Twitter now automatically embeds linked tweets inside tweets on its web version

Twitter’s iOS and Android mobile apps began to embed tweets that have been linked in a tweet last month, and now the feature (which prompts us to make Inception-related jokes) has rolled out to Twitter.com.

Embedding tweets is easy to do, just write your message and then include a link to the tweet that you wish to embed. There’s no feature that automates the process at this point.

The move smartens up how these tweets appear in your timeline, and allows you to get the gist of a linked tweet immediately without having to click through to find out. Any links inside the embed are not immediately clickable unless you open the nested tweet.

The feature also gives Twitter users more space to comment on articles, in a similar fashion to the way that Weibo in China lets its users ‘forward’ messages while adding comment.

In a twist of irony, linked tweets aren’t embedded when you embed the parent tweet (if that makes sense) as the example below shows:

@kaylenehong hello https://t.co/0Uf2Spnwdn

— Jon Russell (@jonrussell) July 31, 2014

The feature doesn’t appear to be switched on in TweetDeck however.

Twitter.com may seem like a step down for many ‘power users,’ but it remains hugely important for Twitter since it is the site that most users access the service from, and therefore changes and tweaks can be influential.

It seems that Twitter is also running new experiments, off the back of its widely-praised earnings report yesterday. CNBC’s Eli Langer spotted that the Twitter for iOS app was serving up recommendations for who to follow.

Twitter is encouraging me to follow a new account in my Home stream: pic.twitter.com/WGnEaHU6Ok — Eli Langer (@EliLanger) July 31, 2014

It will be interesting to see what other tricks Twitter has up its sleeve as it goes back to experimenting again.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment, and will update this story with any response that we receive.

Headline image via Mary Turner / Getty Images