DHAKA: Twitter was born in 2006 as a stream of SMS text messages. Before going public in 2013, it’s now revelling in images.

The company tweaked its design Tuesday to favour image- and video-sharing by showing visual media directly within the Twitter timeline, The Straits Times publishes this report on Wednesday.

Users previously had to click on a tweet to view the embedded multimedia.

Although the change does not affect the basic mechanics of how content is shared, it will likely alter the feel of Twitter, which long clung to its roots as an 140-character, text-based service invented in an era before smartphones existed.

As Twitter prepares to go public in a matter of weeks, the change will also present Twitter’s advertisers with more opportunities to get attention-grabbing ads in front of users, leading to more revenue for the company.

BDST: 1428 HRS, OCT 30, 2013
RoR/BSK