John Battelle's Searchblog

Nice. But I, like many, will never see it because we use other platforms like TweetDeck

Really? You're going to make me type the URL into the browser to see what you're talking about? Sigh. No- too hot and tired.

This is a great piece. Very thought provoking. I like the sort of ending that leaves it opn to personal input. Makes it work for just about everyone I think. Nicely done! I’ll subscribe.

that's only for the non-signed in users/unregistered guests.

what's interesting for me is that there are way more trending topics on there than a signed in user sees on their page. that's useful.

I think the 180 degree change in direction is very odd, but I've never found trending topics very useful. Who the hell cares what Twitter's army of nerds, high school kids, and lonely housewives care about "Hell's Kitchen?"

(I use Twitter and I watch "Hell's Kitchen," but I just don't care about the opinions of people who aren't going to write more than 140 characters about it. You want me to care about your opinions of a TV show? Become a television critic, or at least a blogger.)

I'm wondering how this change in emphasis ties into Twitter's future business plans. Do they really think search is what people are using Twitter for, or are they just trying to convince us that's what people use Twitter for, because search is easier to monetize?

To be fair, John, Twitter's new homepage does lead with "Share" and overall it is much more enticing. Is there anybody that by now doesn't have a pretty good handle on what Twitter is about? Assuming there are, those folks are likely likely to find Twitter's new landing site more than sufficiently enticing, thought provoking, and easy to try. As a bonus, the trending topics provide a constantly changing view of the Twitterverse - freshness - similar to FM's new BingTweets which as you may have heard, I really like. What the guys at Twitter have done is clearly an improvement. And, this design is certain to help Twitter continue to grow.

It's interesting to see them emphasize search above signing up for an account. I guess they figure that word of mouth is letting people know what Twitter is about at this point, and that they don't need to explain themselves. Even if that is the case though, it still seems like a strange move to make the home page so heavily emphasize the trending topics area of search, since this is easily manipulated, and really not that valuable.

I guess this is the first peak into their new business model that they've got up their sleeve. I wonder what's next...

I'm not sure if people who use Twitter are ready to embrace the idea that Twitter can be used as a real time Search Engine plus they don't understand the limitations which Twitter has in terms of a search. Twitter is capable to help with searching for a certain topics, which are related to events which happen at any particular moment. So Twitter can be considered as a real time events info seeking tool, it won't help you much with shopping and absolutely not with navigational search.

69% of adults don't know enough about Twitter to have an opinion about it.

So, yes, Tom and Cory, there are a lot of people who don't know what Twitter is about. Which is why having a homepage that obscures the primary purpose of the service seems like an incredibly weird idea.

Douglas Bowman in the house.

You are assuming people discover Twitter through that page: the 69% of people who don't know about it will hear from it through a friend user, and will most likely see a different, invitation-based page.

According to All Things Kara (EXCLUSIVE!!), this redesign was to help introduce Twitter to new users.

But it seems to me that it's to help introduce Twitter to future advertisers.

If they wanted to help show off what Twitter really is about, they should just highlight the tweets from a select group of people, right there on the homepage.

Personally, I don't use a Twitter desktop client, and I don't click "Remember Me", because I'm on a shared computer -- and I hate the new look.

I have to click an extra link to log-in? Also, were I not sure what Twitter was, as many aren't, I would be way more confused when seeing Twitter the first time than I would have been with the old look. Change isn't always bad, just this time it was.

Your post reminds me we are still all blind men trying to describe the 800-lb elephant in the room. I suppose it was the same when people tried to describe the telephone in its earliest incarnation.

The bottom crawl reminds me of sushi boat restaurants. If you see something interesting, it's easy to sample it.

If you like it, great, it's easy to get more. However, it's not good form to eat everything that comes by.