Twitter is slowly rolling out a redesigned Twitter.com Web site, departing from the spartan design to include photos, videos and other information directly on the Web page.
While the traditional Twitter timeline will be featured, users will see additional info under each tweet. When users click on the tweet, a detail pane slides out to the right to display replies, other tweets, or a map of where a geotagged tweet was sent from.
As part of the move to put more content in out front, Twitter is also allowing users to upload photos from Flickr and TwitPic and videos from YouTube, Vimeo and others directly onto the profile page. These also display when users click on tweets.
Twitter also sports mini profiles. When users click a username they will see a small box of a user’s profile info without navigating from the page. This will include a bio and recent Tweets.
The company offers a video detailing the changes here. Fast Company and several others who attended the event offer pictures for viewing on TechMeme. And SearchEngineLand has produced an in-depth illustrated guide to the new Twitter.
Twitter–whose co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone announced the redesign at its headquarters Tuesday night–said these changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks.
The idea is to keep users from clicking to other Web pages and Web sites to see content. This increased stickiness will likely be a boon to Twitter’s Promoted Tweets and other advertising endeavors.
Twitter acknowledged the potential in its media materials:
“Imagine a movie premiere popping up on Twitter with a simple click versus needing to go off the site to see it. Or, think about the Old Spice campaign and what it would have been like to see the video responses to tweets without needing to go off the page.”
Though it’s too early to divine what kind of impact the changes will have, some analysts, such as Forrester Research’s Augie Ray, are bullish.
“While any change in interface can cause complaints from long-time users (just ask Facebook), I believe the new Twitter.com will meet with strong user acceptance,” Ray wrote in a blog post, which also includes pictures of the revamped Twitter.com.
“As the new design is rolled out, users will have the opportunity to accept it or return to the original design, but I think many will embrace the intuitive new functionality.”