Twitter’s homepage redesign is all about new visitors.  For the first time, Twitter puts together trending topics as a stock ticker marquee, a list of interesting people you might want to follow and a “New to Twitter?” section.

New people now participate in the Twitter ecosystem before they sign up, and understanding the Twitter jargon is no longer a prerequisite. Look at how the new site shows actual tweets for the first time. Before it may have been easy to see what was most popular “right now”, but it was totally disconnected from how people really use the service. 

Twitter has always been in the habit of learning from their users: hash-tags began with our very own Chris Messina. Now that feature is core to the service. These changes recognizes that existing users never see the homepage, and new users need help getting started. 

Twitter has finally decided to educate people. In retrospect, the challenge for them is to clearly communicate the value of tweeting. Their homepage is certainly moving in that direction.