Twitter reaches out to shy new users with a better Discover stream

Twitter’s Discover tab, which has been around in one form or another since the launch of “New-New Twitter,” has gotten a small facelift today.

The Discover tab brought something entirely new to Twitter’s interface at the end of last year. When clicked, it acted as Twitter’s own homebrewed, hyper-personal newspaper that would show you the most relevant stories from your world based on your interactions on the service.

In May, the tab got an algorithm upgrade to show more relevant stories, and today, the page got another update.

“Now we’re improving Discover again,” wirtes Twitter project manager Sara Mauskopf on the company blog. “When you visit the Discover tab on twitter.com, you’ll see a continuous stream of Tweets, which automatically expand to show you the most relevant stories and most engaging photos.”

The changes might seem minor, but they remove a bit of friction from the new user’s first experiences with the site. The company has focused a lot of attention on that, actually — making search and discovery into a sort of RSS reader for the common human.

Around half of Twitter’s users don’t take to the site to broadcast their own thoughts and images; rather, they’re using it to follow newsmakers, media outlets, celebrities, local organizations and friends and consume content from them. The easier Twitter makes that experience, the happier and more engaged new users will be (and the better it can slow down its new-user drop-off rate).

As Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said at the site’s last big overhaul, “We have an obligation to reach every person on the planet. There are still billions of people that aren’t yet on Twitter that we know we have to reach … We have to provide the simplest and fastest way for people around the world to connect to what they care about.”

photo credit: id-iom via photopin cc