Twitter has undergone its first major face-lift in four years in a bid to encourage users to stay on the Website for longer and return more often. While the ultimate goal of the upgrade is to provide a rich multi-media experience for its over 160 million users by making it easier to browse photos and videos, it is also a kind of acknowledgement from Twitter that “life doesn’t always fit into 140 characters or less”.
The new design sees Twitter.com spread information over two “panes” instead of usual one. The first pane will be devoted to messages or tweets posted on the site every day while the second will display additional information including multimedia messages. Although the familiar timeline will be retained, there will be additional information underneath each Tweet to provide deeper context and embedded media. When clicked upon, the additional pane slides out on the right and reveals the content of the tweet.
In order to make the new design work flawlessly, Twitter has already finalised arrangements with 16 photo and video Websites including Flickr, DailyBooth, DevianART, Etsy, Justin TV, Kickstarter, Photozou, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Plixi, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog and YouTube, to have their visual content embedded on the site so that for example, a movie studio advertising a new film will be able to display its video trailer on the Website. Other advantages of the new design, according to Twitter include –
Related content
When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: replies, other Tweets by that user, a map of where a geo-tagged Tweet was sent from, and more.
Mini profiles
Click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.
Overall, the new Twitter is expected to be a massive improvement on the old version. Twitter.com will now be able to provide more context and information in less time from a simple short tweet. However, it could also be argued that the change is as a result of Twitter’s attempt to become more viable to advertisers using promoted tweets.
Watch Video Demonstration of the new Twitter layout:
Talking Point
Do you think Twitter’s redesign is more about its competition for advertising revenue than user-experience?
6 Comments
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Henway
September 17, 2010 at 12:52 am
While I like the new design changes, Twitter still has the core problem of monetizing its service. Promoted Tweets are nice and all, but they certainly won’t rake in billions of dollars. They should either charge for premium accounts (put a cap on the number of followers), or setup an Adwords type advertising system where a certain ad pops up in your feed when you enter something related. It’d detract some visitors, but hey, Twitter deserves to make money.
Egrove Systems
September 18, 2010 at 8:55 am
Excellent post, twitter designing’s are superb. The biggest social media in the world is twitter
Web Development
October 9, 2010 at 11:04 am
twitter is helping me to get traffic to my website. one of good social media website is twitter
Affililate Marketing
October 21, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Yes I agree; Twitter is the most prominent among all social media networks.
silpada
February 18, 2011 at 4:07 am
Great advancement in twitter in 2010 and hoping new one in 2011.