Twitter is rolling out a new web interface. Most people will be seeing a preview roll out over the next several weeks. It appears the plan is to integrate multimedia into the Twitter stream as part of a totally redesigned interface.
Twitter has entered into a number of different multimedia partnerships including DailyBooth, Deviantart, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.tv, Kickstarter, Twitgoo, Twitpic, TwitVid, Ustream, Vimeo and YouTube.
There has been quite a bit of talk over the past several months about Twitter moving into areas currently occupied by third-party applications. This talk is not likely to die down since the new interface appears to include many of the best features of Twitter clients Tweetie, Seesmic Desktop 2, and TweetDeck. There is also talk the new interface is meant to “feel” more like Facebook.
Evan Williams, Twitter CEO indicated his feeling that Twitter.com is already the most popular platform for accessing Twitter, commanding 78% of active users over the past 30 days. We're not surprised Twitter is making moves to keep people more engaged on its website. After all, they have an increased need to provide more and more impressions of advertisers.
One could argue the new web interface makes Twitter desktop clients useless over time. There may be no further need to install software running Silverlight and Adobe Air to interface with Twitter when this new multimedia platform is sitting right inside any browser.
