Twitter gets High(ly)

Adding highlight sharing to the list of existing features is definitely a way to improve Twitter's current capabilities, but remains to see what impact will have in the long run. For now, the first step has been made by adding the Highly team to Twitter.

When asked about the deal, a Twitter spokesperson provided the following statement to TechCrunch: "We are excited to welcome the Highly team to Twitter. Their expertise will accelerate our product and design thinking around making Twitter more conversational."

Unfortunately, the deal also has a sad side for Highly users — both the iOS and Slack apps will go down on April 26. The good part is that the process will not harm any existing highlights and the paid "Crowd Control" for private highlight sharing and Highly for Teams are being turned into freely available pieces of code.

In the future, Twitter users might be able to shift their approach from sharing headlines to sharing highlights, thus making it easier to start conversations. After all, we often end up visiting articles that are nothing more but click bait. Thanks to highlights, one can be sure that the article targeted has at least some interesting parts.

Have you ever used Highly or a similar product? What do you think about Twitter's move?