Popular as it is, the micro-blogging service Twitter may have been frittering away its 160 million-strong user base. Though it has become a household name and spawned third-party apps through which users commonly interact with the website, these apps ironically became preferable to users–including advertisers–because they allow them to do more things, like post pictures and videos. Twitter addicts haven’t actually been spending much time on the site itself.
That may change. According to AdAge, Twitter is slowly unrolling new features and a redesign, such that “you can click on a tweet and get a richer, faster, more detailed experience and get related content,” CEO Evan Williams told AdAge.
Twitter quickly captured a sizeable mobile audience, its limit of 140 characters per entry a natural fit with text-messagers, who themselves are limited to 160 characters per SMS message. The sense of instant gratification and personal interaction that make text messages such an effective marketing tool also imbues “tweets.” It’s either genius or a no-brainer to combine this SMS-like simplicity and ease with a richer website, which will be accessible on ever-increasing phones as high-tech smart phones and multimedia handsets continue to take over the cell phone space.
Marketers will be able to make their Twitter campaigns multi-platform, since they can place promotional videos, images, and the like right in their feeds–and get instant Twitter feedback from consumers. Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo, who plans to start showing the new site to advertising clients, said in the AdAge story: “The benefit of the new interface is there’s much more opportunity for users to explore… It’s an opportunity for users to engage with the tweet and to see the ways others have engaged with the tweet.”