Twitter Launches New Homepage–A New Focus Too?
You’re looking at Twitter’s new homepage design.
Nice, huh?
What I don’t get is how this helps you to understand how to use Twitter. That was the goal that cofounder Biz Stone stated, right?
Instead of landing on Twitter and thinking, “oh, it’s a place where I share updates about my life,” it now suggests “oh, it’s a place where I can search for stuff…isn’t that what Google’s for?”
There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter’s “real time” search being a challenger to Google, so perhaps this is an intentional change of focus. Still, I can’t help wonder if Twitter’s moved too far “off topic” with this design.
What do you think of it?
UPDATE: Biz Stone explains some background behind the new homepage. This paragraph seems to be the crux of the decision:
Defining a “tweet” for the uninitiated and explaining how to create an account doesn’t resonate with everyone. “Why would I want to do that?” is a common reaction. However, demonstrating 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?”
So, Twitter brings us, not a search engine, but a “discovery engine.” Great, we’ll add that to the list. 
