Live from the Twitter HQ

Right everyone, the show is done. Check out /SocialMedia for all our in-depth coverage, or read our notes from the show below!

Before the Show:

• Twitter today began showing eggs as the default Twitter user profile picture. You can see a sample here. What gives? We bet that it foretells something big, or we at least hope so. 22 minutes and counting until liftoff, folks.
• Twitter just let out a rather promising tweet that relates to the user profile picture change: “What’s hatching at Twitter HQ?flic.kr/p/8B26ja.” It seems that our guess of hatching eggs was spot on.

The Event [new at bottom]

• Inline pictures and video are going to be announced today. When the partners are listed, we will share them with you. Expect Ustream to be one of them. There is no other good reason for them to be skulking around Twitter’s office for this event.
• The screen at the event has the big white egg on it. Twitter is crazy for it. There are around 80 people here, all us waiting for something to happen. The white egg is not moving, but the couches are nice.
• Biz is up on stage lampooning Ron Conway and thanking the audience for coming on short notice.
• Evan Williams is now on stage promising to “show” us some new stuff that is more than a blog post.
• @Ev: “Twitter is getting bigger and better.”
• Twitter mobile is booming. 16% of new signups are mobile, and total mobile usage is up some 250% for the year.
• Twitter is seeing some 370,000 new signups a day. Twitter has 160 million users.
• Ev called Biz ‘Business’ and Biz shouted ‘Don’t use my full name!”
• @Ev: “You don’t have to tweet to use Twitter anymore than you have to have a webpage to use the internet.”
• The MacBook Pro with the slides crashed, so we are waiting for it to reboot to continue. Some yahoo asked a question that @Ev is dodging.
• 90% of the content on Twitter is public.
• @Ev: “Twitter is the best way to discover what is new in your world.”
• There is a graph of tweets per day, and it is exploding, still. It has never slowed down. You can see it here.
• Twitter sees more than 90 million tweets a day on average.
• Of active Twitter users, 78% have used the web interface in the last 30 days.
• Half of all users use only Twitter.com, it is the biggest Twitter client that exists.
• Twitter is today launching a new Twitter.com that is faster and better.
• Twitter is playing a video that shows off the new site, which we feel looks like an iPad application.
• The sidebar is larger, it features mini-windows to show more information, it has endless scrolling for tweet updates, and has its navigation on top.
• There are 16 media providers that are bringing images and videos in the “pane.” Partners: YouTube, Vimeo, Ustream, and all the Twitter picture providers are among the 16.
• The new website also has the ability to show a threaded conversation, saving endless time hunting. There are keyboard shortcuts as well, meaning that you can tweet and retweet at faster speeds!
• User profile has now been revamped. This is a complete site redesign.
• The new site features a more responsive, better architecture.
• It will be rolled out incrementally. It is launching today for a subset of users today, and will then be rolled out.
• “This is one of the best web apps you have ever seen.” [cue big round of applause for the development team]
• For the roll out “stability is the number one priority,” meaning that it could take a couple of weeks.
• The “fundamentals” of Lists are not changed, but the Twitter team expects for them to pick up more use under the redesign.
• Twitter tested the website with weekly sessions of six people playing with the interface.
• Our Chad and Brad both now have access to the new interface, after the show we will bring you pictures, video, and more!
• Check out the official explanation and teaser page for the new Twitter here.
• In regards to the new design: “the new site makes monetization easier.”
• “These changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks. During the preview, you’ll be able to switch back and forth so you have time to grow accustomed to the way things work. Eventually, everyone will have the updated version of Twitter.com”
• Traffic to twitter.com grew 100% this year.
• Question from the peanut gallery: “Is Twitter becoming more like Facebook?” Answer: “The new website looks like Twitter.”
• Laura Sydell from NPR called the Fail Whale ‘the blue whale,’ which was hilarious.
• “Site stability is our number one concern.”
• There are no new team capabilities baked into this release of Twitter.
• Ron Conway showed up, hey Ron!

That is a wrap folks! Be sure and read our big posts on the event! The New Twitter.com Official Video. The new Twitter.com – Faster, better experience…and similar to the iPad.