Sep 15, 2010 08:25 GMT  ·  By

Twitter has announced a massive revamp of its homepage. The new Twitter.com is the single biggest update to the site since launch and it definitely packs a punch. The biggest changes are the integrated media support, enabling you to view photos and videos inline, and the much smarter, and wider, second panel.

"We've learned something since starting Twitter—life doesn't always fit into 140 characters or less," Twitter cofounder and CEO Evan Williams wrote.

"Today, we’re introducing a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience," he announced.

"On the site, you’ll see the familiar timeline, yet underneath each Tweet is a handful of information, deeper context and even embedded media. Simply click on an individual Tweet and a details pane slides out on the right and reveals this content," he explained.

The single most noticeable difference, at first sight, is the larger second panel. By default it shows all of the same info as before, followers, people you're following, trending topics and so on.

But the cool thing about it is that it changes what it displays depending on what you're doing.

If you click on a tweet you'll see that tweet and all of its details along with people who retweeted it and related content.

And if the tweet contains a photo or a video, it will display that as well. This is probably the biggest new feature, the ability to view inline media. With that, many desktop clients have become useless.

There are countless other changes and new features, infinite scroll, a new tweet box, inline profile information and many other tweaks.

The new homepage will be rolled out over the next few weeks and is now available to only a few users as an opt-in. If you don't get it yet, just be patient and it should become available sooner than later.


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