Twitter teases concept that'll let users create multiple aliases for one account

Twitter has revealed some concepts its team has developed behind closed doors, ones that aren't yet part of the app but that may be implemented in the future. Among other things, the concepts would allow users to tailor their tweets to only certain followers, making it possible to limit who sees tweets that you don't want to make visible to everyone.

Twitter profiles can be set to private, but any tweets published will be visible to everyone who follows the account. According to a Twitter Design account, the company is exploring ways to change that. The concept ideas, which haven't yet entered the build phase, include things like the ability to create lists of specific followers.

Once a list is created, the Twitter user would be able to publish tweets that are only visible to the people on that list, such as messages intended for real-life friends but not one's colleagues or clients. Alternatively, Twitter is also exploring the idea of letting users create multiple aliases.

Under that concept, a user could create different profiles under the same account, choosing to make them public or private or to limit follows to requests only. The concept is called Facets, and users could publish different tweets under the various aliases, such as work tweets under the Work Facet and personal tweets under the Private Facet.

Users would have the option of following the user's main account, their Facets, or a mixture of both, depending on their interests. Of course, these are only concepts at this time and it is possible that Twitter will never introduce them as actual features. It is also possible we'll see different features in the future that are based around these ideas.