Twitter Acquires Quill App, Reveals That There Will Be Updates For Professional Users Soon

At a guess, Twitter is planning to incorporate new professional capabilities into a separate paid tier for business customers, similar to Twitter Blue. This tier would provide more analytics, monitoring, and creation features.

This would include communications as well. Twitter has announced the acquisition of Quill, a messaging app that focuses on supporting more effective messaging conversations with enhanced layout and sorting choices that are more specifically suited to professional communication rather than personal communication.

Quill is a productivity and focus app that lowers notifications, organizes discussions into threads, and gets out of the way so you can focus on what you do best. While it is a messaging tool that could theoretically be integrated into Twitter's DMs, it is mainly focused on professional messaging and categorizing your numerous chats to enhance communication efficiency. This suggests that this will be an add-on service rather than an integration.

For example, in May, Twitter purchased content subscription platform Scroll, which it has placed as a bolt-on piece within its Twitter Blue offering rather than integrating into the service as a whole. In January, Twitter purchased the newsletter platform Revue, which now functions as a mostly independent, additional component of the tweet experience. That could indicate that Twitter is taking a similar approach with Quill, in which case it's less about improving DMs for general users and more about offering a new messaging upgrade as part of a paid option, such as a 'Twitter Red' or 'Twitter Green,' aimed at professionals rather than tweet enthusiasts.

Indeed, Twitter is presently testing an updated version of its TweetDeck tweet management platform, which incorporates additional DM elements to help professionals better manage their professional conversations. Quill's capabilities may eventually replace this feature, allowing marketers to make the most of Twitter DMs for customer care.

Previous research has indicated that this is a good strategy, with 64 percent of Twitter users believing that firms with a dedicated help handle were doing more for their consumers, at least perceptively. And if Twitter can improve its analytics capabilities - for example, by bringing back Audience Insights and introducing additional monitoring and discovery tools - TweetDeck may become a must-have app for brand managers and a more useful subscription option than the present Twitter Blue add-ons.

The groundwork for this is already in place, with various third-party Twitter apps providing data and insights that Twitter itself cannot provide. That means Twitter is losing money to these third-party companies that use its data, and if it can merge more of these features into a more integrated TweetDeck, it could be a significant moneymaker for the platform and a big win for advertisers.

Of course, we don't know which direction Twitter will go on this, and its new CEO may take a different approach. However, based on this evaluation, it appears that Twitter is moving in this direction. Quill users should be aware that the app will be closing down on December 11th, when all servers will be turned down and all data will be destroyed.