Unveiled on Tuesday in San Francisco at a press conference before some 100- odd members of the digital and traditional media, Twitter announced its first major site upgrade. Bloggers have already snarked poetically on the crappy projector used during the presentation and mildly poo-pooed the changes with a wave of dismissal politely disguised as “we’ll wait and see.” Twitter fanatics, on the other hand, are jumping up and down already, even though it hasn’t even fully launched. So what exactly is the new Twitter and how does it work?
The main difference the new Twitter has is its fancy-schmancy iPad look and Facebook-type of mechanisms. Easier to navigate, the site now can host videos and photos posted by your friends and followers right on the spot instead of clicking over to multiple links. This is done via Twitter’s new partnerships with YouTube, Flickr, UStream and Justin.tv, with more media hook-ups to be announced. Twitter plans to roll out the new site in increments over the next couple of weeks. Personally, we think it all looks pretty nifty and it signals a crossover into a mega-multimedia platform for the micro-blogging site. Even more exciting is what the Twitter redux could potentially do for marketers.
The gem in this makeover is the site’s new media hosting capabilities. With videos and photos now available for viewing right on a company’s Twitter page, advertisers and marketers will get a better idea as to what their followers are watching. Interactive, Twitter-exclusive videos produced with our clients in mind are now closer to becoming a reality. Photos of our clients’ new products will now be directly embedded in our links as opposed to the clicking over to another site that may or may not work. Another cool feature of the update is the super-easy-to-operate, snazzy layout. We suspect Twitter-phobic clients unsure of integrating the site into their social media marketing plans will warm up to the accessible and stylish new site.
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