Today Twitter rolled out a massively re-designed homepage. For such an incredibly successful young service, this is a major change. And their design shows where Twitter – and possibly the social web – are headed.
Let’s dive into the details:
1. Twitter’s new focus is on searching and discovering what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world. It’s about DISCOVERY, not publishing or chatting.
2. Search is first and foremost. The search box almost has the same prominence as the signup button. Twitter obviously feels this is the killer feature that will, in the end, drive more adoption.
3. Trending topics are now on the homepage. Twitter knows they’re going to draw people in with relevant, current content, not quotes from the New York times about how nifty Twitter is.
4. Trending topics fall into three categories (minute, day, and week) but this is very downplayed. To the first-time visitor, this is content, plain and simple…while they can pay attention and discover this granularity, it’s not shoved in their face – no need to overwhelm potential new users.
5. The very small text above the signup button says “Join the conversation”. Conversation has been stressed and established – now they gently encourage you to join in.
6. I don’t know if this was a feature before, but Twitter is now surfacing this as a tip: you can do location-based searches. Your discovery can now be local.
I’ll resist further analysis than this for now: