AllThingsDigital revealed Twitter will unveil a new home page next week. Read the entire ATD article. In the article, Twitter divulged the major features of the new home page will include the following:
- a search box
- information on Twitter trends
- and more specific information about how to use Twitter
In her article, Kara Swisher accurately points out “users interact only with their own pages and do not use any central Twitter hub.” On the surface, it seems Twitter has realized the opportunity before them is to create a home page that offers users that central place to gather and find out what’s hot/not, etc. – a sort of Twitter zeitgeist.
With the ascent of Twitter into our collective behaviors and consciousness, we find news breaking on Twitter minutes and hours before ‘reputable’ news sources begin discussing the these topics. Twitter is talked about more in the media than even Google(1).
However, without harnessing the collective power of all of the random Tweet-based conversations, Twitter risks flaming-out as social networking addicts become exhausted from too much Facebooking, getting Linkedin and Twittering about del.ici.ous Tweets.
As Twitter launches that ‘central hub’ I believe – if done properly – this home page and adjacent web content will drive Twitter usage higher, depth of visit deeper, and propel the social networking site to new heights. I hypothesize as well that this move is more than facilitation of conversations within the community – this has as much to do with driving a sharp increase in market value for a future sale of the service.
This move is about BRANDING Twitter – creating a brand image and a value proposition that makes it easy for people to understand what the service is, how they can use it, and how they’ll benefit from it.
This move is about spiking media mentions even higher and about having a single place for newbies, veterans, and news media alike to turn to.
Today Twitter is a nebulous ‘thing’ with tweets that bounce around on the Internet only to be discovered by other Twitter users and in a few Bing search results.
With the new home page, Twitter will become a place for the mass of people to congregate when they want to know what’s going on in the world and when they want to connect with others.
If Twitter finds a way to reach the masses – to make it easy for everyone to ‘connect’ with other people – then imagine what’s possible for Twitter:
- Accelerated growth curve – might as well be a vertical line (no curve here)
- Creation of vertical segments within Twitter – as determined/created by Twitter users themselves through tag clouds
- Twitter as a search engine: I imagine a day when people use Twitter as a form of search engine where Twitter users are providing the search results – not a bot, spider or algorithm. Put in your search query and real people instantly provide the results you seek. The result would be a live, real-time search engine with the benefit of ratings and reviews and commentary directly from real people we can connect with individually and instantly.
- Instant monetization: Speculate no more. A slight modification in the home page offers almost endless possibilities for Twitter to capitalize financially. First and foremost is the threat of Twitter as a new and different search-like utility with limitless potential.
I suppose then, it’s totally conceivable for Twitter to emerge, almost overnight, as a significant threat to Google. Forget Yahoo and Microsoft.
Back to the idea that this simple ‘home page’ redesign is meant to make it easier for people to use Twitter. If any of the above happen, then Twitter forces the major players in Search and News Media to come to the table with significant and immediate offers each worthy of consideration.
Simple home page redesign? I think not.
What are your thoughts?
(1) Ref: Stan Schroeder of Mashable, July 20, 2009: Twitter Gets Even More Media Love than Google (http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/twitter-media-love/).
Posted by worldlinkmarketing 
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