Twitter revamps site with brand pages and embeddable tweets

Twitter has begun rolling out a major revamp of its site to include several new tools including the ability for firms to create their own "pages" on their site in an attempt to rival Google+ and Facebook.

The redesigned site (see below) went live for the first swathe of users on Thursday evening and is now being rolled out progressively for the desktop site, while the mobile site should now be visible for all users.

"We'll be rolling out the redesigned Twitter over the next few weeks. You can see it immediately on the just-updated versions of mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone, and Twitter for Android," the firm said in a blog post.

The ability for firms to create their own pages has also been promoted by the firm. Several major brands have already taken advantage of the service including Intel (see below), Dell, McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

Twitter explained that firms can use the service to create a more visually appealing page with a large image header, and can display a set tweet at the top of the page. The service will not involve a fee.

"This page and the Promoted Tweet are both free of charge and publicly accessible for the whole world. Your profile page is your own: your colours, your logo, and your messaging," Twitter noted in a blog post.

Furthermore, the firm has also created the ability for messages posted on Twitter to be embedded on other sites to improve the interaction web users can have with Twitter from anywhere on the web.

"Every tweet [is] a dynamic piece of media, and we believe that everyone should be able to view and interact with tweets on the web in the same ways you would from any Twitter client," said Twitter employee Brian Ellin.

"Embeddable Tweets [are] a new way to add any tweet to your web site just by copying and pasting a line of code. Visitors can follow the author with a single click, and reply, retweet, or favorite the tweet without leaving the page."

The updates comes after Google announced it would be allowing businesses to create pages on its Google+ service, in a move similar to that already offered by Facebook, as the social media giants look to appeal to enterprises as well as consumers.

Tweets now appear on the right and the user's profile on the left.

An example of a new corporate brand page.