Now that Twitter has rolled out the much anticipated redesign, it’s time to talk. Before I even begin, I want to make sure that you understand (I am looking at you loyal, hardcore users and myself) that this is my personal opinion. For a moment I thought maybe I shouldn’t talk but what the heck, my opinion, my blog and whether anyone reads it or not, likes it or not I am going to drop it. So here I go.
Twitter’s new redesign certainly looks trendy and nice as compared to the 90s design it used to have. However, the main focus of the design has shifted from networking to searching. I use twitter for search, sure I do. But networking still beats my usage of twitter as a search engine. The new homepage kind of gives the feel like Twitter is a search engine rather than a social media, networking tool. Remember, although you and me know what twitter is all about, there are millions who have heard of it but have no clue what it’s about. When someone hears about it on CNN (they just can’t stop talking about it. When you watch Larry King Live watch for messages at the bottom of the screen such as “Follow @kingsthings, larry is the king of Twitter,” etc.) and decides to finally see what the hype is all about, their first impression of the site is going to be that it’s a search engine. And guess what? They use google for search.
My main point is, I agree that the redesign should focus on search capability and the need for real time information, however, that’s not the core model of Twitter. The core model of twitter is networking and that is nowhere to be seen on the new design. Think of it this way, everyone pretty much uses google to search the web but not everyone has an account with google. They use google as a search engine, that’s it. Google is fine with that because search is their core. If twitter wants search to be their core and not networking then this change is indeed effective but the whole being “pulse of the planet” and being the first one to land a billion users isn’t something that this new design is going to support.
If I were a new user and came to twitter to see what all the hoopla is about (there are many, many people who have no clue what it is although they have heard of it. Twitter needs those “many” people to hit the billion mark), I would simply think it was another search engine. I would certainly use it because it gives real time information and what not, but may be I will never sign up, why? Simply cause it may already fulfill my need which is search. Of course, search. twitter.com was there before but that is not what media talks about most of the time. That is not where people go. People go to Twitter.com not search.twitter.com and this redesign may pose a problem there. It might be seen as a search engine and now people like David Letterman who says Twitter is a waste of time, may think it’s useful as a search engine but it will be hard to change their perception in regards to it as a networking and social media platform. Maybe we’ll see a Twitter Redesign 101 soon.
I am ready. I have my helmet on. Start throwing rocks at me but I’ll stand to everything I said.
note : be sure to log out to see the changes if you are already using twitter.
Hi, My name is Ritu. I am a member of SMA (Social Media Anonymous) ;-) & help bloggers and businesses utilize the social web. 
While I haven’t seen the changes for myself, I agree with what you say here 100%. Well said! And no, no rocks from me. =)
*looking for rocks*
Lucky you, I completely agree =)It was time to change twitter.com – but that’s not the “right” way I guess. Since twitter is something “special” it should also look and feel different compared to the dozens of web 2.0 hype whateveryoumaycallit communities or platforms. And, agreed once more, networking is the reason for using twitter.
But on the other hand, like you mentioned before, twitter wants to become a player in search. So this might make sense when thinking about how to make people search for information via twitter.com. But twitter as just another search engine? That’s not gonna work. They somehow need to combine search & networking. And tell the world (especially guys like Dave) what their real USP is.
Twitter may have started out as a networking tool and for many it still is however events like the Hudson crash and the Iran elections have shown that Twitter can be a source of instant news.
Not 30mins behind, not 4 hours behind, INSTANT and when enough people are talking about it, it’s trending and in most cases fairly accurate (ok Jeff Goldblum aside)
What’s key with Twitter as a search tool is for the most part you are getting focused results from people not optimised web pages.
Example, looking for a place to rent in South East London, UK? Search on Google and find millions of results. Search on Twitter and find (mostly) REAL people offering rooms to rent.
I use Twitter as a promotional and networking tool and agree that this was and should be it’s core focus. The problem is Twitter is still working out what it’s core focus is and it’s clear by the home page changes they think it’s (currently) about search.
Interesting to see if this has a tie in with the mythical Twitter business model we’ve been expecting…….
@jasonkneen
I agree with you. I spent 20 minutes telling people how to use Twitter yesterday. Most of them see it as a glorified “Facebook status update” website and have no clue how to start creating critical mass amongst whom they follow to make it a great tool. Most of them initially follow a few celebs first, and soon find out that most celebs lead the most boring, inane lives. They then get disillusioned by the whole Twitter “craze” and can’t understand it. Twitter needs some tutorials methinks. And the homepage should be split, showing search and trending along with “suggested friends” or “suggested people to follow”… perhaps a more comprehensive sign up process to determine interests via keywords and make suggestions from there.
It was inevitable a redesigned homepage would cause some upset, but I have a couple of issues with your comments Ritu.
First off, I believe the new homepage makes it a little more apparent where the power in Twitter is over what was there before. Twitter has always been hard for rookies to get their head around and asking “What are you doing?” didn’t help anyone to start using Twitter just as its biggest advocates do. At least with the trending topics on show and a prompt to try searching on anything it gives you an idea of how other people are communicating through Twitter.
I don’t think anyone will think this is a search engine because it has a search capability. Most sites have a search box visible on their homepages.
I have a bigger issue though with the assertion that Twitter is a networking site. To my mind, networking is not a goal, but a means to an end; you network to achieve something. Every user looking to exploit Twitter has their own objective and they’ll probably be quite different from user to user. No point focusing on the networking, but then I acknowledge it’s tough to focus on specific objectives because of the diversity.
Apart from which, Twitter is really a communications tool, comparable to IM or SMS. Communication is also a means to an end rather than a goal in itself. But then I’d advise anyone they start using Twitter with a firm objective in mind, work out whether it’s actually the best tool to achieve their aim and, if so, stick with it.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
I agree with what your saying, although I can’t help and think there is a reason for this change.
It’s a capitalist world and twitter are still to find a way to make money from the site. Perhaps businesses will sponsor search results, like google? I’m guessing here, obviously.
You are absolutely right that the core of twitter is social networking but it’s also so much more. twitter can break news in real time, hours before television and days before print.
So I can almost see what Twitter is trying to do, it’s a new kind of search on offer, one based on time as oppose to popularity. And it’s a search that is so very personal, immediately allowing you to connect. Something Google certainly can’t offer.
I absolutely agree with you. Thanks for pointing out this small detail that most of us regular twitter users would not catch. It’s true, since we’re so used to it, we don’t pay attention to how new comers perceive of Twitter. It took me a while to finally understand the full power of Twitter. The new redesigned website, although attractive in nature misses the point of what Twitter is about. I think you should forward this post to @ev as you raises some very good points!
It seems to me that twitter changes are driven by people who dont use it… or those with loud voices saying we need this, we need that, yet they do neither.
For some reason, when I had less than 200 followers, someone told Twitter to exclude me from search… and many many requests to be re-instated receive the standard answer – look at FAQ for why we are too busy to re-instate you.
so, with now 60k followers I am still not featured in search so you can imagine that I am “ho hum” about this latest change…
And updates are no tweets…. geez that was a monumental decision too
“If twitter wants search to be their core and not networking then this change is indeed effective but the whole being “pulse of the planet” and being the first one to land a billion users isn’t something that this new design is going to support.” –> Excellent point; however, in twitter’s defenses, I feel that twitter user demand has in a sense revolutionized the way this social networking giant has been used, is used, and will continue to be used. It all began with harmless hashtags (#), tweetgrid events, and other twitter networking apps; which inevitably shaped the platform that twitter has now introduced. I believe that twitter is not so close to Google as it may well be to Bing — except a whole lot better in terms of networking capabilities. I don’t fault twitter for their redesign — it is after all, what we users have moved toward with our humble tweets and hashtags. I’m sure it will continue to evolve over time, and as it does, it will still be the social networking giant it has become. Just a few thoughts… – Peace
what you say makes sense, it does give that sort of vibe. maybe it’s a direction they’re thinking of going?
You make a very good and valid point. It does now look like a search engine.
I actually think twitter’s approach here makes a great deal of strategic sense.
Most people just don’t “get” twitter quickly, from the outset, and wind up abandoning the service altogether.
By changing the focus of a new user’s initial experience from “not really knowing what to do” and/or “not really knowing what to say”, to that of topics of conversation…. I think twitter are providing a shorter route for new users to finding people who share common interests.
I can’t imagine an easier, faster way for new users to therefore become engaged in conversation and organically (almost effortlessly) start building their network.
I predict twitter will enjoy a much greater rate of retention as a result.
I don’t know about the rest of you but the way I network is by finding someone who has similar interests or goals.
I can’t think of an easier way to do that than through search.
This is a company that really needs to start understanding the customer experience. Even all the inside strategy meeting documents show that Twitter is inward looking rather than outward looking. It’s all “we-we” thinking. And it’s all wet.
I haven’t seen the new design, but it really doesn’t surprise me.
As one who is a Twitter evangelist and gives presentations to Fortune 500 companies on how to best use Twitter, well…My fear is that Twitter is going to blow an opportunity to be a stronger company, because it hasn’t understood what customers think is best about it today and made that simple and obvious to all who visit for the very first time.
Agreed. With 69% of the population still not understanding what Twitter is all about – regardless of whether they tweet or not – this was a bit of a misstep. At a minimum, they should have something – imagery or text – on the home page that sums up what twitter is about. Networking is not a difficult concept to communicate. Doing it originally may be more challenging, but hey, there’s tons of us design folks that would be more than happy to help them out in that arena… lol
[...] Why Twitter’s New Design Totally Misses The Mark [...]
Thank you all for your comments/opinion on what I had to say. I just want to make myself clear that I don’t have a problem with Twitter capitalizing on their search feature. However, i do think the main reason twitter is what it is today is because of its networking capabilities and that seems to be not important at all in the new design.
Totally agree with you.
Does Twitter use any of the VC money to do customer research?
I wonder if this new design will actually slow up new sign-ups? I doubt it will slow down the 60% loss of users after one month.
Good points. I think Twitter should strike a balance between search and networking on its home page. My first reaction on seeing the new page was to look for the login and to wonder if this page was really for me, as a member, or just for searchers and newbies. The previous page said nothing about search; this home page, as you point out, says next to nothing about networking; why not showcase both?
According to the latest research, the top 10% of Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. To me that means that the vast majority of Twitter users are not using it for networking, they are using it for searching or not at all. Most people don’t have 50,000 followers, they have 5.
I think this is smart of Twitter, to start looking at how the other 90% interact (and eventually monetize it).
I don’t have a problem with the design of a page that I only see once a day for two seconds, but why do I have to click on the login button to get the login field so I can login? It’s a minor thing, but it’s annoying.
I agree Loyalv
Frankly it’s surprising to hear that ANY of the power users commenting are EVER on the Twitter homepage. Most people use third party apps like TweetDeck and if they ever go to the Twitter website itself it’s normally straight to their profile. For the likes of us, the design of the front page is largely irrelevant, hence me reading about it being updated before I’d discovered for myself.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Besides the new approach, I don’t like the design itself: it doesn’t fit with the rest anymore. Very dark and lost the cleanness and simplicity.
I agree with Loyalv and Ian Hendry. Maybe forcing the click on a “Sign in” button before the login is a strategy to atract attention to that page more than the seconds you just fill the fields and submit: “Look! these are the trends for now. After your logon, talk about it.”. I think that doesn’t bring new users and it’s very annoying for the older ones. Also, I’m in the group of users who use another client and knew about the change by other people.
The concept is nice (real-time news), but the execution is wrong (unless they’re planning a total redesign or expand the customization soon).
I agree with you – the focus of the new design means it feels like a search tool. As an existing Twitter user, I almost never go to their homepage anyway as Ian Hendry pointed out. I too use TweetDeck and can search from there if I want.
So most of the people who are going to view this page will be people new to Twitter. I’m not sure that the previous ‘what are you doing…’ captured the power of Twitter in a compelling way, but the new homepage gets even further away….
Interesting how many people say “I was explaining what Twitter is all about…..” in response to someone asking them “What is this thing?”. If your existing users have to explain your product to potential ones then surely you’re doing something wrong.
[...] An interesting review of Twitter’s new site design – from the perspective of a content provider of “tweets”: http://ritubpant.com/why-twitt.....-the-mark/ [...]
Maybe…just maybe Twitter purposely did that to the design. As we all know, Twitter hasn’t really found out how to make money out of the business and their bandwidth cost just goes up by the day. Probably, confusing users to the service is how they lessen new sign-ups.
oh God, what is Twitter…. ???
With all respect of what you said, I have some remarks to cast:
First twitter.com does not look as a search tool. The layout is absolutely different from the web search tools we know through the web.
Most of users who do not know what this application is will first read this: “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” This sentence is enough obvious to give an idea about the tool. The results also of the search you can perform in the site are completely different from the ones we get from a web search engine.
Personally, I have used twitter.com only few times before focusing on other tools like Twitterdeck or DestroyTwitter.
The last thing to add is that this micro-blogging service is not worth all this huge and foolish propaganda especially this stupid manner of people drooling when a new progress bar or a pretty html button are added in the layout. Why? Because the purpose of this tool is surely not to talk about it 1000000 times per day but really to share/exchange interesting things/comments between people and friends.
If the design is changed and it will do several times in the future, so what is the problem?
When you say that people can be confused when discovering twitter.com, me I would say that until this moment, a lot of people over the world do not know what is google.com -the site which is hundreds of millions more useful that twitter.com. They hear about it but don’t know how to handle it.
If someone is interested in a consulting session with you, would it be okay to purchase 3-30 minute sessions for a total of $225 instead of 1-90 minute session for $250???
Hi Jimi, I have sent an email. Thanks for the inquiry.