Twitter debuted a new homepage today (July 28, 2009, remember that date in history), and it shows a fundamental shift from “what are you doing?” to a new emphasis on real-time search and information distribution.

The new Twitter motto is “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Perhaps the ill-advised perceptions of the site as merely a lifecasting device will finally change.

Ben Parr of Mashable had this insightful analysis on the changes:

Twitter is in the process of changing directions, and this new homepage is the biggest step yet towards that transformation. Twitter was first conceived as a place to update your friends and interested parties on your life. It was focused on you.

Now Twitter has taken away that focus, and in its place, Twitter is focusing on the entire world. There’s not a single reference to you in Twitter’s new explanation. We think we understand why, because we hear this reason for not joining Twitter all the time:

“I just don’t have anything to say.”
“I don’t need to update people on my life.”
“It’s for people with followings and something to promote, not for me.”

Emphasizing that Twitter is the world’s platform for realtime information, for being connected to the entire world, is a savvy move on the part of Twitter. People who have something to promote are already on Twitter. Now the company has to convert the people who think Twitter’s just about telling people about what cereal you ate.

So will skeptical journalists who think no one cares about what they’re doing finally give the service a try? Because Twitter, at its best, isn’t that at all. And it’s an incredibly useful tool for any journalist to have in their arsenal.