Four Implications of the Leaked Twitter Redesign

Twitter's new look won't be limited to the redesigned Twitter home page. Doug Bowman, creative director at the social media company, posted a screen shot of a refreshed design for Twitter Thursday, according to SocialTimes. Of course, the whole screen isn't even shown because, as Bowman wrote in a comment, "Working on what may end up a significant redesign. Not final yet. What we can show without giving away the farm."


It looks like quite a bit is going to change, and as usual, even the smallest of updates could carry a significant revenue implication for Twitter. Here are four implications of a screen redesign for Twitter (and, more important, its investors):


1. What have you done for me lately?
The tweets-per-day metric will tell other users how active you are at a glance, rather than requiring the mental calculus of last tweet date, date joined and total number of tweets. It also shows the "reply" rate, which speaks to interaction with other users instead of simple broadcast tweeting. The total number of tweets doesn't appear to be provided, because having been a super-user last year means nothing this year.


Implication: These features will be incredibly useful to social media marketing professionals in gauging reach and identifying influencers. For Twitter, that means increased end-user commitment from businesses, which entails more opportunities to sell commercial Twitter accounts.


2. I was there first!
While it's possible now to see how long a user has been on Twitter, the leaked redesign makes this stat prominent, and it is measured in number of days to make the numbers nice and big. For early adopters, this is an obvious pride point, and now members can know quickly whether they should feel pride or admiration in any given interaction.


Implication: This metric is likely to fuel follower interactions, as n00bs are drawn to experienced users in an attempt to attain some reflected glory. For Twitter, this increased commitment to the platform fuels growth along every announced revenue stream.


More on bloggingstocks (by Tom Johansmeyer)