You must have already noticed Twitter has a new look; on the web, mobile app, and even its ‘scheduler,’ the TweetDeck. A move the San Francisco company intended to break the monotony and perhaps spark new interest among users.
Something that could see the social media grow its user base which has remained stagnant for awhile now. The social network is certainly struggling to attract new users at the rate Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are doing.
The company’s revenue has stalled for years now, forcing the company to cut down on head counts and shuffling executives but never actually quite managing to post a quarterly profit. The new look is intended to refresh users experience with some subtle improvements here and there.
“Today, with lots of feedback and ideas from you, we’re refreshing our product too and making it feel lighter, faster, and easier to use. We listened closely and kept what you love,” wrote Twitter in a blog post announcing the refreshed design.
Twitter says the new design will make the platform simpler, faster, and easier for the users. The new look has bolder headlines and more intuitive icons; the users’ profile images has changed from square to being rounded.
On the app and TweetDeck, users’ tweets will “now update instantly with reply, Retweet, and like counts so you can see conversations as they’re happening.” The new UI will start rolling out to the web, mobile apps, and TweetDeck over the next few coming days.
So why is the Twitterati bashing on Twitter’s new look?
Well, Twitter doesn’t exactly have a track record of receiving praise for new changes it introduces on its platform. So this current bashing is not like nothing the company hasn’t received before.
When it changed the algorithm of how users tweets are ordered it got some bashing. When it rolled out the Moments feature, the same thing happened. The same goes for when it replaced its star icon with a heart icon to signify ‘favorite’ tweet; yes, the heart-thing was first on Facebook before Twitter copied it. So little wonder why tweeps were bashing Twitter for lack of originality.
For its recent changes, tweeps began bashing the company as early as Thursday with tweet jokes and memes criticizing the changes. It is said over 30,000 tweets were made criticizing the new UI Twitter has launched. Some people are likening the new user interface to a rounded up SpongeBob SquarePants.