Twitter: Redesigned & Refocused
The Twitterverse are wise too it, and even occasional tweeters are by now aware: the Twitter homepage has had a make over.
The changes are designed to help newbies find their way around the service, and understand what Tweeting is all about.
On his blog, Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone said: “Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved”.
Erm. Right.
He also said that Twitter had changed focus from a “rudimentary social tool based on the concept of status messages” into “a new kind of communication and a valuable source of timely information.”
And he added, in case we weren’t all having a good time: “Also its fun.”
There’s no doubt that what people are Tweeting about varies hugely. Just have a glance at the ‘trending topics’ for sample of this. At the same time that some are talking about Iran, others are on about blue M&Ms.
The really big change, and the one that has got all the marketers excited, is the refocusing of the homepage into a search box. ‘Real time search’ – finding out what people are talking and writing about right now – is where it gets interesting. Giving businesses the chance to tap into this is where the money is going to be for Twitter.
This change is also reflected in the more weighty strapline. Twitter has gone from “What are you doing?” to “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.”
This is the first of many steps that Twitter is taking to hit its user target of 1bn by 2013.
Have a look at the Twitter homepage. Does it make the point of Twitter a little bit more obvious? Leave us a comment below.