Twitter has decided to make one if its experimental features available to all. Over the next few days, users will begin to see the option to add a poll to their tweets, letting them quantify their social media spats like never before. Polls remain live for 24 hours, and all votes will remain secret.
The company made the feature official in a tweet, though curiously forewent the opportunity to poll its followers as to whether they would use the new polls or not. That may not ultimately matter, though; poll creation seem destined to help drive brand engagement more than individual accounts. “For poll creators, it’s a new way to engage with Twitter’s massive audience and understand exactly what people think,” writes Twitter project manager Todd Sherman in an accompanying blog post announcement this morning. “For those participating, it’s a very easy way to make your voice heard.” The audience Sherman refers to, of course, is only as massive as your follower count, give or take a few retweets, meaning Justin Bieber should be able to work a poll far more effectively than a Twitter civilian.
Coming soon! We're rolling out the ability for everyone to create polls on Twitter: https://t.co/pH5a8q9Ujz pic.twitter.com/ijAKEMUdf1
— Twitter (@twitter) October 21, 2015
Further limiting the potential audience, for now at least, is that Twitter polls only appear in the official Twitter app or on the desktop. Users of Tweetdeck, or third-party Twitter apps, will simply see the question posed, without the option to tap their preferred response.
Polls joins other recent Twitter initiatives like Moments, which lets users follow specific events through a curated collection of tweets, and removing the character limit on Direct Messages, give it an entrenchment in the messaging wars. If Jack Dorsey’s first few months as interim-cum-permanent CEO are any indication, Twitter’s going to see plenty more experimentation to come.
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