Twitter must make money if it is to survive and with 200 million registered accounts and perhaps tens of millions of active users (the debate on how many engage with Twitter is ongoing), the only way it can make money is through advertising – and to make serious money it needs millions more active users. Twitter must emerge from its ‘niche’ status and become an everyday part of people’s online experience.
Twitter’s latest re-design includes branded pages or ‘brand profile pages’, much as Facebook and Google+ offer brands their own pages. Twitter is hoping all the major brands will engage with the platform and then start to spend money on promoted tweets.
The way Twitter works for its users will also change. The redesign is based around four new tabs – Home, Connect, Discover and Me.
* Home is your new timeline feature.
* Connect allows you to interact with others and see who is interacting with them.
* Discover guides you to find better content from users you don’t follow.
* Me links lists, direct messages and images.

Expandable tweets
The re-design means tweets will be expandable, allowing users to read beyond the 140 characters and view other media such as pictures and videos. (It’s almost bringing Twitter back to its micro-blogging heritage).
Brand profile pages are simply that – companies can create their own ‘more visually appealing’ pages. This will include a large branded header. “This page and the Promoted Tweet are both free of charge and publicly accessible for the whole world. Your profile page is your own: your colours, your logo, and your messaging,” says Twitter.
21 brands have so far created their own profile pages including McDonald’s, Dell and Coca-Cola. Thousands more will follow suit as ‘new Twitter’ rolls out to users over the next few months.

Interesting new addition
What’s interesting about new Twitter is the ability for users to post Tweets on other sites. “Every tweet is a dynamic piece of media, and we believe that everyone should be able to view and interact with tweets on the web in the same ways you would from any Twitter client,” says Twitter. “Embeddable Tweets [are] a new way to add any tweet to your web site just by copying and pasting a line of code. Visitors can follow the author with a single click, and reply, retweet, or favorite the tweet without leaving the page.”
All of these new functions are being created to spread Twitter’s presence across the web, just as Facebook has with its Like button and Google+ is attempting to do with its + function.

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