Twitter has built a mobile site from scratch for its social networking and microblogging service, acknowledging that the current one, while reliable, has an unimpressive user interface and a modest feature set.
“Lots of people access Twitter on their phones via our good ol’ mobile website, and trusty ‘m’ has been delivering tweets faithfully. However, ‘m’ doesn’t fully feel like Twitter, and could probably do a bit more things for you,” wrote Leland Rechis, mobile user experience designer at Twitter, in an official blog.
Users can now preview the new site by pointing their mobile browsers to http://mobile.twitter.com. Before making that its default mobile destination, Twitter wants to hear feedback from users.
“It’s got a great new look, and has some great new touches that will make your mobile experience on Twitter a bit more fun and a lot more helpful. Let us know if you agree and especially tell us how we can make it better,” Rechis wrote.
The new site, built entirely using Twitter’s own APIs (application programming interfaces), currently works best on mobile browsers based on the open-source WebKit browser engine, such as the ones on iPhone and Android devices.
The mobile medium is important for Twitter, whose system is designed for posting text messages that are no longer than 140 characters via a variety of methods, including the ubiquitous SMS (short message service) technology for mobile devices.