• Mashable et al, Wednesday, September 15, 2010 12:18 PM

Representing a critical moment for the micro-blogging platform, Twitter just unveiled its first major redesign to a select group of users. What do industry influencers think?

"It's essentially a version of the sleek new Twitter iPad app, but optimized for the Web," writes Mashable. "The new experience is rich and nicely contained ... The new Twitter.com essentially rolls up all the best features from all the best desktop and Web clients and repurposes them for mainstream use."

"It helps them on two fronts: bringing in more brand marketers and newbies," writes blogger and Edelman Digital exec Steve Rubel. "Twitter had been stuck. They are growing significantly for sure -- but all of it is coming off a small base of active users. The redesign gives marketers more flexibility in design and newbies a reason to stay longer. "

"Overall, the change is likely to reinforce Twitter's value to marketers, in ways that are similar to Facebook's Pages feature," suggests Inside Facebook. Also, it "makes it easier to share and consume information with other users."

What's more, "This redesign is going to have a major effect on the social lives on some of the biggest Influencers on the web," Fast Company believes. "It's easier to share videos and photos, which could help Influencers ... spread the word about projects -- and make Twitter a much stronger destination for original media."

"In essence, [the changes are] less about a redesign and more about re-positioning Twitter as a source of content," writes ReadWriteWeb. "In other words, Twitter is moving away from the read/write model that has been so integral to the scaling of other web companies."

Read the whole story at Mashable et al »