Twitter Rolls Out New Homepage Design to Attract New Users

Over 500 million people who visit Twitter every month don’t have Twitter accounts. Many of these casual users are redirected from embedded tweets visible on other websites who don’t make regular use of the service. In order to capitalize on such users, Twitter has rolled out a new homepage interface to make the service more appealing to those who aren’t yet connected via a Twitter account.

See what’s happening right now

Previously, people without a Twitter account who visited the site were greeted with the sign-in/sign-up page, with zero access to content. In other words, it was basically a dead end for anyone who wanted to check out the social activity on the network before signing up for an account. With the redesigned homepage, anyone who visits the site, regardless of whether they have a Twitter account, will find a healthy dose of feeds curated to show off popular sections of the social network.

This renewed focus benefits Twitter in two major ways. Firstly, it gets the opportunity to expose a larger audience to advertisements that otherwise were only visible to account holders. Secondly, it may eventually encourage casual visitors to sign up for an account and become a regular user of the service.

Celebs, Business, and Technology

Pop artists, animals, technology, business, actors and several other popular categories are prominently displayed on the homepage, while relatively niche groups can be seen on the side bar. Choosing any of the available categories directs users to a more conventional Twitter feed that is arranged with posts and content from relevant Twitter users.

New Search bar

The redesigned homepage also adds a handy new search bar at the top of the page, which recommends queries for happening trends and hashtags.

Initially, the new interface will only be available to desktop users in the United States. However, the changes are expected to eventually roll out globally on a broad range of devices.