self-promoting and sharing news as opposed to a Facebook-like platform for social interaction. Twitter seems to be incorporating more of the social aspect into its design lately with its new profile and website styling. All of these new features borrow heavily from Facebook.
In a lot of ways, Facebook and Twitter are becoming very similar animals. Facebook borrowed Twitter's hashtag categorization features; Twitter borrowed the profile, photo tagging and photo albums, which begs the question: What's next?
Although the two social networks seem to be blending in some ways, Twitter still seems to be more geared toward professional and business use than towards small social interactions. Facebook is coming at it from the opposite direction, trying to get more professional and less purely social. It will be interesting to see where Twitter and Facebook go next. Improved news functions, advertising and promoted tweets are also expected to debut in the near future as Twitter sets its sights on bigger and better things.
