So the new Twitter has just launched and I thought I would add my two cents about the new interface and what it means. Over the last few months I have become a bit of a Twitter addict, even to the point where I am Tweeting and driving, much to the disapproval of my better half! But I think my addiction is in-line with impressive stats Twitter has racked up, 145 million users with 370,000 new users signing up daily and 100 million Tweets sent every day.
To date – Twitter has mostly been used by people to post their thoughts, links and share content using only 140 characters or less. With these Tweets a lot of times users will be posting links to other sites and even content such as videos and pictures, once again driving people off-site. A key stat for me that I believe really drove the new design was that 78% of users are still going to the home page to use Twitter. It was definitely time for an update.
So the new interface has now been expanded to two large columns of information. On one side is Tweets and the other will expand on these Tweets with photos and video and user conversations.
The main benefit of the re-design is that users won’t have to go off-site to view the content and its real purpose is to keep users away from other sites such as TweetDeck. Social media sites are evolving all the time and Twitter would be silly not be updating their product, as they need to keep vying for the attention of now very savvy and clever users who want and demand a simple user experience. You have to wonder though, is the real purpose of this update to keep users on site for longer and therefore an opportunity for ad revenue and further partnerships, I think the answer is ‘yes’.
It is important to mention though that last year we saw Facebook become more “Twitterised” and while a lot of people are saying that this is the “facebookification of Twitter” I don’t think the new design has gone that far yet. It definitely seems to be heading more in that direction with the integration of the different content but I don’t think it’s at the same level.
Twitter has moved in the direction of becoming more an on-line hub and this is where I really get excited as we are now really starting to see social media sites constantly evolving and changing and challenging users perception on how their platform is to be used. I remember when the new Facebook was launched a lot of users were up in arms about how bad they were, will this be the same with Twitter or are the changes just a natural progression for the user at this point?
Overall I think the changes for the site are a step in the right direction but I still prefer TweetDeck at the moment, as I can view all my different lists and manage different accounts. What do you guys think? Will you be heading back to the home page if you don’t use it now?
If you are interested here is the link to the video on the announcement – New Twitter Interface Video.
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