The New Year is rolling in, and with Facebook dominating the headlines as of late, Twitter has been winning back some of the limelight.
The announcement that Twitter would be moving into a bigger, Art Deco-era headquarters in San Francisco was complimented by the launch of the microblogging service's redesign. Twitter's redesign also carries some much needed features. In addition to the website, the redesign will take place on Twitter's iOS and android apps, as well as Twitter's social aggregator, TweetDeck.
Twitter's new design and layout
According to the chairman of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, the redesign is intended to make:
Twitter more accessible for all 7 billion people on the planet and simpler not just for people already engaged but easier for new people to discover it and find value in it. It's the best place to represent yourself on the Internet.
The redesign now contains three buttons on the navigation bar: Home, @Connect and #Discover.
Home simply takes you to your account's timeline. However, it's worth noting that Twitter has moved recommendations, trending topics and your quick profile information from the right side of the page to the left. Composing an update can also be done from the left side of the page.
@Connect allows users to see all of their recent interactions. Whether it be mentions, retweets or favorite tweets, all of these interactive Twitter features may be accessed from the connect button.
#Discover is the new button that allows users to see stories based on their interests and recent activity. Twitter's new discovery function will showcase personalized top stories that users actually care about.
Brand pages for businesses
Along with the redesign, Twitter has also updated the functionality of its brand pages. Much like Facebook's fan pages, Twitter has created a more inviting and interactive space for brands to connect with their customers. According to AdAge.com, Twitter's brand pages will allow businesses to incorporate a bigger header image as well as being able to promote their most valuable content (and not just their most recent content). Lastly, it seems that brand pages will be available for all businesses in the future, but for now it's just being rolled out to larger corporations as in the past.
Embedded tweets
Users may now embed tweets on their own websites or blogs. The new feature will allow the site's visitors to reply, retweet or follow the tweet's author from their own Twitter accounts, without having to leave the page they are on.
Although the redesign looks pleasant and the new features were needed, it will be interesting to see when Twitter plans (if it plans to do so at all) to let small businesses create their own brand pages. Small businesses can heavily benefit from having their own Twitter brand page - a feature they never had the chance to utilize in the past.
What do you think of the Twitter redesign? Are you excited as I am to see how small businesses will be affected by brand pages in the future? Let us know in the comments below or reach out to us on Twitter!