Twitter Launches Group Messages, 30-Second Video Sharing

Twitter is expanding the features of its apps and website yet again, this time adding group messages and 30-second videos.

In November, Twitter said it would create a way for people to privately send messages to a group of people -- instead of just to individuals -- as well as expand its video offerings. Starting Tuesday, those features will be available to customers on most devices, including those from Apple and those powered by Google's Android operating system.

The refinements come as fears continue to build about Twitter's potential to expand both its number users and their activity while also attracting advertisers. The company has grappled with inconsistent user growth, most recently tallying 284 million users who logged into the site at least once a day in the third quarter -- a 23 percent jump from a year earlier.

Investors haven't been convinced, however, that Twitter can keep boosting user growth and have pushed the company's stock down more than 35 percent over the past year.

By letting people shoot, edit and post their own videos from within the Twitter app, the company has a potential to both attract advertisers and increase usage of its platform. Jinen Kamdar, a product director for the social network, said the company focused its engineering efforts on making it as easy as possible to shoot and share video.

"We are optimizing for quick and instant sharing," he said.

Twitter bought video-sharing service Vine in 2012. Vine, a standalone app, has gained millions of users by letting people post six-second videos.The expanded direct-messages feature will make private communication between groups of people easier, Kamdar said.

Competitors have similar features, but Kamdar said he sees Twitter's offering as different. Among the differences is that Twitter allows users to avoid using their real names. This makes connections different from a service like Facebook, which seeks to connect users to friends and family.

"The thing that makes Twitter unique is that the people you interact with are people you may not know," he said. And having the capability to communicate in chats away from the public stream will appeal to some users.