Twitter announced two updates today that should make it easier to use for logged-out users — a group of people the company has generally not taken as seriously as it should.
First of all, Twitter is now rolling out its updated homepage, which makes it easier for logged-out users to drill into interesting messages, pictures and videos on the platform without having to sign up for it, to more countries. Until now, this homepage was only available in the U.S. and Japan. It’s also bringing a better logged-out out experience to mobile users in 23 countries, the company said.
Compared to Twitter’s earlier homepages, which generally left potential new users scratching their heads because it barely explained why they should use the service, this new page makes Twitter seems like a far more inviting place for newbies.
That’s a challenge Twitter has long since needed to address. The company has struggled to grow its user base – a metric Wall St. needs to see rise. But on the flip side, the company knows that its service is used and seen by far more people than those who have actually created accounts.
In fact, Twitter has said in the past that it has as many as 500 million users who stop by to read tweets without being signed in or registered. It has experimented with reaching this audience in different ways, and even monetizing them.
Not only did it create a homepage that let these users better browse the site, it tested showing Promoted Tweets to those without an account, too. The company also discussed other ways to tweak how Twitter profile pages were displayed to logged out users.
This new homepage is now rolling out in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, the UK and the US.
Perhaps even more important than the global rollout of the web homepage, is Twitter announcement that it’s also launching a similar update on mobile today.
“Before today, you could see individual Tweets but it was hard to discover stories and conversations happening on Twitter without signing in,” the Twitter team writes in today’s announcement. “Now, you can check out a news story as it unfolds, dive into the play-by-play discussions around a game, and then come back again to see that exchange between two rappers everyone’s been talking about.”
The new home timeline will become available across the 23 countries, when they visit Twitter.com from their mobile devcie.
The intent behind both updates is pretty much the same: make Twitter more attractive for those who aren’t the media junkies that make up its core user group.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lFosY-YlzzQ/
