Gadget Helpline

Twitter Re-designed to look like Facebook?

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by

Dom Palfreman
in , , ,

Recently Twitter announced the roll out of a new design that has made Twitter look a lot more like Facebook. The new features include the addition of larger profile pictures, customised headers and a feature that makes your more popular Tweets appear in a larger font so they stand out on your page.

Another feature is that you can now filter Tweets and tag people in photos… Surely this is now just Facebook and losing sight of what the page was original for? In our opinion this is not the case, the modifications made the experience more fluid and interactive – allowing you to negotiate the river of Tweets with greater ease and in a more aesthetically appealing format.

This new layout is not yet across the board but will become common place in the next couple of weeks with new users receiving the new improved layout straight off the bat, but is this all a good thing? In short, yes.

 

“The new web profile lets you use a larger profile photo, customize your header, show off your best tweets and more,” Twitter designer David Bellona said.

The new design was outlined in a blog post that listed some of the other big changes, including:

  • Tweets that have received the most engagement will appear slightly larger to make an account’s best content easy to find
  • Tweets can be pinned on the top of the page so that followers can “see what you’re all about”
  • Users can select which timeline to view when checking out other profiles. Options are: tweets, tweets with photos/videos, or tweets and replies

Twitter will still be solely focus on short Tweets and the redesign has been created to make it easier for others to track your posts and thoughts even though Twitter will be staying true to the recognisable column layout.

My only concern is that the increased use of larger images, larger font and greater customisation will make the website more data-heavy and cause some surprising data bills for those that check twitter using their mobiles, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

To check out some of the existing Twitter profiles that already have the new web profiles, click one of the following: