#NewTwitter and image uploading: now for all users

All in one week, Twitter makes itself a much more potent multimedia center

Hello, everyone, and welcome to microblogging in 2011. You now have sidebars and photos. Incredible stuff, I know. Read on.

#NewTwitter

Twitter confirmed this week that all users have now been automatically upgraded to the new Twitter.com (#NewTwitter).

Personally, I never understood the appeal of not switching to the new version. In the old version, you see one continuous stream of incoming tweets, with no room for extra media or metadata at all. Simple, yes, but almost too simple. In #NewTwitter, the focus remains fixed on that stream--naturally--but it has been shifted to the left so that real estate on the right can be used for displaying content like photos and videos, or to show more information about other users.

All in all, the site redesign makes Twitter feel like a much more powerful, streamlined media center.

Despite the redesign being available since September 2010, however, some users had still not upgraded. So, a couple weeks ago, those users started seeing a message on Twitter.com that informed them that they’d be upgraded “very, very soon.”

True to its word, Twitter has finally forced all users onto the new platform. Learn more about #NewTwitter by watching the video at the bottom of this post, or by clicking here.

Image Uploading

Coinciding with the complete rollout of its new site, Twitter also confirmed Wednesday that all users can now attach photos to tweets.

It makes a lot of sense to get all users on #NewTwitter at the same time that those same users get access to image uploading. Half the beauty of #NewTwitter is clicking a tweet containing an image, and instantly seeing it pop up in right-hand panel.

Most users will probably see the message here (see screenshot) when they log into Twitter this week, explaining how to upload an image with a post. Easy as pie.

The company first announced that this feature was coming back in June, though it has probably been in the works for a while longer than that. Maybe Twitter wanted to make sure that Photobucket, the company hosting all the uploaded files, could handle the immense extra load.

Click here to learn more about the newly official image upload feature.