We’ve been getting a lot of tips today and yesterday about the limited roll-out of a new Twitter homepage design, which gives the search functionality a more prominent place along with some additional features.
We couldn’t see it ourselves on our accounts, but now co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed the changes in a blog post, calling the new feature a ‘discovery engine’. (see it here on the Flickr account of Adam Jackson)
With the redesign, the search box has moved to the right sidebar of the interface (only for a small subset of users at this point), where Stone claims it’s a more ‘natural part of the Twitter experience’. I agree, and it shows that the company realizes very well that real-time search is a killer feature they should be nurturing and monitoring very closely. When you do a search, the results no longer appear on a separate page but remain on the homepage, and by default it only crawls the tweets from the accounts you’re following searches the entire public Twitter stream.
You can also save search queries and revisit the results at a later time. Since the searches you save stay on your homepage, this feature makes it a lot easier for people to keep track of conversations around a given topic (e.g. a brand, event or person) and also sort of makes the plethora of third-party monitoring tools obsolete for basic queries. We’ll have to see how this will affect the applications that are currently centered around monitoring Twitter conversations (take for instance, the Yahoo Sideline desktop app we covered yesterday), but it’s clear that the more emphasis Twitter puts on that, the less relevant they become.
Twitter is also going to display popular trending topics below the search box, which will in turn make it easier for people to discover what the Twitterverse is talking about the most at any given time. Stone reminds us Trends is in beta, but like he says, it has potential.
Meanwhile, a lot of people are still reporting missing tweets and direct messages, a problem that’s been lingering for several weeks now.
This new feature of Twitter is really cool and I’m excited for it!
Yeah..t looks exciting. I am looking forward to use it asap.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I heard about it..lol love the little post it note mockup – I’ll assume that’s biz stone’s account and that he’s not going to end that tweet with ‘bathroom’
The main problem I’ve been having recently is randomly unfollowing people I have not actually unfollowed.. I’ve seen a couple of people report this as well
Observed the changes yesterday and made a comparison between the two accounts I manage.
Check out http://www.alex...91925465/bowman for images and feel free to share.
Smart move. Definitely way better than redirecting to a separate page.
http://twitter.com/coupld
This is a great feature. I am really looking forward to it. However, am not that interested in exploring the tweets, but the meat in them. i.e. I am looking to explore the web pages inside those tweets or the contents within them. And I am currently using http://www.boilingpage.com to find the popular web pages in Twitter. I should agree that this site is phenomenal, I’ve discovered many interesting websites in http://www.boilingpage.com. They also have automatic monitoring on interesting topics. Twitter should do this or just use their APIs http://boilingp...index.php?p=api
Interesting, I didn’t expect http://www.boilingpage.com to be this good. I kinda getting addicted to it. Many April fool websites on their home page today, which makes sense .. a website that truly shows the real-time hot pages on the web. I recommend it.
Who’d have thought we’d be getting all this nuanced complexity of use from a stream of 140-character messages?
This is a nice feature which I’ll probably end up using (although my Twitter experience is coloured by Tweetie and Tweetdeck these days), but more than that, it’s a lesson to any startups tempted to throw the kitchen sink at a problem. Behind any web application is a community of users, and Twitter has been brilliant at aiming its functionality at bringing out the underlying social dynamics. It’s about people, not pages.
Hey Robin. I posted photos of it
HERE: http://www.flic...son/3403568510/
HERE: http://www.flic...son/3402783381/
When you type in a search term it would be way cooler to have dynamic search that instantly updates the main column with tweets that include that term. Similar to the one on Get Satisfaction, but results are presented in the main column.
I am looking forward to it and lot more.
I have been testing this since yesterday. Its really cool.
Ah so it was only for a subset. I told friends about my page and none of them seemed to have a clue.
Very useful design change.
Great tool to bring out rich resource for the social communities.
Great feature. Look forward to using it.
The really interesting thing seems to be that you can search your friends’ tweets instead of the entire twitterverse. Looking forward to that!
Great! Twitter will become a good “listening” tool. A valuable business tool.
i noticed this update yesterday on my twitter page its a much better integration of the search functionality and has gotten me using it even more already.
I thought there was different about my account.
I like the Saved Search feature. I use twitter to monitor stuff so I often search the same things.
Nice updates.
Search from the home page … about time.
However, one of my favourite things about Twitter is its distributed nature, I rarely visit the mother ship.
It seems like they took a brilliant strategic approach here … by waiting so long to deploy search, they were able to have third party developers do their beta testing for them. Now, any developer who created a twitter search site is likely to find themselves with a quickly eroding user base.
Brilliant.
Never mess with a guy whose name is Biz.
It’s neat, but is it not what should have been there all along?
There is still much more Twitter could do to make the site more intuitive to use well for newbies. Those getting most effective use from it are those that follow the right people to see how others get best use from it, then copy. But how do new users know this or know who to follow to find out how to use it properly?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
This has to be one of the most idiotic comments I have ever seen. Ian – does your business evolve? Or has it arrived perfectly formed and futureproofed. Idiot.
Been using it already and am really satisfied with the results. Cool!
How long before they have to remove this feature due to load and performance reasons?
OH NO, You’ve summoned the Fail Whale!!
Twitter still has a lot to do in search, getting context right is going to be a hurdle they need to overcome, take the sketch above, are they searching for apple computers (likely), the first 4 hits, or someone talking about eating an apple (unlikely) hit 5.
I know this is a problem for all search engines, but the real time nature and lack of meta-data makes it more of a problem for Twitter. For example if you were to search for ‘Watchmen’ hoping to get people’s opinions of the film, you’re more likely to get people saying ‘Going to see Watchmen tonight’ than anything useful. You can try ‘watchmen review’, but who actually uses the word review when giving an opinion.
all right
This was long overdue. The dynamic search functionality would make the site more interesting to use . Looking forward to using it
Kennedy Kachwanya
Co-Founder
http://www.iborian.com
Sounds great, and integrates well with Twitter’s slogan/base-word: “What are you doing”/”What are you and other people doing”.
The real question is… Will this slow the page down/the whole service?
You guys ~ TELL ME MORE ABOUT “by default it only crawls the tweets from the accounts you’re following.” Will I be able to change/adjust/tweak that search parameter?
hugs
@zaneology
You guys ~ TELL ME MORE ABOUT “by default it only crawls the tweets from the accounts you’re following.” Will I be able to change/adjust/tweak that search parameter?
hugs
@zaneology
The most significant thing about this announcement is the fact that Twitter has the ability, with just a single upgrade, to effectively kill a whole raft of third-party monitoring tools, in one fell swoop.
Graeme
http://www.twit.../graemethickins
I’ve had the new page for a while on my account, they’ve been trying out a few things with the load more button at the bottom and mostly I’m digging the new design.
Pagination is still wonky with the load more design and its easier to lose your place when you have 200+ tweets to catch up on.
My biggest issue is that yesterday the URL for the page changed to http://twitter....m/timeline/home and I am being redirected to this page. When I click a link to http://twitter....home?status=foo (and I use a lot of those type of “share this on twitter” links) they are still redirecting but not bringing the status variable so I lose what I was trying to share.
I have the new UI (don’t know why I’m so lucky), but I can’t confirm “by default it only crawls the tweets from the accounts you’re following.” For me, it does a global search. I very much like the idea. Even more if it could do a 2nd or 3rd degree network search.
Being able to save searches is a very nice addition in itself though. Twitter UI is maturing fast.
Saw this yesterday in my SEO Tips Twitter account. Here’s a screen shot. > http://twitpic.com/2psx3
Crap, where is my searchie thingie?
http://twitter.com/hwooter
Crap, where is my searchie thingie?
http://twitter.com/hwooter
I have the new layout! It’s pretty cool. I like the new features especially the updates page which shows all tweets mentioning your username.
Pics are posted on my blog: http://enspri.c...nd-i-have-pics/
Cheers,
Kris
Yep new layout is great
A search limited to my network of friends is something friendfeed had a long time ago…
Something still missing is the group feature of “friendfeed” and the speed of search…
Friendfeed is so so so so fast……
I hope all turns out for the best for Twitter and not like a disaster like Facebook.
“When you do a search… by default it only crawls the tweets from the accounts you’re following.”
Robin, that’s neither what the Twitter blog said, or what the “discovery engine” does. From the blog (not the phrase “any tweets”)::
“Normally, the tweets you would see on your home page are from sources of information that you have curated over time—in other words, the accounts you chose to follow. When you use search, you’re asking for any tweets that contain the word or phrase you’re interested in right now.”
The blog is actually emphasizing that search ISN’T just people you follow. Maybe, in the future, TechCrunch could have its writers actually USE a web page before writing about it?
(Although searching people one follows would be a useful feature. Twitter should consider that — the top of the ‘people you follow’ would be an excellent place for it, I think.)
I love their search feature, and I love that it tells you when there’s something new and you can refresh to see it.
I am really loving how closely they are paying attention to their users!
Twitter search on your home page.
Love the new search feature on Twitter. Layout looks cleaner too. Bet more stuff is on the way…
Enjoying using this type of search feature on the PowerTwitter interface. Good to see it coming to twitter, too.
@wiredprworks
Got selected as the trial user 2 nights ago. Lots of bugs initially, but the twitter crew fixed them in realtime within minutes. There are still quite a few problems – one of which is old twitter scalability issue.
The UX is very good. The results can be very useful depending on the needs.
Good to see that users are realizing that there can be more to search than the functionality supplied by Google. Twitter is ONE example that does not replace Google, but complements.
I am really liking all the work Twitter is putting into their app.
Maybe this isn’t a ‘flash bang’ after all.
I like this feature, it’s for sure more significant than twitter paid account. See more in depth analysis on my blog.
it only took Twitter *years* to realize that search was an important function? only long ’til they realize that having a business model isn’t such a bad thing to have, either?!
In paper looks really good, the search is a MUST , great idea … … but I miss seeing all my following avatars , I now see all the trends in my sidebar …
Who cares? Really, no one comes to twitter with the intent to buy anything.
When I want recommendations for a digital camera I go to Google. I don’t come to Twitter. That is why Google search works, that is why Twitter’s “discovery engine” won’t.
Ask yourself when the last time you went on twitter looking for product reviews, recommendations or opinion. You’ll be hard pressed to remember.
The new redesign is nice but it really doesn’t help me due to the FAQ that i use TweetDesk for everything twitter
Love the changes, can’t wait for “the fire hose” to be turned on where the tweets in the stream have the option of being viewed in real time.
I absolutely LOATHE this new layout, and I’m unfortunately in the small subset of people they rolled it out to! First of all, let me point out that my homepage is mostly dark colors, my right column is a dark purple with slightly lighter colored text. The complete WHITE search bar is extremely disruptive to the flow of the page. Also the “people” icons are completely WIPED – I no longer see my friend’s pictures, instead I have to look at the “Trending Topics”, which I don’t care about AT ALL. So frustrating.
I have the feature since wednesday, is very cool!