Twitter has today launched a major overhaul of its Twitter.com web interface, including inline video and picture support.
The new interface, which is being rolled out this week (some users will already have it) sees a radical re-think of the Twitter stream view, with a new two column layout that allows users to see conversations, video and photos all from the same screen.
Usage is simple: to see expanded content, users click on the tweet in the left column, with the content (including conversation) appearing in the right column.
The overhaul delivers features to Twitter web users (still the majority of Twitter users) that have previously been available to third party application users only.
There is one small catch though, and in traditional Twitter fashion it screws over some third party providers: only content from partners is supported at this time. The partner list: Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube. That’s actually more extensive inline support than currently offered by TweetDeck, but likewise does give an advantage to partners over other companies offering services such as Twitter pictures and video.
Other changes include the removal of the “more” button, so Twitter users are now presented with an endless stream of tweets that appear as you scroll down the page.
Overall, this change is a huge improvement for Twitter and we’d think will be welcomed by most Twitter users. We can’t wait to try it out.
The demo video as follows: note, you’ve got to get about half way in (past the fluffy stuff) to see it in action.
