Social Media : Change Your Twitter Password Now

According to Twitter, it was hacked and 250K accounts were affected, so they received emails from the company to change their password. This is not the first time this has happened, but this time it was a real hack, rather than a blend of real hacks and “false alarm” blast of emails like last time.

Way to start off our weekends, Twitter. Who knows if you’ll even get the email from Twitter about it, I know that I filter all of those things out. You can read all of the details about the hack and the company response here.

I find it really confusing when anything like this happens, because it feels like companies try to diminish the perception of the impact of the situation. Fact of the matter is, its users are seeing sad tweets from their friends about how they got hacked. I even had one person tell me that they felt like they weren’t cool enough because they didn’t get hacked.

Instead, or in addition to, just go change your password. We’re all cool enough to get hacked. The number, 250K affected, seems a bit too tidy to me, and I’m not saying that Twitter is lying, I’m just saying that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Twitter also suggests this course of action, which is way too much for most people’s brains to process on a Friday:

We also echo the advisory from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and security experts to encourage users to disable Java on their computers in their browsers.

Sure, OK.

Happy Tweeting (Maybe)! While you’re at it, change all of your passwords for everything. It’s a good thing to do once in a while, especially if you use the same one for every single site you log into.

Credit : Tech Crunch

Twitter And Nielsen Announce Partnership To Create New Twitter-Based TV Rating

Nielsen and Twitter just announced a deal for something called the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, which they’re hoping to turn into the standard metric for measuring the conversation that a TV show spurs on Twitter.
The companies say they’re planning to make the rating available commercially in the fall of 2013. The new Twitter ratings are supposed to complement Nielsen’s existing TV ratings, and will be built on top of the SocialGuide platform offered by NM Incite. (NM Incite is a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey, and it announced the acquisition of SocialGuide last month.)
In a post on the Twitter blog, the company’s head of media Chloe Sladden said Twitter’s TV partners have been asking for “one common benchmark from which to measure the engagement of their programming.” And according to the press release, the new rating will measure “the total audience for social TV activity – both those participating in the conversation and those who were exposed to the activity – providing the precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming.”
It doesn’t seem like either company is releasing too many details about the new rating and what it will be measuring yet. Here at TechCrunch, Gregory Ferenstein has written skeptically about the numbers that social media platforms use to tout the impact they can have (he was talking specifically about politics, but was also making a broader point).
This is an area that startups have explored as well (Bluefin Labs comes to mind), so it will be interesting to see how they respond now that Twitter is partnering to expand its own measurement options.
In the release, Steve Hasker, president of global media products and advertiser solutions at Nielsen, points to the opportunity that the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating could have on measuring ad campaigns that include both traditional TV advertising and Twitter:

The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating is a significant step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop increasingly captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media. As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data

Earlier this year, Twitter and Nielsen also partnered to use Twitter surveys to measure the impact of brand advertising campaigns.

• TWITTER
• NIELSEN

Company: Twitter

Website: twitter.com

Launch Date: March 21, 2006

Funding: $1.16B

Created in 2006, Twitter is a global real-time communications platform with 400 million monthly visitors to twitter.com, more than 140 monthly active users around the world. We see a billion tweets every 2.5 days on every conceivable topic. World leaders, major athletes, star performers, news organizations and entertainment outlets are among the millions of active Twitter accounts through which users can truly get the pulse of the planet.

Credit : Tech Crunch

Twitter Adds More Keyword Targeting Options And Trending Topic Matching For ‘Promoted Tweets’

Lots of bold moves coming out of Twitter before the holiday vacation. The latest, and most subtle, is the offering of more granular search terms for advertisers to promote tweets against in its ‘Promoted Tweets’ product. As of today, Twitter will now let Promoted Tweets customers match their tweets to Twitter searches via exact match, phrase match, and basic keyword matching.

More importantly for customers, people promoting tweets will now have the ability to use something called “negative keywords,” i.e. pick the words they don’t want to advertise against. This solves a huge relevancy problem as far as ads on user-generated content are concerned. For example, I would probably guess that advertisers would start with something like “all of the curse words” as negative keywords.

“For instance, if you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using “Kevin” as a negative keyword,” the Twitter blog explained in its characteristically humorous fashion.

The company is also offering automatic import of pre-existing search keywords and a novel feature that automatically matches your Promoted Tweets to trending hashtags. “For example, if a celebrity’s pregnancy news starts trending, and you’re a retailer of baby clothing, your Promoted Tweet may be entered into the auction for that trending search.” So many ways hilarity could ensue here.
With the exception of hashtag matching, Twitter is basically catching up with what’s been standard in ad tech with these developments. Google, which wrote the book on search-based advertising, provides even more options to marketers with Adwords — and they too call it “keyword matching.”
Also like AdWords, Promoted Tweets operate on a real-time auction model. Advertisers enter a bid for the maximum amount they’d pay per Twitter engagement, i.e. an @Reply, Retweet or Favorite and wait until that bid is accepted. The less engaging your tweets are the more you have to pay, Twitter’s Jim Prosser tells me, and cost also depends on factors like popularity of a given search term because popular search terms tend to attract more auction participants, making the auction more competitive.

This operates differently than Twitter’s Promoted Trends, which are a fixed fee (between $70k – $100k according to reports) and are limited to once a day.

“It’s challenging as a marketer to keep on top of what is trending. We’re aiming to take some of the work out of it,” Prosser said.

Credit : Tech Crunch

Twitter Brings Aviary-Powered Photo Filters To Its Android And iPhone Apps

Twitter just announced that its Android and iPhone apps now feature Instagram-like photo filters. Given the heated back-and-forth between Twitter and Instagram in recent days, this wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it happened a bit faster than most of us anticipated. This new feature is, interestingly, powered by Aviary, the company behind the popular online and mobile photo editing SDK.
Here are the key features of the new mobile Twitter photo sharing experience:

Filters. Apply one of eight filters, ranging from black & white to vintage, to add a new look and feel to your photos.
Take a bird’s-eye view. See how each filter would affect your photo in a single grid view, or swipe through looks to compare your options.
Frame the action. Crop and pinch to zoom in order to focus attention.
Auto-enhance. Make your photos pop with balanced light and colors by tapping the wand.

The most interesting feature here is that the app offers a grid view that lets you see thumbnail previews of what your pictures will look like after you apply each one of the eight possible filters. The options are pretty straightforward and range from black and white to warm, cool, cinematic, and gritty. Overall, this is not some revolutionary new feature, but the fact that Twitter was this close to releasing this app sure explains why Instagram decided to kill its Twitter integration last week.
It’s interesting that Twitter decided to go with a partner to power this new feature. Photo filters aren’t exactly rocket science, after all. Aviary powers the photo-editing experiences for a large number of apps, including big names like Flickr, Box and Walgreens, so maybe Twitter decided it best leave this feature in the hands of a company that has a lot of experience in this business. Either that or it wanted to get this feature out fast and decided to go with a partner rather than developing this in-house.
Aviary says that it worked with Twitter’s team for “several months” and that the two companies together have “created a unique experience.”

Twitter: Everyone Will Have Enhanced Profiles On December 12th, For Beautification Reasons

In case you haven’t seen the updated Twitter profiles, they allow you to add a “cover photo”, ala Facebook and other services. The idea there is that they’d like you to expand your identification on the service, to feel like it’s a place you want to show off to friends, family and colleagues.
These profiles are available on the desktop, as well as official Twitter apps.
It was a good move, although it didn’t roll out to everyone right away. Today, the company announced that enhanced profiles will be available to all Twitter users on December 12th:

A few months ago, we introduced new Twitter profiles so that you could make your profile beautiful and display your style on your profile page. By uploading a header photo on twitter.com or our mobile apps on iPhone, iPad or Android, you can make your profile more uniquely yours. We’ve seen a lot of cool takes on these new profiles –– including shots from Mars, silly themes, and brands and celebrities expressing themselves in clever ways.
On December 12, we’re rolling this out to all users: you’ll automatically get this new version of the profile on twitter.com. If you don’t upload a header photo by then, you (and everyone else) will only see a default grey image on your page. That’s not fun! To get inspired about what you can do, check out this video to see how to make your profile a little more “you”, less generic. Have fun out there.

Here’s the video that Twitter shared with the announcement, which was clearly created for 11-year-olds:

Get ready to get prettier on Twitter!

Credit : Tech Crunch

Nielsen Study Shows People Using Twitter While Watching TV, Going To The Bathroom

 Many U.S. viewers are becoming more active while watching television, judging by the findings in a new report that illustrates the explosive growth in people who watch TV while connected to social media on smartphones and tablets.

The Nielsen company said that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about the content of television shows, an increase of 27 percent from only five months earlier. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage.

"Twitter has become the second screen experience for television," said Deirdre Bannon, vice president of social media at Nielsen.

Social networking is becoming so pervasive that the study found nearly a third of people aged 18-to-24 reported using the sites while in the bathroom.

An estimated 41 percent of tablet owners and 38 percent of smartphone owners used their device while also watching television at least once a day, Nielsen said.

That percentage hasn't changed much; in fact, 40 percent of smartphone owners reported daily dual screen usage a year earlier, Nielsen said. The difference is that far more people own these devices and they are using them for a longer period of time. The company estimated that Americans spent a total of 157.5 billion minutes on mobile devices in July 2012, nearly doubling the 81.8 billion the same month a year earlier.

"There are big and interesting implications," Bannon said. "I think both television networks and advertisers are onto it."

The social media can provide networks with real-time feedback on what they are doing. The performance of moderators at presidential debates this fall was watched more closely than perhaps ever before, because people were instantly taking on Twitter to provide their own critiques.
It also makes for some conflicting information: Twitter buzzed with complaints last summer about NBC's policy of airing many Olympics events from London on tape delay, yet ratings for the prime-time Olympics telecast soared past expectations.

The increase in people watching television and commenting about it online would seem to run counter to another big trend this fall: more people recording programs and watching them at a later hour. Those contrary trends both increase the value of live event programming like awards shows or sporting events.

The Nielsen study also found that 35 percent of people who used tablets while watching TV looked up information online about the program they were watching. A quarter of tablet owners said they researched coupons or deals for products they saw advertised on television
As rapid as the use of social media while on television is growing in the United States, it already lags behind other countries. Nielsen said that 63 percent of people in the Middle East or Africa report using social media while on TV, and 52 percent of people in Latin America.

Credit : Huffington Post

Tommie Sunshine Discusses Twitter Feud with DJ Sneak

What the hell happened last week between DJ Sneak and Tommie Sunshine on Twitter? Within the blink of a tweet the two DJs squared off and threw down on the social media network in a heated exchange. And it got very personal. Those who followers Sunshine know that he speaks his mind on a host of issues in addition to music (drugs, politics, life). Regular readers of Big Shot will remember that in March, Sneak, the self-described House Gangster, got into a bitter Twitter feud with Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello over comments he made about the act in an interview. “If you are going to do pre-recorded sets then call yourself a live act or a performer, leave the DJing to real DJs,” an unapologetic Sneak told us. “There are many DJs out there that can rock a crowd and do what they have to without faking it.” It seems that both jocks’ opinions clashed in a perfect storm. But what instigated the virtual brawl on November 12?
On November 13, Big Shot contacted Sneak and Sunshine to get their side about what caused the war of tweets. Dan Ross of X-Mix Productions, Sneak’s management company, said a comment would be forthcoming but none appeared (we followed up three times and didn’t receive a reply). Tommie Sunshine, however, told us his side of the story.

Tommie Sunshine: “This [incident] seems petty but maybe there is something bigger to learn here.”

“[I was] enjoying the endless irony of RichieHawtin‘s CNTRL_EDM feed as he was one of the first producers with a publicist and an ‘act.’ It set off a kid in Canada who then tweeted to Richie thus starting chaos. He then brought up Sneak in which I replied:

“I have had it with people talking about the good ‘ol days. I have always had the utmost respect for DJ Sneak and his illustrious career. He made many classic Chicago house tracks that have endured the ages. That being said, I always am disappointed when he complains about the state of our music. He has had a very amazing career in which he’s only ever done what he wants to do and the industry has let him. Why would someone like that have anything to complain about? It’s sad to hear legends complain about what is coming next. The kids rule the world. Without them, we don’t have careers. The whole vibe of this music has been taken back to the feel of the rave days in the early ’90s some 20 years ago. I’m thankful for that and am enjoying it all over again with the biggest smile on my face.”
Sneak then fired off a series of replies. Here are a few:



During the virtual fracas, a fan of both DJs pleaded for calm but received a Twitter smackdown from Sneak.

Later on, Sunshine took to Twitter to defend himself:

Though Sunshine has seemingly maintained nothing but respect for Sneak’s career in his tweets, the tussle opened up an old wound: Sunshine, who is now sober, accused Sneak of blowing pot smoke in his face after crashing his DJ set in L.A.


In spite of the brouhaha, both jocks with Chicago roots are carrying on. Sneak just played a show in São Paulo and remains active on Twitter. Sunshine released his Growth EP on November 15 and says his recent gig at EDC Orlando (where his DJ bag was stolen) was amazing (“It was tremendous. These kids were having the times of their lives.”)
With a few days perspective from the scuffle with Sneak, Sunshine seems now be in a pragmatic frame of mind about the feud. “This [incident] seems petty but maybe there is something bigger to learn here about us moving forward and the growing pains of it all.”

Credit : BigShot

What The New Twitter Will Look Like

 

S

The  Discover page, full-screen photos and retweet style.

The message from Twitter over the last year has been consistent about one thing: Change is coming. It's building a new Twitter. We sort of joked it would look like this — essentially, more like Facebook — but the new features Twitter rolled out last night show just how true that will be.
Twitter just launched a handful of interrelated things for its mobile apps: a new photo interface, a photo-centric revision of Search and Discover, a slightly tweaked way of denoting retweets, and it built Cards directly into the Discover tab. The result is what you see above, with in-stream photos, a more immersive experience when you click on pictures, and clearer context for retweets that appear in your timeline.
While the new stuff is concentrated within the Discover tab and Search, with the Interaction tab and timeline left mostly untouched, consider that Twitter redesigned the Me tab two months ago. In other words, it may well be sweeping right to left, rebuilding its app one column at a time. When I talked to Josh Brewer, a Twitter designer, he said that the new photo-centric Discover and Search are just "one step toward creating a richer experience," a now-familiar refrain from Twitter.
So now that Me and Discover have been redesigned, what will the new timeline — the main feed — look like in this "richer experience"? Well, probably a lot like Discover does now: with photos and articles displayed midstream, something that more closely resembles a Facebook newsfeed than your current Twitter feed. Remember Twitter's other refrain of late: "consistency." So it makes sense the timeline would look like other fancy new stuff in the Twitter app, or at least fit in with it, visually. And talking to Brewer, it's clear that Twitter is all about photos and these other kinds of media right now:

140 characters is fairly straightforward. In the 140 characters, there's often these links and all the content types you described [photos, video, articles]. How can we make it easier for you to find the great content that people are already sharing?

The thing is, Twitter has always been defined by text. (Even if some of the service's key moments, like the Hudson River plane crash, were photos). So won't showing full-blown photos and article summaries in the main timeline, the way Twitter does now in Search and Discover, kind of break the Twitter stream we know? Well, talking about the changes with photos in Discover, Brewer thinks Twitter found "a way to keep that feeling of a real rhythm in the stream," so "it feels very much like you're in Twitter, not something different."
When I asked him directly about photo overload and all the scrolling you have to do in, say, a Facebook newsfeed, Brewer replied, "At the end of the day people share all kinds of content, and the odds of seeing 50 photos in a row — I'd be hard-pressed to think of a situation where that would occur."
In other words, Twitter has thought about what a very different kind of Twitter stream, one packed with images and articles, will feel like. It thinks you'll be cool with it.
There is obviously still a lot of care being taken with the timeline and what it looks like — the rationale behind the new retweet style for instance, Brewer explained, is that "in your home timeline you've brought these people you follow into your house. A retweet is almost like a guest, and you wanna know who brought this guest into your house."
It's also clear that Twitter doesn't want to go full-on Facebook, particularly with the way it handles photos — one of the biggest points of difference between the two, with Facebook being the largest photo service in the world. Brewer emphasized that Twitter, unlike Facebook, is all about moments, so don't expect being able to upload full photo galleries. Twitter's emphasis on photos, he said, comes down to the fact that "for a lot of other people, photos are the easiest way for them to share what they're thinking and what they're feeling in the moment." It goes beyond language or 140 characters. And Twitter, he added, is "a mechanism for sharing a moment rather than being a photo service."

Credit : BuzzFeed

6 New & Effective Ways To Make Money On Twitter

Here are six effective ways that businesses and entrepreneurs have made money online using the social media platform ‘Twitter‘.

1. Use Twitter to Crowd Source products

The t-shirt retailer, Threadless, has been using Twitter to ask its followers to submit proposed t-shirt designs for the chance to be paid some cash. The company created a website where people could easily submit their tweets for consideration, and also where people voted for their favorite. The campaign was a resounding success. Threadless received more than 100,000 submissions and over three million votes. More importantly, the company was able to develop and sell 23 designs, creating a new income stream for itself.
You can use this idea to create income opportunities for your business by asking your followers for help with your products, allowing them to make an emotional investment and take part in the creation process. Then you need to reward them for responding.

2. Sell products

Dell Computers made millions by using its @DellOutlet Twitter account to tweet discounts and promotions for Dell computers and other products. They gained over half a million followers and generated over a million dollars in sales in just under two years of tweeting.
You can follow Dell’s lead and make your own followers aware of special deals, discounts and promotions to generate buzz, stimulate sales and make money on Twitter.

3. Generate leads and find customers

Heather Townsend is the author of the book, “The Financial Times Guide to Business Networking.” She started her business networking consultancy right after she had been laid off by her former employer, and claims that 80 percent of her leads had started as followers on Twitter.
Like Miss Townsend, you can nurture relationships you build with your Twitter contacts: offer help to people when they need it, provide answers to questions they may have and contribute useful or interesting information. Then you can capitalize on these relationships by pursuing contacts who may have need of your products and services, converting them into customers.

4. Develop and sell Twitter-related products and apps

UseQwitter.com for example, is a freemium service that performs a single, simple task: it notifies Twitter users when they are unfollowed by their followers. The basic service is free, but the site charges for premium services. The site grew to over 180,000 active subscriptions. The site was then eventually sold to another company, providing the original developers with an additional windfall.
You could identify gaps in Twitter’s service offering and fill that with an app of your own. Your target market will consist of the entire Twitter user base. If your app or service fulfills a pressing need, you could charge people for downloading and using it. You may even create enough interest for investors, and sell your creation for a tidy sum.

5. Tweet for sponsors

SponsoredTweets.com is an online platform that allows you to make money on Twitter by charging sponsors for communicating their advertising messages to your followers. You set the amount you want to get paid for every tweet you make, choose a category and select keywords you want to work with. You then wait for advertisers to contact you and take you up on your offer, paying you the amount you specified for each tweet that you make.
All throughout the process, the tweeter has full control over his or her account, and may choose the wordings of the tweets, or may choose to reject the tweet altogether.

6. Hold a sponsored contest

Holding a Twitter contest is a great way to create buzz, engage your audiences, generate new twitter followers and grow your brand presence. Back in 2010, KFC awarded USD 20,000 scholarships to people who tweeted the most creative answers to the featured question.
Twitter contests have become quite popular. You could ride the wave of this emerging trend and make money on Twitter by organizing contests for local businesses, which will pay you for the service. There are several types of Twitter contests you can set up. You have already seen how KFC solicited the most creative answers. You could select winners through a random draw, organize a photo contest, award users who provide the best answer to questions and much more.

How to stop Twitter from tracking you across the Web

This week Twitter announced a new version of its "Who to Follow" feature, making it a far more personal recommendation engine. The way it works, however, is that if you're logged into Twitter in the web browser, any site that calls Twitter code -- like a Tweet or Follow button -- can report your presence on that site back to Twitter. Gadget sites. Car sites. Movie sites. Porn sites. Gaming sites. Any. Site.

We determine the people you might enjoy following based on your recent visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem (sites that have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets). Specifically, our feature works by suggesting people who are frequently followed by other Twitter users that visit the same websites.

The cause for concern here is that it looks like it's opt-out, and not opt-in for existing Twitter users. New Twitter users will be asked on signup, but existing users have to a) know about it, and b) find it and shut it off if they don't like it.
Giving existing users a popup or overlay advising them of it would even that out. (Twitter is sending emails that include some of this and other information, but that's not as effective as a specific modal request, with the default state being off and not on.)
If you trust Twitter and would value more personalized "Who to Follow" recommendations, then you may not care. If you don't trust any big internet company, aren't interested in social recommendations, and basically think your personal information is too high a price to pay for any free internet service, then you have some options.

Log out of Twitter.com

If you rarely if ever use Twitter via the website, one way to prevent Twitter from collecting your data is to simply make sure you're logged out of Twitter.com.

1. Go to Twitter.com in your browser.
2. Tap on the Me tab.
3. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on Log Out.

(As pointed out by @marcedwards, using a good password manager like 1Password, DataVault, RoboForm, etc. makes frequent logins and logouts for privacy reasons far less onerous.)

Opt out of Twitter's personalized recommendations

Sadly, this method can't seem to be done via the iPhone-optimized mobile Twitter webapp,so you'll have to break out the full, desktop browser version of Twitter.com.

1. Go to Twitter.com in your desktop browser.
2. Click on the Account button to open the drop-down menu
3. Click on Settings
4. Scroll down and uncheck the Tailor Twitter based on my recent website visits
5. Re-Enter your password to confirm

Tell your browser not to let web services track you

Twitter supports "Do Not Track", a system that users can opt into that prevents web services from following their browsing habits. Again, it would be better to have users opt into "Allow Track" than making them figure out how to opt out via "Do Not Track" but this is currently the hand privacy is dealt.
Unfortunately, not all browsers support "Do Not Track" directly yet, including Mobile Safari on iOS. For desktop Safari 5.1 or later:

1. Click on the **Safari* menu
2. Choose Preferences...
3. Check Show Develop menu in menu bar
4. Click on the Develop menu
5. Choose Send Do Not Track HTTP Header

Here's the gist:

The United States Federal Trade Commission has endorsed DNT as a simple way for users to inform integrated web services which offer content across the Internet (such as buttons, widgets, and other embedded features) that they do not want certain information about their webpage visits collected across websites when they have not interacted with that service's content on the page.
The DNT browser setting is now supported by recent versions of major browsers, including Firefox 5+, Internet Explorer 9+, and Safari 5.1+. If you are using Chrome 17.0 or higher, there is a third-party extension that enables DNT.

Conclusion

iPhone users are massive Twitter users and vice versa. If any social network was made for mobile, it was and is Twitter. Because Twitter is so mobile, and because it defaults to making most things public (unless you deliberately make your account private or send a DM), Twitter has managed to avoid a lot of the privacy blunders Facebook and Google had experienced. Until this week.
Security and privacy are always going to be at odds with convenience. It's faster and easier for social networks to simply turn things on, and it's more powerful and feature-fancy for users to let them.
The price is our personal information.
There are arguments on more than two sides about the importance of this, but at the end of he day there are millions if not billions of dollars at stake for the networks and the details of personal and private lives at stake for users. So it's worth arguing about. A lot.
In this specific case, if you're okay with Twitter offering you recommendations based on your browsing habits, leave it on and enjoy. If not, turn it off and rest easy.

Credit : iMore

Twitter Updates iPhone and Android Apps: Improves Discover Tab, Search & Push Notifications

Twitter just announced the latest updates to its mobile apps for Android and iOS. With these updates, these apps get a number of much-needed new features, including an improved Discover tab, better support for search and support for push notifications for interactions. These new push notifications now let you know whenever somebody retweets you, favorites one of your tweets and when somebody new follows you. Until now, Twitter only sent push notifications for direct messages and mentions.
With this update, Twitter is apparently trying to address some of the criticism it faced when it launched its radically redesigned mobile apps last December. Last year’s redesign deemphasized many core features like direct messages, search and lists in favor of highlighting, among other things, follow recommendations and trending stories in the Discover tab.
Today, Twitter is making some much-needed changes to make the Discover tab more useful. When it first launched, You can now also use this tab to browse an activity stream of “updates that shows which Tweets are favorited or retweeted by the people you follow and which accounts those people follow or add to lists.” This new stream will appear right under the Stories section in the Discover tab.
Twitter also made the search feature in its mobile apps easier to use with this update. The apps now offer “suggestions for different spellings and related terms for your queries. Finding the people you’re looking for is faster, too. In the Connect tab, you can start typing the first or last name or username of the person you’re looking for and the name will autocomplete for people that you follow.”
Quite a few power users moved away from the official Twitter apps after the redesign. It’s unlikely that this update will get them to switch back. Right after the launch of the redesign last December, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler asked Twitter’s Director of Platform Ryan Sarver about the company’s reasoning behind the changes. At the time, Sarver said that Twitter didn’t want to compete on features but wanted to “keep things simple.” Looks like that hasn’t changed with this update.

Cell Phones : Windows Phone Mango Twitter integration shown off, hashtagged

 

Sadly, Twitter integration wasn't part of the package when was checked out Windows Phone Mango at the recently. The feature has finally been rolled out in the latest developer build of the forthcoming mobile operating system, and WinRumors has taken it for a spin on video. Thrill at the simple setup process through Windows Live. Gasp at integration with the People and Me hubs. Stare in stunned silence at the threaded conversations.

 

Tech : Seesmic Twitter app drops BlackBerry support

The third-party app experience has always seemed like an afterthought for RIM. Lousy selection and a half-baked install process are just some of the issues plaguing BlackBerry owners and developers, but there's no blow stronger in the app world than when a dev drops support for a platform, after dedicating the resources necessary to bring a product to market in the first place. That's exactly what Seesmic has done with its popular social media app -- effective June 30th, the company will drop support for BlackBerry, "in order to focus development efforts on (its) most popular mobile platforms." It goes so far as to suggest that users "try out Seesmic for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7," which would of course mean replacing that BlackBerry with another, more app-friendly device. The move doesn't necessarily indicate that other devs will follow suit, but if jumping ship does become a trend, it could put a significant damper on RIM's future earnings, to say the least.

Cell Phones : Need to delete drunk tweets and status updates? There's an iPhone app for that

Mobile Phones

The walk of shame home after a big night out is one thing, but how about the wall of shame? Your Facebook wall, the morning after you got home tipsy and posted inappropriate status updates. Not to mention that succession of drunken tweets published before you fell asleep in a heap at 3am. Thankfully, someone's made an iPhone app to deal with the aftermath.
It's called Last Night Never Happened (LNNH for short), and styles itself as "the world's first morning-after app". The aim is to whip down your embarrassing updates and rambling tweets before they get a chance to spread across the Internet (or worse, be seen by your mum).
"Simply choose which social networks to log into (Facebook/Twitter), set the dial to the number of hours back that you'd like to delete, and the app will show you in real time exactly how many items you posted during that time," explains its App Store listing. "Once you hit the 'Last Night Never Happened' button and confirm, they'll be gone forever within seconds!"
You can even choose to replace your deleted posts with a personalised message -- quite possibly an apology for your misdeeds. The app is the work of developers 22seeds and So Soho Holdings, and is a nifty idea, at least for anyone who regularly risks their dignity with late-night social-networking foolishness.
Will it save you from drink-related shame? Clearly not. You can scrub your Facebook wall clean of incriminating content (and comments), but if your early-hours witterings have spread, there's nothing you can do to take down those retweets by other people.
Meanwhile, LNNH can't do anything about drunken emails, texts to exes, or your decision to strut down the high street naked, weeping and bellowing the Bodyform song. Technology has its limits, after all.

Social Network : Twitter adds 'Always use HTTPS' option, makes cyberterrorists FOF

One small checkbox for your mouse pointer, one giant leap for your Twitter account's security. The microblogging site that every techie knows, loves, and occasionally loathes, has added a new option to allow users to go HTTPS full-time. For the unenlightened among you, that means all your communications with Twitter can now be done over an SSL-encrypted channel, which massively boosts their resilience to external attacks. That won't protect you if you're careless with your password or leave your account logged in on computers other than your own, but at least you can sleep a little more restfully knowing that nobody other than yourself will be embarrassing you on the Twittersphere.

Social Network : 50 Ways to FAIL On Twitter

Like many others, I scoffed at Twitter when I first heard of it. What use could sending short messages to people I don’t know be?  The mental leap from IM and Facebook status updates to Twitter makes it easier, but business use seemed pointless at first.  As I noticed more of my Search, Social and PR industry peers using Twitter, it seemed a good idea to test out.
While I don’t have a million followers, or even 100,000, I’ve found out that for my purposes, quality is the key and the 13k or so followers I am lucky to be associated with are appreciated a lot more. Being strategically useful and helpful builds trust, attracts influential followers (vs bots and spammers) and results in a new channel for social networking.  Individual tweets may or may not be useful, but when you add them up over time, a bigger picture emerges.
Twitter Marketing tips are not hard to come by. Ease of use combined with the overall ease of publishing online makes available more than enough advice on using Twitter as a consumer as well as for brand monitoring, marketing, customer service, real-time search, competitive intelligence and even direct sales.
Yes, there’s plenty of advice on what you should do with Twitter, but based on increasing mis-behaviors, there are many ways to fail.  Below is a list of 10 “Don’ts” on Twitter from me, followed by 40 more provided by the smart Tweeple who responded on Twitter :

• Don’t auto reply follows with a link to your free piece of crap ebook. This sentiment is shared several times below.

• Don’t provide an obscure description of who you are and what you do

• No photo or an image that only makes sense to you and your imaginary friends

• Don’t mention a great resource with no link

• Not customizing your background

• Don’t post 10 messages in succession (also repeated below)

• Don’t follow over 1000 people in a 2 hour period

• Don’t write about the cat/hamster/potted plant over and over again

• Don’t swear often and expect business people to take you seriously (Unless you work for Outspoken Media)

• Don’t over-abbreviate.

Here are a few “Twitter FAIL” tips from Tweeple following @leeodden

• @glenngabe DON’T tell people on the public timeline that someone else is on vacation.  Saw this happen last week… Can get a house robbed!

• @glenngabe DON’T reply on the public timeline when you meant to DM (or when it should be a DM…)

• @cyandle don’t retweet EVERYTHING…

• @kholloway Don’t expect me to follow you if you have 0 updates

• @aimclear DO research content you recommend, add value to the bookmark, Success is gained by offering value, Friends made by being a friend.

• @aimclear Don’t compliment gratuitously in public

• @shelisrael  Don’t tell people not to do something on Twitter. It will just give them ideas.

• @kenburbary Obvious but annoying, DON’T auto DM spam (also mentioned by @CarrieHill @Justin_Freid @NicoleElise)

• @RonArden Twitter don’ts: don’t send spam and don’t send me ads for things. This is the quickest way to get me to unfollow someone.

• @doctordns Just don’t be stupid – some people will take whatever you write and use it against you. If not now, then when you least expect it!

• @JeremyMeyers “don’t” spend all your time on twitter talking about twitter (also mentioned by @timjahn)

• @thelostagency dont tweet broken links, and if you are retweeting check link is accurate and not spam/broken

• @rickburnes Don’t pretend that Twitter alone is a marketing plan (you only get referrals from Twitter if you have great content to refer to).

• @steveplunkett don’t ever argue.. in writing on twitter…

• @Aerocles Don’t tweet breaking news that’s more than one hour old, we’ve all heard/seen it already

• @brandonfritz@leeodden Don’t St@lk

• @KateOnline Don’t take credit for tweets that did not originate from you (also mentioned by @matthewdiehl)

• @glager Dont report on every piece of news you can get your hands on

• @kimgarretson Don’t tweet about your need for coffee in the mornings. This has moved past cliche to downright irritating.

• @Ms_Write Test links before tweeting them. Nothing worse then a dead link.

• @MBenti Before you use twitter for your business b/c it’s the “thing to do”, take time to observe and figure it out for yourself.

• @Zarniwhooper Don’t retweet something and leave off the original Twitter poster. Always give credit to those who wrote it first.

• @KaseyInCharge here’s a “don’t”: don’t talk about ways to increase followers. so annoying. people are here for conversation…

• @AmberGallihar Don’t repost the same tweet more than three times. We saw it.

• @Zarniwhooper Don’t say anything that could get you fired or prevent you from getting a job.

• @Zarniwhooper Don’t be boring. A simple rule is “Never tweet about food or the weather. And never your bathroom habits. Seriously. Never.

• @steveplunkett no foul language in same tweet as a URL. (SafeSearch Anchor text)

• @Saudiqua Don’t tweet emotional rants!

• @bobmutch ya don’t share stuff you are doing or going to do that is too personal

• @melaniemitchell don’t sell to people who don’t care about what you have to say.

• @michaelpearsun Don’t worry about your follower count. It’s about quality.

• @michaelpearsun Don’t let spammers into your feed

• @marrina Re-tweet of a re-tweet. So annoying.

• @patiomensch First, you must call it a list of “don’ts”  (ah, the spelling Fail)

• @EstrellaBella10 Don’t post multiple back-to-back updates on Twitter. Many people have complained about that.

• @myklroventine Don’t try to explain it to Letterman

• @imeldak Don’t join things that gets you thousands of ‘instant’ followers. Quality of followers is always better than quantity

• @anon Don’t post a link to a picture of yourself with a large knife, especially if you are a governor

• @anon Responses to ethics charges are probably best left for a forum where you can respond with more than 140 characters

Kicks : Nike Sneakers Customized With Google, Firefox and Twitter Themes

Customized kicks aren't just for the cool kids. For proof, check out these customized Nike Dunks inspired by Firefox, Twitter and Google. The colorful hi-tops are designed by Daniel Reese, who sells a number of other nerd-themed kicks at his site Brass Monki. Most of his custom sneakers, which are available in limited runs, retail for between $200 and $250. Honestly, that's a small price to pay for showing off your Web browser, microblogging and search engine allegiance everywhere you walk, right?

Social Network : Twitter CEO shoots down talk of a Twitter-branded smartphone before it starts

Think Twitter's going to follow Facebook and lend its brand to a smartphone? Think again. Twitter CEO Dick Costello said during his Mobile World Congress keynote yesterday that while he does see a need to better integrate Twitter into existing platforms for phones, he sees no need for a Twitter-branded smartphone. Costello cited the ability to take a picture on an Android phone and automatically tweet it as an example of that integration he'd like to see, and further added that he would like to see "more single sign-on experiences," and "more apps that can tweet without having to go to another app." Interestingly, Costello also revealed that 40 percent of all tweets come from mobile devices, and that fully half of all active Twitter users are active on more than one platform.

Social Network : Kenneth Cole Redefines Classy With Cairo Tweet

This week, the Social Media Outreach Award goes to Kenneth Cole, the brand that offers sensible shoes and faux-leather bags to the upscale T.J. Maxx shopper. Earlier today, the company managed to mix its ever-so-witty wordplay ("If gas prices continue to rise, why not switch to pumps? -Kenneth Cole") with current political events across the Atlantic. When the KC PR team heard about the damage to the Egyptian museum and the five people who died in the clashes yesterday, they thought: TIME TO SELL SOME SHOES!

Taking to Twitter, Kenneth Cole appropriated the #Cairo hashtag and tweeted: "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC." Good stuff, Kenneth! Way to show the world that America isn't full of naive opportunists intent on hawking olive drab chic.

Porn star offers oral favors if Steelers win Super Bowl

Add adult entertainer Diamond Foxxx to the list of porn stars who are willing to give Twitter followers blow jobs if their “team” wins the big game. Yea, that’s not a knock-off from the stunt pulled last summer by Bobbi Eden and “Team BJ” when they announced they would give oral pleasure if the Dutch won the World Cup.

Thankfully, for the CDC and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases everywhere, Spain outlasted the Netherlands in the World Cup. But Foxx may have a large load to handle if the Steelers win on Sunday.

Those requirements will include legal identification, a clean STD test from an AIM Healthcare (Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation) draw station or Talent Testing Services, and the understanding that the event will be filmed for broadcast. Foxxx reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. A complete list of the rules and event details will be posted online and updates will be available daily via her Twitter account (twitter.com/diamondfoxxx).

“I’m a huge Steelers fan and if they win — which they will — I wanted to do something super special,” Foxxx said. “What could be more special than making a long line of horny men feel the pleasure that I’ll feel watching the Steelers win? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I couldn’t be more excited.”

Like I’ve said before, I’m ok if I’m number 1-1000 in this “BJ Bonanza”, but after that, it gets kinda creepy. And I have no idea what her Twitter following was before this ordeal started but she’s only at 35k right now. I’m guessing Steelers nation hasn’t gotten wind of her proposal yet. That, or they just aren’t happy with the numerous stipulations she put in the contract.