Twitter looks beyond status updates

Twitter has refreshed its homepage to make it easier to find relevant information

Twitter has updated its homepage in an effort to reflect the popularity and timeliness of posts.

The changes are designed to make content more dynamic and relevant for more users, and include feeds showing the topics being discussed.

Doug Bowman, creative director at Twitter, explained in a blog post that the company is seeking to make it easier for people to search and find relevant information and tweeters, whether they have an account or not.

"Twitter's homepage is a work in progress. Today, we're testing a new design that bubbles up more of the information flowing through Twitter," he said.

"This builds on a series of changes starting last year when we redesigned the homepage to make search and trending topics easily accessible to everyone. With that version, we brought the power of search.twitter.com to the homepage and let people explore the value of Twitter without an account."

Twitter seems to be attempting to distance itself from the idea that it is full of meaningless information. For example, a set of algorithmically selected tweets appear in order of popularity on the new homepage.

Also shown are a random selection of suggested tweeters which, when hovered over, show extra information about why they are there.

"All of our recent changes embrace the notion that Twitter is not just for status updates anymore," said Bowman.

"It's a network where information is exchanged and consumed at a rapid clip every second of the day. With so much being shared, we know that there's something of value for everyone."

Bowman added that, until now, there had been no way to make Twitter's value "transparent or obvious" for casual users.