Twitter has been trying to expand their user base, and as a positive step in that direction, they have changed their homepage.
If one is left wondering as to how a new homepage will help to entice more users, let us clarify by saying that it is not just a new colour scheme or design that they have changed. The change in focus of the network is now clearly evident through this new homepage.
The old homepage introduced the site as a ‘service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?”
The new homepage, on the other hand, invites users to “share and discover what’s happening right now anywhere in the world”.
The logo and tagline and now followed by a search box and a list of trending topics, clearly pointing users towards popular discussion topics. The trending topics and their associated search results are displayed in real time.
Emphasis has been removed from the community messaging aspect of Twitter and instead placed on the news delivery and discussion aspect, which is what has put Twitter in the spotlight repeatedly in the past year.
Trends shown at any given time are divided into popular topics at the time, on that particular day or during that week. Twitter pulls some of the popular discussion topics from What The Trend.
Now it looks as though Twitter is all set to kill several birds with one stone…
They hope to be able to expand their user base by involving even those people who are not interested in idle chit-chat with friends, or those who have nothing to say for themselves but who would like to know what is going on in the world.
They will also now have the opportunity to monetize their site by introducing relevant ads alongside the search results and the trending topic details.
Their search results will be in real time, so they will be one up on search giant Google on that score.
