Twitter just launched an updated, more dynamic homepage. The old, static homepage that didn’t really explain how Twitter really works and just showed a list of trending topic and a search form. The new homepage, on the other hand, features a scrolling list of trending topics, a constantly updating view of tweets from popular Twitter users, a random sampling of suggested users and a new explanation of what Twitter is.
We have to say, though, that Twitter’s new explanation of itself sounds a bit odd:
“Twitter is a rich source of instant information. Stay updated. Keep others updated. It’s a whole thing. You choose and customize every aspect of the service. Lots of people like it. We’d love it if you joined us.”
Interestingly, Twitter de-emphasizes the social networking features of the service here and stresses that Twitter is a source of “instant information.” The old homepage simply said: “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” According to Twitter’s own announcement, the company wants to stress that Twitter is “not just for status updates anymore”
The new homepage also now feature a link to Twitter’s FAQ for business users.
A Better Homepage for Novice Users?
Given that Twitter has always had a hard time converting new users to regular users, this new homepage is clearly an attempt to better explain the service’s features and functionality to new users. We will have to wait and see if this new homepage will do a better job at converting visitors to regular users. The new explanation of Twitter on the homepage could surely use some tweaking, but the new focus on interesting tweets and users will immediately give newcomers a good idea of how they can use Twitter themselves.
