Twitter is finally talking — about its mute button.
The new feature, which was teased at the beginning of May, allows users to mute annoying follows. As we expected, this is an in-between option instead of unfollowing someone.
Twitter writes on its blog: "In the same way you can turn on device notifications ... you can now mute users you'd like to hear from less. Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline."
However, you'll still appear as a follower, and the muted user will never know you silenced him or her.
As TechCrunch says, "It makes it easy to stop dealing with those annoying Twitter chat groups and events that take place, without necessarily burning your network to the ground at the same time."
There are two ways to mute a constant tweeter. On a mobile device or the Web, tap any tweet, then tap more, and then mute the user. You can also access his or her profile page, tap the gear icon and choose mute there too.
Twitter promises the mute button will roll out to everyone in the coming weeks. The feature will be available on the latest build of its mobile app for iOS and Android — as well as Twitter's Web and desktop versions.
However, as we reported before, if you've been using other clients like Tweetbot and TweetDeck, then you've already had a mute button at your disposal for some time now.
But The Verge says Twitter's mute option is lacking features compared to the others. "We'd recommend you hold off in deleting Tweetbot if you often mute topics or hashtags that are currently popular on the service; Twitter's mute option only silences individual users — not entire conversations."
Now that the word's out about "muting," the next rumored feature from Twitter is a "whisper mode." The Next Web reports CEO Dick Costolo hinted at the feature. It would allow groups of users to take Twitter conversations to a private area, similar to direct messages.
