Some Twitterholics are going through withdrawal as the social messaging service rolls out a major redesign, as explained in this comprehensive guide to changes ushered in by the new Twitter.
New navigation icons on homepage; ©Twitter
On its home page, Twitter is ditching its big, friendly "What's Happening" tweet box in favor of a smaller box that says blandly, "Compose new Tweet. . ." At the same time, Twitter timelines are jumping from the left to the right side, and a bunch of new tab icons and features are making a debut.
So What's Really Happening, Twitter?
The changes represent an attempt to take Twitter into the mainstream with both users and advertisers. The five-year-old global messaging service has seriously lagged Facebook in popularity, so it's hardly a secret why the makeover offers a few more Facebook-like features to Twitter users.
Twitter executives said their big goal was simplifying the messaging service and make it easier to learn, but predictably, the design changes upset some long-time users, including celebrities who helped drive Twitter to reach 100 million active users. Conversation has been percolating around the #newtwitter and #letsfly hashtags.
"hello #newtwitter - im kinda confused," Justin Bieber tweeted. "i know we will like eachother but give me time."
Others were less optimistic.
"I'm set with the twitter I have now," @ArielleBose tweeted. "There's too much to do with the new one for u to have it."
Some complaints focused on the new Twitter apps for iPhones and Android phones. "#newtwitter on ios is a terrible user experience," wrote @pjain.
For its part, Twitter dubbed its announcement "Let's Fly" in a blog post that proclaimed, "We've simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new. "
Partly, the Twitter language is getting simplified. @Connect, for example, is the new tab created for "conversations," which means retweets and mentions of a user.
The #Discover tab is perhaps the biggest change, designed to help new users understand how to find material to read on Twitter. It presents a personalized news stream created by a special Twitter algorithm that attempts to give you a newsy stream of tweeted material based on our previous reading and tweeting habits on Twitter.
It remains to be seen whether these changes will really make Twitter any easier to use for newbies. It's unclear whether the "Connect" and "Discover" tabs are clearly differentiated or easy to understand.