Twitter Begins Testing Inline Photos and Videos

By Chelsi Nakano (@chelkano) Jul 27, 2010

Last night Twitter (news, site) attempted to stealthily test a new inline photos and videos feature, but the good ol' Internet picked up on it rather quickly.

Under the "Settings" menu, a new option called "Twitter Media" appeared:

It stated:

By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter

The option was removed shortly after, but it certainly indicates that our fine feathered friend is gearing up to embed photos and videos into tweet streams. Suspicions were later confirmed in a statement Twitter gave to Mashable: “We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media. We show inline media on our own iPhone and Android apps.”

Big Bird

Last spring we talked about the possibility of Twitter developing beyond the need of third-party clients, and the potential addition of photos and videos to tweet streams would certainly rekindle that idea. For example, a popular third-party tool called Brizzly uses photo and video embedding as one of its main selling points, but if Twitter offered the same capabilities by default, then it would be bye bye Brizzly.

Then again, Brizzly also offers Facebook integration, and as we saw earlier this year, it appears that everyone's favorite open social network is closed to Twitter's talons. Further, the addition of photos and videos would be an extreme change to Twitter's look and M.O.— one we're not sure its audience is completely ready for.

What say you?