Twitter last week made a few big changes that, taken separately, are positive steps forward. The network is trying to grow beyond its devoted user base and appeal to the mainstream. But as a whole, Twitter is becoming more and more like Facebook every day.
Last week was an eventful one for the newly public micro-blogging service. First, the company quietly rolled out a new type of ad for timelines. Then, in a curious move, Twitter bought Android lock-screen startup Cover. After that announcement came a profile page redesign and pop-up Web notifications.
The changes seem promising, but they also follow Facebook’s playbook. Twitter might just be embracing broader social trends and learning from its competitor’s missteps, but the network risks losing its signature style, its innate Twitter sensibility, if it hews too closely to Facebook’s path.
Twitter capped off its week of change with a Thursday roll-out of pop-up Web notifications, so you’ll instantly know if someone replies to, favorites, or retweets you as you scroll through your feed on Twitter.com.
Twitter used a pop-up direct message as an example of how real-time notifications will improve the desktop Twitter experience – before, you might have missed a DM until much later – but the DM pop-up also resembles a Facebook chat. Strangely enough, Facebook is moving beyond chat by pointing mobile users to its Messenger app. If Twitter spun off messages into a separate DM app, few eyebrows would be raised.
Profile pages get a makeover
Twitter’s revamped profile pages made headlines because it’s the first major design change Twitter has rolled out for some time. Some users hate the new look, others say the makeover doesn’t even matter because few Twitter diehards even look at their profile pages. Everyone knows the feed is the heart of Twitter.
But it’s hard to deny that the new look for profiles is very, very similar to Facebook’s design decisions with Timeline, its version of a profile page. Both now feature large cover photos straddled by profile photos and centered posts bracketed by biographical information and trending topics.
It’s unclear why Twitter chose such a blatantly similar design, but it could be that the familiar format might prompt people who use Facebook and stumble upon a Twitter page to stick around. The unknown is scary. Facebook is not.
Facebook has proved mobile app install ads make money. It’s the company’s core way to make money on mobile – mobile ads bring in more than half of Facebook’s total revenue – and has helped Facebook foster relationships with developers. Install ads are just the beginning: Facebook is expected to announce ways to help developers monetise their apps at its F8 developers conference at the end of this month.
Twitter is making money from mobile with promoted tweets, but the company only gets paid if its users engage with an advertiser’s tweet. Twitter saw the potential to make money from app install ads, and last Friday began rolling them out in users’ timelines. Yahoo is also testing a similar ad format to bring in mobile ad dollars.
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