For a service that seems to take pride in being adamantly inflexible, Twitter's had some big changes this week. The microblogging service unveiled a re-amped "Following" and "Friends" view, designed to make the web-based interface more friendly and emulate some of the most popular Twitter client's functionalities.

The new Followers list shows you, at a glance, who's following you, and whether or not you're following them. You can choose to view the list as a very basic, compact, one-line follower list, or as a larger block-based list view that also shows you each user's most recent Tweet.

The largest change to the UI, however, is the addition of a very convenient "Actions" button, which allows you to "Mention" (@) a user, Direct Message (D) a user, Follow (if you're not already following), Unfollow (if you are already following) and Block a user.

Is this move designed to bring Client-based Twitter users back to the website? Serious Twitter power users have long complained that the Twitter website is the least effective way to manage large friends and followers lists, and that a client is required to unlock the full power of the microblogging platform. It's possible that Twitter is trying to change that by responding to user habits and updating their UI to reflect the changing patterns of usage.

If so, we expect to see other UI changes coming down the line in the future - especially to the main feed page, which could really use an upgrade. We're not holding our breath, though - Twitter seems to get things done at its own pace, and according to their own priorities. We'll be watching the website closely over the coming weeks for any sign that this is the beginning of a sea-change for the service.