Twitter‘s all over the news today, not only tech but also general, reporting and commenting on its announcement yesterday of "a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience."
In essence, Twitter has re-designed the website with some significant technical enhancements and interface improvements in how you use it and interact with the content from your community and others, the first major changes since the service was started in 2006.
Check the links above for detailed commentary and opinion by many different people. Or, to get a visual sense of it, watch the nice and well-made official Twitter video.
The new-look site will be rolled out over the coming weeks, Twitter says, so it’s likely you won’t see much for a bit.
Of course, if you use a third-party app to interact with Twitter – I do, primarily TweetDeck on the desktop, sometimes Seesmic; and Twidroyd on my HTC Desire – website changes such as those announced won’t make much difference to you (assuming nothing changes in how third-party apps interact with Twitter).
The look-and-feel news has overshadowed something that I think is far more significant – defining what Twitter is and isn’t.
What is Twitter to you right now? A tool to broadcast? A place to engage? A listening channel? It can be all of those things, and more, depending on where you see the value in it. Even a social network, a place of community where you engage with people you’ve formed connections with. That’s how I see it, certainly. Indeed, this is the primary place I do engage with people. Not on Facebook or any other social networking site, nor with Google Buzz, Friendfeed, etc, but Twitter.
That’s not how Twitter sees themselves today, though, according to Kevin Thau, Twitter’s VP for business and corporate development, in a presentation he made yesterday at Nokia World 2010 in London.
Writing in ReadWriteWeb yesterday, Sarah Perez reported that "Thau announced that everyone’s favorite micro-blogging network is not actually a social network."
[…] It’s not, you say?
No, says Thau: Twitter is for news. Twitter is for content. Twitter is for information.
To those of us in the tech industry, proclaiming that Twitter’s main focus is not its social aspects, but its news-delivering mechanisms, is a bit like stating the obvious. But it’s important that Twitter is now publicly acknowledging how people’s perception of the service have changed in this regard, not to mention how their usage patterns have changed too.
I think Sarah’s dead right – Twitter is evolving rapidly, how people perceive it and what it does for them, and how they use it, is shifting. And not everyone defines Twitter the same way.
What’s significant is how such a statement from an authoritative voice at the company projects how Twitter themselves define what Twitter is as it suggests a clearer focus on the possible direction the company is taking (personally, I think Twitter intends to be a media company).
To be fair to Thau, I haven’t seen his presentation so can only rely on the RWW post and photos. Someone WTF’d him yesterday on Twitter, to which he replied:
@lesanto just trying to make the point that Twitter has lots of great content and it is ok if users just want to consume.
Possibly a bit of back-peddling on the message in the photo above?
It wasn’t that long ago that Twitter’s Biz Stone described Twitter as a communication network, as Candace Kuss pointed out to me earlier today.
Whatever anyone thinks Twitter is, what really matters is what you think it is. If the service accommodates your usage requirement, then that’s well and good.
For now anyway. Things are evolving fast.
18 responses to “For now, Twitter is what you make it”
[Blog] For now, Twitter is what you make it http://tinyurl.com/36cksaf #fb #in
[nh.com] For now, Twitter is what you make it http://goo.gl/fb/jDEYx
RT @jangles: [nh.com] For now, Twitter is what you make it http://bit.ly/cbrAQU fyi @graemewood
[Blog] For now, Twitter is what you make it http://tinyurl.com/36cksaf Via @jangles <I like Neville's take on it>
Hobson: For now, Twitter is what you make it: Twitter‘s all over the news today, not only tech but also general, r… http://bit.ly/bf42Ox
RT @jangles For now, Twitter is what you make it http://goo.gl/fb/jDEYx *Fave quote: "Twitter is not a social network. Twitter is for news."
Twitter Comment
[nh.com] For now, Twitter is what you make it [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Unless a network is designed and minimized to a singular purpose (like Ping), isn’t a network by definition defined by it’s constituents?
This design change may shift the way that people use the platform, but it’s not really in hands of the cell phone carriers to define the purpose of their phones and it’s not really up to Twitter to decide how we use the platform. Design can shift, but rarely defines existing platform usage.
The positioning however, is an interesting one. Why do you think Twitter went in this direction?
Twitter Comment
[Blog] For now, Twitter is what you make it [link to post] Via @jangles <I like Neville’s take on it>
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Thanks for this one Neville. I agree that it’s what you make it but it feels increasingly ‘noisy’. Ever more dross to filter before you get to the interesting/meaningful stuff. We’ve been tweeting for clients for a while but (perhaps foolishly) only recently started on my/our own account (@socialprblog and @thefoundryhouse). My sense is that new accounts have accelerated considerably in the last few months but the noise is reaching a crescendo. Fine for the early adopters who know who they want to listen to but increasingly difficult and time consuming for those starting from scratch. With so many followers, do you even bother with the new one’s?
Marcie
Twitter Comment
RT @jangles For now, Twitter is what you make it [link to post] *Fave quote: “Twitter is not a social network. Twitter is for news.”
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
[Blog] For now, Twitter is what you make it [link to post] #fb #in
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Is Twitter a social network or news broadcaster? Worthwhile read on how people's perceptions of Twitter are shifting: http://bit.ly/ayB0vz
RT @jangles: For now, Twitter is what you make it http://is.gd/fbHz0
RT @jangles: For now, Twitter is what you make it http://is.gd/fbHz0
NevilleHobson.com: For now, Twitter is what you make it > I agree that users want to learn and consume more tha.. http://tinyurl.com/3yb8ono
I think the genius of the Twitter and the founders who have guided its course is understanding that they don’t know exactly where they will be led by the community. By keeping to a strategy of letting the community decide what works and what doesn’t for them, its helped Twitter evolve quickly and organically. You write a great article and point to the important product strategy that lies at the heart of Twitter, letting customers define the tool and its use for themselves.
For now, Twitter is what you make it http://bit.ly/aIqa4Q