• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 9, 2011

Always in pursuit of more mainstream appeal, Twitter unveiled its latest redesign this week. What do Web watchers think?

“It’s trying to make Twitter work for people who don’t see the appeal of what Twitter was supposed to be,” scolds Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber.

“The Twitter service I signed up for is one where people tweet 140-character posts, you follow those people, whose tweets you tend to enjoy, and that’s it,” Gruber explains. “The Twitter service this new UI presents is about a whole lot more -- mass-market spoonfed [sic] ‘trending topics’ and sponsored content.”

For better or worse, “it’s clear that Twitter is trying to make the site more friendly to brands,” writes Forbes.

Indeed, during a presentation by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, he said a lot of brands are experimenting with Twitter advertising and marketing. “He says advertisers are seeing 3% to 5% engagement, with some such as VW seeing 50% engagement -- I’m just not sure what that means,” Forbes writes. “Twitter ads are going mobile, too, and self-service ads have launched -- the latter especially important for advertisers that need large scale.”

More broadly, “Dorsey said the design is meant to make Twitter more approachable and accessible,” reports AllThingsD.

Calling the redo “ambitious,” The New York Times notes: “The service’s main pages now aim to help users understand how Twitter works.”

“Twitter now looks a lot more like the world’s largest social network, with features that focus on social interaction and brand pages,” Mashable writes.

Despite some technical difficulties, PCWorld’s Harry McCracken concludes: “From what I’ve been able to divine by using a secondary account, and by trying the mobile-Web version, the new Twitter looks…okay.”