Twitter was taken by storm earlier today due to a cross-site scripting vulnerability, exploits of which spread like wildfire on the micro-sharing network. The company issued a statement a short while ago, saying the security flaw was identified and now fully patched.
Now that Twitter says it’s safe to return to the #NewTwitter (I finally got it this morning), check this out: the web app now comes with two new features, namely reply-to-all and auto-complete of usernames. Yes, many will already be familiar with those features because they use third-party clients or web apps, but let’s not forget a ton of users use Twitter.com.
Both new features are actually two out of ten suggestions recently made by blogger Hillel Fuld; Twitter developer Dustin Diaz had promptly responded in the comments of Fuld’s post and told him to expect some of his beefs addressed shortly.
Looks like Diaz wasn’t kidding around.
Reply to all
Now, when you hit the reply button on a tweet that contains more than one username, all of them will be listed in the response box (you can of course choose to delete some if you wish). There’s no separate option to reply only to the publisher of the tweet, though, which might irk some users.
Auto-complete
This was most certainly lacking, too. Now, when you wish to tweet someone, you can simply start with the ‘@’ sign and type the first letters of his or her name, after which a drop-down menu with relevant usernames will appear.
I tested it a couple of times, and auto-complete suggestions always popped up, but oddly it fails to recognize a lot of people, even when I follow them and they follow me.
Either way, two cool new features even if there’s still some room for improvement. Also read MG Siegler’s previous post: The Best Subtle Things About New Twitter.
What do you think the #NewTwitter lacks that you’d like to see implemented next?