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Though Twitter just recently redesigned its homepage, the company announced a much more sweeping, ground-up revamp of Twitter.com at an event in San Francisco today. As related by Evan Williams (who does not, it turns out, have anything to do with the inexpensive yet tasty bourbon of the same name), Twitter's web client is used by almost as many people as every other Twitter client combined, so when Twitter.com sees a major redesign, it's going to affect how millions of people communicate.
The new web app takes inspiration from the Apple iPad's native Twitter app, a two-paneled system. The new right-side panel shows everything you'd want to access, helped along by Twitter's new support for a whopping 16 image and video uploading services. That means you can forget about opening links in new tabs or windows--Twitter's right-hand panel will take care of it all.
Click on a tweet, and you'll see a preview of a TwitPic image, a playable YouTube video, or an entire conversation (including the source of a reply, which is a nice touch that's been missing). It's a nice and succinct way to incorporate all this new information into a single place.
The left-hand column is the Twitter feed as we knew it -- except that now, like Google Image Search, it uses an unlimited scroll. No more clicking that "More" button--you can just keep scrolling down forever. Hopefully that won't slow the site too much; Twitter made it very clear that the new web app is designed to be fast, efficient, and responsive, so we know they've thought about it.
This redesign is going to have a major effect on the social lives on some of the biggest Influencers on the web. The new ease of use in image and video may make it easier to share video and photo, which could help Influencers such as iJustine and Roger Ebert spread the word about projects--and enabling the movers and shakers in the Influence Project too. But when they'll get it is an open question. Twitter was vague about the specifics of when the redesigned site will be available to all but a select subset of users.
Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).
