Twitter is rolling out an update to its iOS mobile app that allows users to tag people in a photo and also share up to four photos in a single tweet.
Twitter borrowed yet another feature from Facebook in a bid to sustain its position in the social networking race. The micro-blogging site announced Wednesday that Twitter for iOS devices will be updated with photo-tagging feature and also let users upload up to four photos in a single tweet. The multiple photo uploading feature will soon arrive on Android and Web, but iPhone users will start getting them starting Wednesday. The photo-tagging feature, however, will be included in the next app update for both Android and iOS.
In an official company's blog post, Twitter said the two new additions will make photos "more social." Allowing users to tag friends and family in a photo will be welcomed by Twitter's 241 million user-base, since people get 140 characters to mention people in the photo as well as add a description. Users will no longer have to worry about cramming up words in a tweet as the new photo-tagging feature will not use any of the precious 140 characters.
Facebook introduced this feature quite a while ago. Borrowing popular features from major social networking sites has been a popular trend. Facebook took a page from Twitter by integrating clickable hashtags in to its site last year. The battle between the two biggest rivals in the social media space runs deeper than it appears. Soon after Twitter introduced 6-second videos in Vine, Facebook-owned Instagram followed suit with 15-second videos.
Twitter users can still control how they want to be tagged in a photo by changing privacy settings. While the default setting for photo tagging will be set to "Allow anyone to tag me in photos," users can change it so only people you follow can tag or one can even turn off the feature completely. Users can also untag themselves from a photo by clicking "Remove tag from photo" under options (three dots) below the tweet.
Twitter also announced multiple photo-uploads for Web and mobile users. Users can upload up to four photos in a single tweet and Twitter will automatically create a collage without the need of any third-party apps.
Both features will show up in embedded tweets. Users can download the Twitter app for Android and iOS for free to take advantage of the new features.
