How Does Twitter’s New Design Help Internet Marketers?
By Anna Johnson on September 20th, 2010Last week, Twitter unveiled a new design and some new functionality that will be rolled out to Twitter account users over the next few weeks. Overall, Twitter 2.0 is good news for Internet marketers who, among other things, will be able to embed more compelling media content into their Twitter streams. It’s also good for users… but perhaps not so good for developers of third party Twitter clients.
Most importantly, as a Twitter user you will now be able to embed photos, videos and other media content directly into your Twitter stream, thanks to Twitter partnering with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube.
Your Twitter page will also sport a new layout. The left column will feature @mentions, retweets, searches and lists above your timeline. The right column will include such familiar features as the Twitter users you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and trending topics.
In other enhancements, Twitter will also show you more information about an author or subject when you click a Tweet or @username.
Third party Twitter client developers may not be so happy about these developments.
Who needs Twitpic (a service that allows you to post pictures to Twitter) anymore?
And doesn’t Twitter’s move to display more details about a Tweet or a Twitter user displace the various third party clients (such as HootSuite) which have, to date, provided similar functionality?
On the other hand, Twitter clients such as HootSuite still have an edge in that you can use them to display streams from more than one Twitter account. They are increasingly becoming multi-platform tools too (not just based on Twitter). I personally use HootSuite rather than Twitter for these reasons.
Third party clients such as Twitpic, on the other hand, may have reason to worry…
