Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has been doing the interview rounds, with Matt Lauer of the Today Show getting his turn today.
As befitting the mass-market appeal of the morning TV program, Costolo admitted that Twitter can be confusing to some folks who are unfamiliar with the service.
“For many people, when they come to Twitter the language is opaque,” said Costolo. “We need to push the scaffolding to the background, and bring the content forward. The media, the photos, the videos.”
Costolo responded by saying that Twitter will focus on bringing content forward.
As Twitter tries to build on its current user base of 230 million monthly active users, there have been concerns that the social network isn’t as accessible to the mainstream as other social services. Twitter has yet to reach the same mainstream appeal of Facebook, which passed a billion users last year.
Of course, this isn’t the only thing Twitter is doing to make the social network more accessible to the mainstream.
Recently, Twitter launched a new feature that switches up the timeline to include responses to previous tweets. This prevents users from seeing a random, contextless response in their stream and instead puts the conversation right in the stream.
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Costolo also gave some vague tips on being the best possible tweeter. Ultimately, he said, it’s all about the kind of person you are and expressing your personality within that infamous 140-character limit.
However, he was a bit more specific on how not to tweet.
“You have to speak with an authentic tone of voice,” said Costolo. “With the ubiquity of communication these days, people can sense inauthenticity. Authenticity is the key.”
To close the Twitter-sized interview (it was only about five minutes long), Costolo said that the people he most wants on Twitter are a “collection of female comedians” including Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Melissa McCarthy.
