I am not sure if you have received this email from Twitter, but if you haven’t yet received it, you might very soon see that in your inbox. It was about 5 days back that I received this email from Twitter with the subject line reading, “Give your profile a makeover“.
I was not surprised. It started with Youtube, then Facebook and then was followed by Google +. It was only time that Twitter followed, though I felt that they are a little late to do that. Nevertheless, better late than never.
Let us quickly take a look at what is in store with the new change.
The New Twitter Profile Changes
While I should say, personally I was impressed with almost all of the changes that I saw at Twitter, there are a lot of people who felt that this profile change has let to a loss of identity of Twitter. To some extent it is true because of the fact that you are so used to seeing that sleek Twitter webpage, that the changed look will take you twice to accept the fact that you are still at Twitter.
There were a handful of things that changed with the new Profile, 3 of the most impressive being the following –
A Bigger Profile Photo
The Twitter Profile photo is now bigger. The earlier ones actually needed a viewing lens to see who it was. But the new Twitter Profile photo is a clearer, bigger. The dimensions of the new Twitter profile photo is 400 X 400. You can upload any image of yourself and it will be resized to fit into the dimensions.
The profile also have a nice look with the profile description just beneath the photograph and a small “Tweet to xxxxx” box below it. Overall it gave the profile a nice and professional look.
A Bigger More Beautiful Profile Header
It looks like it is the era of the “BIGs”. People like everything bigger and that is precisely what Social Media has also taken to. You saw a bigger Youtube Channel header image, a bigger Facebook profile header image, a similarly bigger Google plus profile header image and now a big Twitter profile header.
The dimensions of the new Twitter Profile header image is 1500 x 500, as per Twitter. While changing the image was simple with the “edit profile” button, I struggled a bit to set it up. The move image option did not work and the resize will only let me increase the size of the image. There was another glitch as well. Though the image size recommended by Twitter is 1500 x 500, my image of the same size got cropped when I uploaded it. Since there was no option to reduce the size of the image once you have uploaded it, I struggled there as well.
But uploading and resizing is easier if you do it via the settings option on your Twitter profile.
Pin a Post to Your Profile Page
Another interesting addition to the changes was the option to pin a post to your profile page. Once again, following on the footprints of Facebook, this option doesn’t look like is actually a necessary one at the first sight. But, if thought about cleverly, it can be used well. You can build your lists, promote your products or, even your articles by pinning them on your profile page.
I was impressed with the changes and liked almost all of what the changes brought in. Though I feel like having lost the originality of Twitter, the changes are still a welcome one for me.
What’s your thoughts on these changes? Don’t forget to comment and let me know.