The Channel Wire

July 29, 2009

Twitter users may have been surprised to find that the popular microblogging service's home page got a makeover late yesterday. Instead of simply being a page to sign on, the Twitter home page has been tweaked to put more emphasis on realtime search.

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, explained that the changes to the home page were designed to make it easier for new users to wrap their arms around the service.

"Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved," Stone wrote in a blog.

Now, rather than being greeted simply by a log-in box, Twitter users are presented with a search box as well as topics that are trending on the service. So instead of having to be logged into Twitter to see what is trending -- the most discussed topics on Twitter -- anyone can do a quick search of the microblogging service.

For Stone, the decision to make search and trending topics more accessible to users is not only about showing the value of Twitter as a search engine, but also as a way for new users to experience the immediacy of the service.

"[D]emonstrating the power of Twitter as a discovery engine for what is happening right now through our Search and Trends often awakens a sense of wonder, which inevitably leads to a much more compelling question, 'How do I get involved?' " Stone wrote.

"Sense of wonder" aside, it is hard to deny the fact that Twitter does seem to have a finger on the pulse of its users, which, incidentally, are growing rapidly.

Ultimately, though, Stone isn't shy about positioning the changes to the Twitter homepage as a move to get users hooked on the service.

"We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information," Stone wrote.