Twitter is experimenting with adding commentary to retweets

Twitter is always experimenting with new features on its mobile apps for iOS and Android, but a new feature spotted recently could finally fix one of the its most annoying problems. It looks like the company is testing out a new “Retweet with Comment” option, which lets you quote another tweet without cutting back on your 140 character limit. Boot up your Twitter app now and tap the retweet button under any post and you’ll see two options: “Retweet” or “Quote.” The first simply spreads the tweet in question to all your followers, while the second puts the tweet in quotation marks and lets you add your own two cents with any remaining characters. The problem, however, is that most of the time there’s not enough space to add more than a word on two, but it looks like Twitter finally has a fix.

Twitter is always testing something with users; this week, they have a couple visual experiments underway. Another new feature, which Mashable first noticed in a tweet sent by Twitter’s head of communications, Carolyn Penner, allows users more space to comment when they are retweeting another user. “Retweet with Comment” surfaces the retweeted message as an image, leaving users with just under 140-characters to share their own thoughts. Previously, if someone wanted to add their own commentary to a retweet, they could click “Quote Tweet” to do so. This limited user comments by forcing them to fit both the original tweet and the added material into the 140-character limit. Another feature, noticed on Thursday by some users, positions tweet images above the tweet’s text instead of below it. It appears that this may be a mobile-only test on both iOS and Android, and only a few select users have the new look. Both experiments appear to be mobile only, and are not available to all users. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment, but directed Mashable to a company blog post which describes its experimental philosophy.