Updated Twitter profiles coming to everyone Wednesday

New features include header photo, background photo and photo stream options

In September, Twitter made an announcement that it would be implementing updated profiles, with new features, including new header photos and photo streams, to “make your presence on Twitter more meaningful.”

The profiles have been rolling out to users for nearly three months now, on both desktop and mobile, and so everyone should have had plenty of time to prepare, since now every single Twitter user will be getting the new profile on Wednesday, even if they don’t want it, Twitter announced in a blogpost Monday.

Here is the entire message Twitter wrote to its users:

“A few months ago, we introduced new Twitter profiles so that you could make your profile beautiful and display your style on your profile page. By uploading a header photo on twitter.com or our mobile apps on iPhone, iPad or Android, you can make your profile more uniquely yours. We’ve seen a lot of cool takes on these new profiles –– including shots from Mars, silly themes, and brands and celebrities expressing themselves in clever ways,” Sachin Agarwal, Product Manager at Twitter, wrote.

“On December 12, we’re rolling this out to all users: you’ll automatically get this new version of the profile on twitter.com. If you don’t upload a header photo by then, you (and everyone else) will only see a default grey image on your page. That’s not fun! To get inspired about what you can do, check out this video to see how to make your profile a little more ‘you’, less generic. Have fun out there.”

What’s new about the profiles

So what should users expect to happen to their profiles on Wednesday?

Twitter added a new “header photos,” or 1252×626 pictures that work very similarly to Facebook Cover Photos, which appears above a user’s Tweets. They a simple way for people to express themselves on their page.

For example, here is the header photo for the Pope's recently created Twitter account:

The photos will appear on the Twitter app for iPad, iPhone, Android and on the Twitter website.

Twitter also added photo streams that appear below a user’s most recent Tweets on iPhone, Android and iPad. Users can swipe through the stream, and then tap the thumbnail to see the photo in fullscreen.

There is also a new background photo being added, but will only appear on twitter.com.

The first new profiles were debuted on September 18 fpr  @TODAYshow, TODAY anchors like @MLauer, @SavannahGuthrie and @AlRoker, that morning's TODAY guest anchor @RyanSeacrest and NBC news accounts like @BreakingNews.

Twitter also included this video on how to create a new profile: