Twitter explores Trusted Friends, Reply Language Prompts, and Facets

Last month, Twitter launched Twitter Blue, a subscription-based service that gives you access to several exclusive features for a monthly fee. While the service is limited to Australia and Canada and has yet to roll out to most markets, Twitter is already giving us a glimpse at what it plans to do next.

Twitter has just shown off three concept features (via TechCrunch) that aim to give users greater flexibility and control over their tweets and profiles. The first concept is Trusted Friends, which can be seen as an extension of the reply limit feature that Twitter rolled out last year. Many users already use this feature to limit public replies on certain tweets. However, the tweet itself is always visible to everyone on the platform, allowing anyone to like, retweet, or quote tweet.

With Trusted Friends, users can choose to make their tweets visible to only a small group of people. This can come in handy if the subject matter is personal and you don’t want to draw public attention. This sounds a lot like Instagram’s “close friends” feature, which limits the reach of your story to a group of people you have put in your list of close friends. Twitter’s mockup shows users would be able to toggle between private and trusted friends while composing a tweet. Users could also prioritize showing tweets from trusted friends.

The next idea that Twitter is playing around with is Facets. This feature could come in handy for professionals who are often expected to maintain a certain level of decorum. Facets would allow such personalities to be more dynamic without offending their core audience. For example, you can post work and field-related tweets under your work persona while using other profiles to post something more casual and off-topic. Similarly, followers can choose which facets they want to follow. For example, they can choose to follow only your work Facet instead of following your all tweets.

Finally, Twitter has also showcased a concept called Reply Language Prompts. This would allow you to create a list of words and phrases you want to see in a tweet reply. When someone tries to use that word or phrase while responding to you, Twitter will highlight that word and show a prompt telling them to be mindful of their word choice.