Jul 29, 2009

I’m definitely late to this party, but yesterday Twitter launched a new design for its homepage. This is the version of the homepage users who are not logged in and who are visiting the site for the first time will see.

Lots of smart people have already surrounded this topic, so I won’t write a long drawn out post about it, but I did want to share a few quick thoughts.

To state the obvious, the new site emphasizes search and trend tracking, and de-emphasizes orienting users new to the service and Twitter’s social components. It looks like the homepage for a search engine. This strikes me as a mistake. While I certainly use Twitter trends and search, the main reason I use Twitter is for the community of people I follow and who follow me. This aspect of the service gets lost with this homepage. Perhaps more importantly, the new page doesn’t do a good job of explaining what Twitter is – it assumes you already know.

In addition, the heavy highlighting of trends on the homepage will further encourage people to spam Twitter, or, more legitimately, to manufacture memes so that they appear on this main page. The obsession people have with becoming a trending topic will increase dramatically I would think. I’m not sure this is a positive development for Twitter.

What do you think?

http://www.twitter.com/tourabout Carl

We debated ths yesterday and had some of the exact same thoughts.

Undoubtedly a way to show people into the stream before they have signed up for a profile. But it doesn’t explain what twitter does as it’s core prop or why it’s good for me.

Interesting live test maybe?
http://www.twitter.com/tourabout Carl

We debated ths yesterday and had some of the exact same thoughts.

Undoubtedly a way to show people into the stream before they have signed up for a profile. But it doesn’t explain what twitter does as it’s core prop or why it’s good for me.

Interesting live test maybe?
Bill

I think this is hubris. It shows that the Twitter folks think they are already a full on platform that everyone knows about and needs to search as opposed to a service. That may be where they get but I don’t think they are there yet.
Bill

I think this is hubris. It shows that the Twitter folks think they are already a full on platform that everyone knows about and needs to search as opposed to a service. That may be where they get but I don’t think they are there yet.
http://sazbean.com Sarah Worsham

I run into people all the time that don’t understand Twitter – what it is or how to use it. Their homepage should focus on that instead of what’s trending (which would be more important once a visitor has actually signed up). Focusing on what’s important to new users first seems like basic usability stuff.
http://sazbean.com Sarah Worsham

I run into people all the time that don’t understand Twitter – what it is or how to use it. Their homepage should focus on that instead of what’s trending (which would be more important once a visitor has actually signed up). Focusing on what’s important to new users first seems like basic usability stuff.
http://ryanroberts.co.uk/ Ryan Roberts

I don’t think it’s a mistake. Isn’t it something like 60% of people signing up to Twitter never come back? It’s a very high figure whatever it is.

The problem Twitter face is convincing people to stay and build up their profile, until they start following people and getting followers it’s next to useless and this probably puts off many people.

By using the homepage to show the vast scale of conversation and trend discussion happening on Twitter they reveal to new visitors what they could be involved with and exactly what is going on. I don’t think this was clear enough before.
http://ryanroberts.co.uk/ Ryan Roberts

I don’t think it’s a mistake. Isn’t it something like 60% of people signing up to Twitter never come back? It’s a very high figure whatever it is.

The problem Twitter face is convincing people to stay and build up their profile, until they start following people and getting followers it’s next to useless and this probably puts off many people.

By using the homepage to show the vast scale of conversation and trend discussion happening on Twitter they reveal to new visitors what they could be involved with and exactly what is going on. I don’t think this was clear enough before.
http://trailkev.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/links-for-2009-07-31/ links for 2009-07-31 « A little Jack with that?

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http://nuttersmark.com Mark Nutter

I don’t think it’s a mistake at all. They understand where the true value of Twitter lies, and that’s in search. Just because it will encourage spammers to game the system isn’t a reason not to try to figure out how to leverage search. Google has to deal with more spammers and gamers than any other service out there but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming a huge company based on search.

Twitter really has a tiger by the tail here: a stream of the public consciousness which provides them better data about what’s currently popular than google could ever hope to. The trick is going to be providing the right tools to parse this data so people can consume it in useful ways.
http://nuttersmark.com Mark Nutter

I don’t think it’s a mistake at all. They understand where the true value of Twitter lies, and that’s in search. Just because it will encourage spammers to game the system isn’t a reason not to try to figure out how to leverage search. Google has to deal with more spammers and gamers than any other service out there but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming a huge company based on search.

Twitter really has a tiger by the tail here: a stream of the public consciousness which provides them better data about what’s currently popular than google could ever hope to. The trick is going to be providing the right tools to parse this data so people can consume it in useful ways.
jeff

twitter is lame and boring. there i said it.
jeff

twitter is lame and boring. there i said it.
Todd Zeigler

@Ryan Roberts – I really think the lack of retention has more to do with the design of the site once users logged in, not the non-logged in page.

@Mark Nutter – I’m less worried about spam than having too many people focused on becoming trending topics instead of just tweeting more naturally. Of course, the easy solution to that is to simply unfollow people using Twitter overtly for marketing.
Todd Zeigler

@Ryan Roberts – I really think the lack of retention has more to do with the design of the site once users logged in, not the non-logged in page.

@Mark Nutter – I’m less worried about spam than having too many people focused on becoming trending topics instead of just tweeting more naturally. Of course, the easy solution to that is to simply unfollow people using Twitter overtly for marketing.

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Is the New Twitter Homepage a Mistake?

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