No secret:  I rely heavily on Twitter for keeping up with professional news and for messaging and for sharing discoveries.

So, I was very happy to discover that Twitter’s Direct Message feature recently expanded to include group messaging.

This enables the tweeter to easily set up groups and to privately message with up to 20 people at a time, using the usual Twitter messaging features–text, links, images, emojis.  Your friends, colleagues, students and other contacts receive notifications that they’ve been added to your groups.

This is definitely going to simplify planning across time and space and sharing with the various types of contacts in my life.  It will likely facilitate conversations for school and teacher groups.

And, there’s more.

You can now capture, edit and share videos without leaving the Twitter app.  A little camera icon within the app allows you to add 30-second videos to conversations.  The mobile video camera and editing features are currently available for the iPhone and Android apps.  This feature should make it even easier to share breaking news and events, as well as a great play on the field or a chorus solo.

Here’s what it looks like on my phone and as shared on Twitter’s About page.