It seems Twitter is not done experimenting. Its latest test, which launched secretly last Thursday, is a new account called @eventparrot. It basically sends followers direct messages about breaking news curated directly by Twitter.
As some of you may know Event Parrot is the 2nd Twitter-operated account to utilize the Direct Messages inbox to send content out to users. The first Twitter operated account, @MagicRecs, sends users DMs with follow recommendations based on who their friends are adding. This idea may seem familiar, because Magic Recs actually led to a full blown push notification feature released last month.
In both cases, Twitter is utilizing the DM inbox in a new way, sending messages that aren’t generated by friends or colleagues, but by a machine.
Paul Stamatiou, a “growth designer” at Twitter, not so subtly shared news of the Event Parrot account to his over 23,000 followers Thursday morning. When members of Twitter’s growth team are sharing this feature publicly, it’s safe to assume that the new account is, among other things, an engagement experiment. It could give users a new reason to visit the service throughout the day.
Ssshh.. we’re testing a new Twitter experiment. All you have to do is follow @EventParrot. It’ll DM you with breaking news.
— Paul Stamatiou (@Stammy) October 10, 2013
Both experiments take Twitter’s most private space, the Direct Message inbox — and open it (with permission, of course) to push content curated by Twitter. Perhaps most importantly, the act of pushing content to users may lay the groundwork for similar messages from advertisers and marketers.
I’m pretty excited to see what other experiments Twitter comes out with. What features do you hope Twitter creates? Let us know in the comments below.
