The new home page features more dynamic content, showing a sample of “who’s here”, what people are tweeting about and the major trending topics. The home page features algorithmically selected top tweets, which are refreshed every few seconds. The trending topics are displayed scrolling horizontally, which allows more topics to be displayed in less screen real estate.

The motivation for the changes is summed up in this quote:

“All of our recent changes embrace the notion that Twitter is not just for status updates anymore. It’s a network where information is exchanged and consumed at a rapid clip every second of the day.”

The blog post states that Twitter will keep trying out new ideas on the home page, which will help users more easily discover who and what they can find on Twitter, and how they can filter and personalise the information.

The new homepage builds on a series of changes started last year, which brought search and trending topics to the fore.

I just read a great post by WPBizGuru.

Right now Twitter is completely down – I can’t even get the Fail Whale. This sad news story, demontsrates the importance of Twitter as a medium for breaking news. It appears millions of people are turning to Twitter for the latest news – and, more importantly, to share their thoughts. The problem is, that Twitter’s temperamental infrastructure seems to be creaking under the pressure.