Twitter

Looks like the micro-blogging site has been busy sculpting its new profile design…

Twitter is testing out a new profile design that looks a whole lot like a Facebook profile page.

The main picture and the bio on the page have been scaled to the left and the header photo has been given more screen space. Twitter has also tweaked the look of its tweet stream, focusing more on photos and content cards along with a departure from the vertical timeline.

Twitter has also implemented a few features reserved for users with verified accounts, such as, the option for the stream to display ‘Tweets’ and ‘Tweets and replies’.

User profiles with the new design can view other profiles in the same way even if the new design has not been implemented in the profile being viewed.

Twitter, however, has not confirmed this story.

Yahoo!

Is the company looking at implementing contextual search?

It appears so from CEO Marissa Mayer’s comments at a Goldman Sachs technology conference this Tuesday, where she said that she is excited by contextual search.

Contextual search is where users see customized results based on variable user factors, such as, location, time and earlier behavior. It also looks at factoring in details other than these.

For example, with contextual search, a user looking for a store that sells specific models of printers can see results that include stores nearby that sell the particular model along with relevant ads and cool deals.

Contextual search is a major step in search and Google has already begun incorporating some of these contextual elements into its search. However, there is plenty of room for improvements in contextual search and this is the space Yahoo! is looking at for a share.

Once search engines begin stepping on the gas to build better contextual search abilities, it gets more serious. Businesses need to start working on more deals and coupons for web users to redeem.

This kind of search has more of an impact on local brick and mortar businesses. Users looking for restaurants with their favorite cuisine can benefit more from contextual search. Restaurants can look forward to better business if they have relevant coupons to display in online search results when users look for them.

Do tell us what you think about these two updates…

Images Courtesy: Mashable, Fonts In Use