Twitter Announces New Design With Focus On Profile Pages, iPad Update On The TODAY Show

Today, Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo announced a new design with a focus on profile pages and an iPad update on the TODAY Show, live. The show teased “big changes” coming to Twitter, and drew it out pretty well giving a company tour.

The company announced that there are over 140 million users, with 340 million tweets per day, currently. Twitter also has an $8 billion valuation, which is just massive, not to mention a whopping 900 employees in San Francisco alone.

At times, this felt like a commercial for Twitter, discussing the free snacks they get.

“Twitter brings you closer to the action and your heroes” said Costolo.

Here’s what the company had to say on its blog about the web update:

Starting today you can make your presence on Twitter more meaningful with new Twitter profiles. Upload an all-new header photo on mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android or twitter.com, and the same image will appear whenever anyone views your profile on the web or these apps. You can upload your header photo, which appears above your Tweets, to express yourself instantly, anywhere.

These big changes might explain the recent issue that the company had during its maintenance routine to fix photo uploads when verified accounts started getting random profile images in place of their own. Perhaps a little bug introduced in preparation?

With a push toward creating a place on the web to serve as your “home,” Twitter is getting down to the nitty gritty with Facebook to fight for your eyeballs and clicks.

If you want to upload your header photo, here you go:

One advantage that Twitter has? The iPad update looks absolutely gorgeous:

Twitter for iOS and Android have also gotten a fairly decent update, including support for new profiles and photo streams. All mobile updates, as expected, have stripped out the ability to post images using third-party services.

We’ve known about Twitter’s appearance on the TODAY show since yesterday, but had no idea what would be discussed or announced.

The company didn’t let us down, as this is a fairly grand way to announce design changes. Oh, and don’t forget, these changes are to help brands engage, so the business model is in full effect here.

[Photo credit: Flickr]