I tend to find myself writing now and again about major updates to popular social media websites.

Fair play that “now and again” was once in mid-2011, but when they — such redesigns — come along, they come along like a brick to the face.

And as proven many times before, the patronage of aforementioned sites tend to form loose militias around the idea that the sites should undo their changes at the risk of the peeved off populous, upping sticks and rejoining MySpace.

I tend to bask in the frivolity of their efforts. There’s nothing better than seeing a load of faceless users unite against something that is likely to be an irrelevant feeling to them in a few days time.

Looking back to the changes Tumblr made to their user interface back in June, I can say that the redesign was done with the best of intentions. It realigned the website with a grasp of how people use Tumblr now, not a year or two ago when its community was finding its voice.

Underneath all those changes, the fundamentals remained the same. The dashboard was the dashboard: you followed people, their posts appeared in reverse chronological order.

I feel that with Twitters latest redesign, is losing its’ essence that made it all so attractive to me in the early days.

If you can remember Twitter from 2007, you were presented with a list of tweets from people you followed, along with tabs for @replies and direct messages. Then some information at the side, then a list of trending topics.

It was that simple.

I loved how you had to make the social connections by yourself. I mean, you got an email when someone messaged or followed you, but within the app, there was no indication of this. All you saw was a new tweet under your @mentions tab, or another digit added to your followers count.

The simplicity of being presented with short, sweet and current snippets of information was, and remains, a powerful thing. I think this was once called “the pulse of the planet”.

On second inspection, the new design doesn’t really feel as much of a departure from the slick, shiny and simple Twitter from way back when, as much as I first thought. But it has started its’ journey.

Looking back, it feels like that older Twitter was fragile; not because it was flimsy, but because it seemed so well-made, that it should be treated with care.

Now Twitter is starting to feel clunkier and less precious. These social connections are made for us. Take a look at the ‘Connect’ tab and see the ‘Interactions’ tab.

The stream of tweets still remains, but I feel this is at risk of being sprinkled with moments outside of our immediate followed accounts. It has started with retweeting becoming worked in as a feature.

A more editoral-style ‘discover’ section is, thankfully, kept separately. Not that a discovery section is a bad thing, but if it ever intermingled with my choices of what I wanted to see, then there’d be a conflict, and an upsetting diversion from what Twitter used to be.

Just a warning. Suddenly, Twitter is starting to feel more like Facebook.