Twitter Has Made Those Changes You’ve Been Asking For

Twitter also addressed a long-standing complaint: Now, starting a tweet with a user name will reach all users rather than just shared followers with the person you're tweeting. In other words, users no longer have to put a period before the @name of someone to widely broadcast a tweet. 

The final tweak seems like an obvious one: Now you'll be able to retweet or quote yourself.

"We're looking at the company goals overall; refining, to make the platform more intuitive, making it even faster," said Leslie Berland, Twitter's chief marketing officer, who started just a few months ago.

"I'm focused on telling the story of Twitter, to deepen engagement for people already using Twitter, and for people not using Twitter today," she said.

Berland said these changes will make a notable difference. "I think it's going to deepen the engagement; once people come to the platform it will be way more intuitive to them. Everything we do is tied to the feedback we get from our community."

Still there are questions about whether these changes, and others made over the past year, can actually help the service gain users. Berland is planning a full ad campaign, what she called "digital marketing and beyond," to get new people to try the service, hoping these changes will help keep them.

With the company's stock down roughly 60 percent this year, it's under more pressure from Wall Street to deliver. Hours before Tuesday's announcement, the  to "sell" by analysts at MoffettNathanson, saying "the small likelihood of a meaningful payoff doesn't justify owning the stock here."