Twitter chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey says the social network will make changes to attract new users. Picture: Chris Pavlich

Employees dash around the social media headquarters with palpable excitement. Even Australian managing director Karen Stocks is swept up in the energy, admitting she’s trying to contain her inner fangirl.

At the commotion’s epicentre is Twitter’s co-creator, Jack Dorsey, dressed stylishly in head-to-toe black, saying he wants to hear feedback about the expanding network.

Unlike other multi-billionaire business leaders, Dorsey seems unassuming and approachable. He doesn’t speak for the sake of it, he doesn’t move in a large entourage, and he greets people with a warm handshake.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said enhancing Twitter’s offering has been a tough ride. Picture: Chris PavlichSource:News Corp Australia

In short, Dorsey is remarkably relaxed for a man leading two of the richest companies born in Silicon Valley.

The San Franciscan is visiting Australia for the first time on behalf of Square, the mobile payments firm he set up after being ousted as Twitter CEO in 2008.

But he could hardly drop into the southern hemisphere without touring the Australian base of his first success story, the company he returned to lead in July last year.

Under Dorsey’s renewed leadership, Twitter is evolving. Ten years in, the social network still resembles the creation called ‘Status’ he designed on a notepad, but it now encompasses much more.

After introducing hashtags, the @ symbol and countless trending topics to our lexicon, Twitter is changing the way its users see tweets, integrating live video, predicting election results, and even broadcasting live sports.

And the man known as @Jack has more changes in store.

For some Twitter users, the pace of change has seemed too much. For Twitter’s shareholders, who have watched share values drop by a third since launch, it may be too little.

Dorsey admits enhancing Twitter’s offering has been a tough ride.

In February, the 39-year-old watched users decry an end to the network under the hashtag #RIPTwitter.

Enraged by rumoured changes to its reverse chronological timeline, they aired their grievances on the social network itself, irony notwithstanding.

The changes were real, but not as comprehensive as rumoured. Twitter now delivers highlights from a user’s feed after they’ve been away from the site. Its traditional, as-it-happens appearance remains accessible.

“Is it emotionally disturbing when you see #RIPTwitter? Sure,” he says of the experience.

“But you take a long-term view of we’re making this better and we know it’s better and we have to continue to serve the people who love us and this really comes from a good place and not a negative place.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said all the changes they make come from a positive place to enhance the user experience. Picture: Supplied.Source:Supplied

“We had a similar reaction when we first introduced the ability to include images within tweets. Does it take away from the text? No, it’s additive.

“I think any change is hard for people but we’re going to do it in a way that makes Twitter better.”

Despite the initial outcry, the timeline change, he says, “is working”.

“We found a lot of people turning it on and we haven’t found a lot of people turning it off.”

But Twitter’s biggest evolution yet might be happening without a hashtag.

Last week, it announced a deal to broadcast 10 NFL football games directly on the site, once the exclusive role of a TV network.

Users will be able to watch matches on Twitter’s website or app, read tweets, and participate in the commentary on just one screen.

Dorsey calls this a “natural evolution” for the service that has long inspired national and international television debates, be they about cricket, political spills or Married at First Sight.

And it’s not an addition likely to stop at American football, according to the CEO, who says Twitter is keen to investigate more broadcast rights, with live events like sporting matches and political debates topping its list.

“There’s a new dimension to TV that we can bring to bear which is interactivity and a conversation around it and that conversation is really meaningful,” he says.

Twitter secured a deal to broadcast 10 NFL football games directly on the site, once the exclusive role of a TV network. Picture: AP/Steven SenneSource:AP

“We’re certainly looking for opportunities to look at more sports and more events and bring them into Twitter.”

The addition of live-streaming video, through its app Periscope, is also feeding the site’s new moving focus.

Dorsey says the American and Australian election season is likely to be “the Periscope election,” with video shared by candidates and insiders alike.

Live streams from the Iowa Caucus in the US, he says, not only showed political sentiment from the event but let Twitter predict the winner “a week ahead of time”.

“I imagine we’ll be seeing similar things in Australia,” he says.

The company added Periscope live-streaming video natively to its website this year, adding to the as-it-happens momentum Twitter has long cultivated as its unique offering.

But with an increasing amount of video, animated GIFs, web links and photos attached to tweets, is its 140-character tweet limit still relevant? Or will Twitter move, like Facebook, to publishing stories natively on its site?

Dorsey says the character limit, created to allow a user’s name and one SMS message, is staying.

Twitter has not grown at the same pace as its rivals, such as Facebook and Instagram, holding steady at 320 million active monthly users. Picture: Supplied.Source:News Limited

“It encourages people to be more brief and more of the moment. I don’t think that ever goes away,” he says.

Twitter will expand tweets by adding a “greater set of media within them” rather than more characters.

Shareholders will hope the moves create a stickier Twitter. The social network is not growing at the same pace as its rivals, such as Facebook and Instagram, holding steady at 320 million active monthly users.

While Dorsey says “it’s not a numbers game,” he counts more than 800 million people who visit the site to see tweets, whether they participate in conversations or not.

On top of streaming video ambitions, Dorsey says future changes to the network will be focused on showing people highlights and trends from the site that can be hard to find.

“We make people do a lot of work to find and follow accounts, to find and follow topics that they’re interested in. It should be as easy as just opening up the app and you see the world,” he says.

“There’s a lot of work we can do to demystify what we are for people to get into us faster. That’s a lot of the work we’re focused on.”