The recent changes to Twitter are so significant, it could easily be compared to Facebook’s major F8 rollout earlier in the year.  And come to think of it, that’s not the only comparison one could start making about Twitter and Facebook. The new Twitter rolled out today for most users.

Back in the day (you know, two days ago), Twitter and Facebook served two fundamentally different functions for brands.  In fact, Vitrue and other thought leaders had always encouraged marketers to understand the differences between the two, and to craft content and strategies separate and unique to both.  Twitter was an info stream for pushing content, your newswire as it were.  It was also effective for customer service.  Meanwhile, Facebook was a destination unto itself, where longer conversations and interactions were held, media was served up, and deeper relationships were built.

But then we started seeing Facebook incorporating more Twitter-like functionalities into its environment, and now we see Twitter taking a giant step toward Facebook’s turf in terms of profiles and brands.

We’re talking Facebook and Google+ style profile pages; in-line conversations, videos and images; discovery based on what your connections are discovering and doing; and brand pages different from personal accounts featuring customized headers and sticky tweets that expand automatically to show a photo or video.

A Mashable blog outlines all the changes pretty well from the user’s side.  Things like media being right in the tweet now, and Twitter performing more consistently across all platforms.  The mobile apps have been completely redesigned as well and reflect the site’s 4 primary column treatment.  They even gave their newly-acquired TweetDeck a makeover.

But let’s talk about you, our brand friends.  Twitter, not being dumb, has crafted these changes with an eye toward more easily directing users to brand pages and content.  In addition to the different, better-looking brand pages, you now have the power to do embeddable tweets.  Feel free to embed individual tweets on any page or site you run.  Users who see it there can RT, reply or favorite, follow the user, all without leaving your site.  And if you like pushing Twitter’s buttons, even they’re better.  A Tweet button can now include a hashtag or @mention so readers can tweet to certain people about what they’re seeing.

We reached out to some of our own clients who are already participating with the new Twitter brand pages, and found that for the most part, it’s being welcomed with open arms as a much richer user experience than was offered previously on Twitter…although none would say it’s going to immediately lead to more paid media.  Many are testing several concepts over the next few weeks, adding more visual to their storytelling on Twitter.  Past that, they’ll closely measure to see what resonates and gets pickup from their customers.  Other brand questions: how often should they change their look on Twitter?  And what’s the right balance between brand and product messaging?

So what we have here with Twitter’s very own version of F8, is the same thing Facebook gave you with their F8…a host of new opportunities to be assessed and capitalized on.  It’s nice to have options, especially if you have a social marketing tech partner to help show you how each one can best be used by your brand.