Twitter Testing Major Profile Redesign That Looks a Lot Like Facebook
Twitter is testing a major profile redesign that's very reminiscent of Facebook and Google+. Mashable assistant features editor Matt Petronzio spotted on Tuesday a huge update to his Twitter profile page …
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter is testing the profile-page change against a backdrop of confirmed user-retention problems and a sharp slowdown in user growth that had divided Wall Street. The move follows years of Facebook profile iteration, including a detailed 2008 Facebook profile redesign, making the resemblance significant as a choice of familiar social-product conventions.
First-order effects
- People included in Twitter’s test receive a substantially different profile experience, with a presentation Mashable characterizes as closer to Facebook and Google+ than Twitter’s established format.
- Twitter gains a live test of whether a more visually prominent, familiar profile page improves the experience for people arriving at or evaluating user accounts.
Second-order effects
- Profile owners and brands must adapt how they present identity and content if the new layout becomes broadly available, shifting attention toward the material the redesigned page foregrounds.
- Facebook and Google+ become more immediate reference points for Twitter’s profile design, narrowing the product distinction at the account-page level while Twitter addresses retention pressure.
Third-order effects
- If major social services keep borrowing proven profile conventions, profile pages will increasingly converge on a common visual model even as their underlying content networks differ.
- The episode points to product design becoming a more central lever in platform growth strategy, alongside Twitter’s separate effort to open public and historical tweet data to researchers.
The trend: Social platforms are converging on richer, more familiar profile experiences as they seek to reduce friction in user engagement and retention.