Some of you may have noticed that all of Twitter’s apps are getting a facelift less than a year after the last big redesign. Twitter is calling this redesign Fly, but the nerds are referring to it as New New Twitter. They have a whole webpage dedicated to the new update. Check it out for more details. I’m going to quickly summate what they changed and then talk about why this matters. A lot.

Twitter consolidated everything into four tabs: Home, Connect, Discover, Me. Home is your timeline, promoted tweets, pictures, videos. Connect is everything that happens to you on Twitter such as @replies, favorites or people following you. Discover is a totally new feature to Twitter. It looks at who you follow, what you post, where you live and then delivers content they think you will find interesting. The last tab is called Me and it essentially a catch all for everything else: lists, profile, direct messages. This new layout is being rolled out to all of their apps on all platforms.

Twitter writes on the Fly website, “The new tab menu is the same across all devices. So you get the same experience on mobile and desktop—anywhere, anytime.” Twitter wants to make their service easier for new users. I’m sure most of you have tried explaining Twitter to a newbie and had trouble telling them were to start. Twitter wants to streamline the whole user experience (UX). They have also added brand pages, à la Facebook and are starting to place promoted tweets into users’ timelines. The service is now set up perfectly to insert tweets, trends, stories and brands seamlessly into the UX. It’s cleverly done.

I’ve talked before about how Twitter was struggling between its growing relevance and its quirky, simple roots. Fly is Twitter growing up. Brand pages, native photo sharing, streamlined UI/UX, an integrated revenue network… Twitter is now poised to become a full fledged platform. Facebook has taken some shots at Twitter’s market recently (the ticker anyone?), but now Twitter is stepping up to announce that it’s more than just a place for people to talk about what they ate for lunch. This could get very interesting.