I can’t remember many–any?–examples of a popular service or piece of software changing so much all at once as Twitter is doing with its new redesign. (If you don’t have it yet, hold on: The company says it’ll be a few weeks until it completely replaces Old Twitter.) It brings elements other than words onto Twitter for the first time–photos, videos, and maps. It fundamentally changes the service’s interface, with a roomy, context-sensitive right panel that reminds me of Twitter for iPad. It displays threaded conversations. It includes a bunch of subtleties, like keyboard shortcuts. (TechCrunch’s MG Siegler has a good roundup of some of the revamping’s less obvious improvements.)
Tag Archives | Twitter
All-New Twitter.com
Twitter’s big news turned out to be big news indeed: It’s launching a completely new user interface that embeds media from third-party services such as Flickr, Ustream, JustinTV, and YouTube. (Only a small percentage of users will see it right away.) I wrote a bit about it at Techland–more thoughts here after I’ve explored it more.
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Live From Twitter's Press Event
I’m at Twitter HQ in a lobby full of tech reporters. Live coverage of the company’s news event is happening here–join me…
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University to Students: No Facebook, Twitter for A Week
The provost of Harrisburg University of Science and Technology is taking an unusual step to teach his students a lesson on how social media is impacting their lives: he has banned both Facebook and Twitter on campus for an entire week. Provost Eric Darr doesn’t look like he’s anti-technology, rather he believes that students may take these technologies for granted.
“Often, there are behaviors or habits, ways that we use technology that we may ourselves not even be able to articulate because we’re not aware of them,” he told the NPR in an interview. “If someone feels the need to borrow their friend’s phone to go check Facebook, it’ll be interesting to ask the question at the end of the week: Why did you feel the need to do that? What compelled you to do that?”
Students off campus would still be able to access these sites as the ban only is for the on-campus network. Those with smart phones would still be able to access these social networking sites while at the school. But again, Darr wants students to try to live without it. Could be a good idea — do today’s kids rely on social networking too much?
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Twitter Holds an Event–I'll Be There. Join Me!
A buch of tech journalists–including me–have been invited to an event at Twitter headquarters tomorrow afternoon. (We’ve been asked to show up by 3:45pm.) I don’t know what the topic is (guesses welcome!) but this is the first such event at Twitter that I can remember.
I’ll liveblog the news as it happens at Technologizer.com/twitter_event, and I hope you’ll drop by to see what’s up…
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Justin Bieber Using 3% of Twitter's Capacity?
4Chan users are about to have a virtual coronary. In a tweet Monday, blogger and web designer Dustin Curtis said that at any given time, pop star Justin Bieber is using about three percent of Twitter’s total capacity. Given that Mr. Bieber has over five million followers, we shouldn’t be too surprised by this.
Curtis followed up his tweet with another Tuesday that quantified that first one — that his Twitter source said that many of the most followed users have their own dedicated servers. So before everybody starts bemoaning the fact that meaningless (to some) pop drivel is overrunning the microblogging service, Justin’s not the only one.
The president? He’s definitely got a few. Oprah? She’s probably got her own rack. Ashton Kutcher too.
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Twitter for iPad: Great Work, Loren Brichter! What's Next?
Loren Brichter–the creator of Tweetie, the app that became Twitter’s official Twitter app–is a genius. Or at least one of the smartest software interface designers who’s ever coded. His latest work is Twitter’s official iPad app, and he’s done it again.
As with Tweetie Twitter for iPhone, this new program manages to be exceptionally approachable and remarkably deep at the same time–and it feels like its iPhone predecessor while simultaneously taking full advantage of the iPad. The interface uses ingenious sliding panels to let you drill down into tweets, Twitter users, and embedded content–you can look at Web pages and even watch videos without leaving the app.
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Tweetmeme Hands Over Retweet Button to Twitter
It’s been a little over a year since a company called Tweetmeme decided to mash-up the idea of social news with Twitter, resulting in a one-stop clearinghouse for retweets and obviously generating a new traffic stream for content providers. That concept received Twitter’s official blessing Thursday as the social networking site took over the retweet button concept from the site.
The button now counts some 750 million impressions per day. Here at Technologizer, we added the button early this year, and its been interesting to watch which of our posts get picked up in the social web. It’s not surprising that Twitter would want to bring what has become a successful concept in-house.
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20 Billion Tweets on Twitter
Social networking service Twitter hit its 20 billionth tweet on Saturday, reaching the milestone only two months after it had received its 15 billionth tweet, and five months after hitting ten billion. The accelerating growth shows that the fad surrounding Twitter is still going strong, and especially in Japan, where the milestone tweet occurred.
Some 12 percent of all tweets originate from the country, the single biggest contributor to Twitter traffic. Some say the language itself is the reason: saying something in 140 Kanji characters would be a much more complete thought than in 140 Roman ones.
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Twitter Helps You Find People You Might Actually Want to Follow
Twitter is rolling out a new feature–“Suggestions for You“–that aims to recommend Twitter users you might like based on factors such as the people you’re already following and who they follow. It sounds similar to the third-party service Mr. Tweet (which is currently undergoing renovations) and like a potentially massive improvement over Twitter’s old “Suggested Users” feature (which gave everyone the same list of people, including some pretty vapid celebs).
It’s not live on my account yet, though–do you see it on yours?