Not too long ago, Twitter added a photo feature to its homepage. Users can now add images to any tweet. Now, Twitter has launched user image galleries. These galleries show an array of photos that users have posted over the past few days. When new followers or potential followers click on a user’s Twitter page, the images that Twitter has collected will appear.

With the dawn of Google Plus, Twitter had to find a way to keep users captivated. This is largely why the social network has been rolling out new features on a fairly steady basis. Most of the new Twitter features seem to be image-related, which makes a lot of sense given Twitter’s competition. The result of the new Twitter image galleries will be Twitter profiles that are more interactive.

How the Image Galleries Will Work

Whether you use Twitter or another service (such as Instagram) to post images to Twitter, these images will now be displayed on your Twitter homepage. Twitter will gather then last one-hundred images that a user has tweeted, and these images will be displayed neatly and in no particular order on a user’s homepage.

When new followers head to a user’s homepage, the selected images will appear automatically. Presumably, Twitter will then make it possible for a new follower to click on an image, and this may lead a person back to the original Twitter post – but this is mere speculation. Twitter has not released all details about the image galleries, but the galleries are set to appear on Monday, August, 29, 2011.

Images Make Sense

If you use Google Plus, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other social network, you will notice one thing that these networks all have in common: photographs – and lots of them. People like to share photographs, and images often show other users what a company or person is all about. New photograph-based social networks are even popping up in the form of smartphone apps.

Take the Photovine app (developed by Google for iPhone), for instance. This app allows users to congregate and network solely based upon photos – few words actually exist with this app. Twitter was missing the photography side of things by not offering users a way to post photos. Now with the direct photo upload link on the Twitter homepage plus the new image gallery, photographs are now more important than ever before.

User Response

So far, the user response to Twitter new photo upload feature has been positive. Even though users aren’t embracing this feature as much as Twitter hoped, new photos are popping up in streams everywhere. Seemingly, the new user image galleries will generate a positive buzz as well. In fact, these new galleries will prompt Twitter users to include more photos with tweets, so that image galleries are not bare.

Twitter is playing all of its cards, so that other social networks don’t overcrowd the popular news-based network. Even though Google Plus made a splash and nothing out there is similar to Facebook, Twitter is still one of the most popular social networking platforms on the planet.