It’s not uncommon for companies to redesign their pages. Thinks get stale, new features get added, whatever. People groan and moan about it for a week or two and then they get used to it. Such is the way of life on the Internet.
But I’m not sure I’ve seen any company so blatantly rip off another the way that Twitter just has.
The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out new profiles on the Web, which are meant to make them more personal to each user.
“Moment by moment, your Twitter profile shows the world who you are,” the company wrote. “Starting today, it will be even easier (and, we think, more fun) to express yourself through a new and improved web profile.”
The profiles now feature a larger profile picture, and give users the ability to customize their header, and the ability to show off their best Tweets.
Here is a picture of what the new profile looks like. Tell me if it looks familiar to you at all:
The customizable header, the placement of the profile picture, and the thumbnails of who each user is following on the right side, and the list of options below the header are an exact copy of the Facebook layout. Almost down to a tee.
So why do that? Well, the truth is that Twitter is a public company and it needs to appeal to the masses. It can’t be a niche network anymore. With only 241 million total monthly active users (MAUs), Twitter could do worse than to copy the look of a company that has 1.23 billion MAUs. I mean, Facebook has got to be doing something right to get those kinds of numbers!
The new Twitter profiles do have a few features that set it apart from its rivals, though.
First, it will actually make those tweets that have been engaged with more, meaning liked or retweeted, slighly larger “so your best content is easy to find.” The new profiles also contain a “pinned tweet,” which allows users to put one of their older tweets at the top of the page, rather than just the most recent one.
And, finally, it gives users the ability to filter tweets by category when looking at other people’s profiles. They can choose from Tweets, Tweets with photos/videos, or Tweets and replies.
So, if I go onto the First Lady’s new profile, as pictured above, and then I click on photos/videos, this is what it looks like:
Honestly, its much better, and simpler, way to view the multimedia content that users put up. The old way was clunky and inelegant, to say the least.
This new profiles are becoming available today to a small group of users, including Zac Efron, Kerry Washington, Channing Tatum, and John Legend. The rest of us will be getting the new profiles in the coming weeks as they roll out to everyone.
(Image source: 500.co)
