Twitter, it’s more than just tweets. That’s the message the microblogging website issued today with the launch of a new homepage, aimed at snaring first time users into its web, while clearing up any misconception about what Twitter can offer users.

Well, it’s all about content: the photos and videos, comments and quips. First time visitors will now be greeted with links showing brands and celebrities presently using the website as well as a ‘top tweets’ section, which shouldn’t be confused with ‘trending topics’.

The new homepage builds on similar design tweaks released last year, which gave prominence to Twitter’s beefy real-time search function. The search bar is still there, but now shares space with a set of algorithmically-selected ‘top tweets’ that automatically appear every few seconds.

It also highlights a random sampling of suggested sources, i.e., celebrities, brands, public figures, which can be hovered over to reveal a profile summary and their latest tweet.

Trending topics now scroll across the page, allowing a larger set of trends using less space.  Hovering over these trends will show a description explaining why the keyword is (or has recently been) popular.

Twitter wrote on its company blog: “All of our recent changes embrace the notion that Twitter is not just for status updates anymore. It’s a network where information is exchanged and consumed at a rapid clip every second of the day.”

Twitter said that with so much content being shared, there is simply something for everyone.

The company has incentive to convince new users to sign up. This week it was revealed that the most active tweeters are those who joined more than nine months ago, whose activity accounts for more than 40% of tweets.

“People who internalize the value of Twitter understand the power of this simple medium. But it hasn’t been easy to make that value transparent or obvious for curious folks coming to Twitter for the first time.”