Twitter Officially Responds To Developers. Tries To Calm Fears

Twitter to Developers: We Needed to Acquire Tweetie to Grow / Twitter Walking a Tightrope With Developers



In Twitter’s development talk Google group, API lead Ryan Sarver took some time to try and calm developers fears regarding Twitter’s recent moves to acquire certain apps and effectively wipe out others.
He explains the main motivation behind the acquisition of Tweetie was to remove the confusion that many new users would find when visiting the app store looking for “Twitter” and never finding what they were looking for because most apps aren’t called Twitter (that’s because Twitter won’t allow them to of course).
Sarver also claims that this doesn’t mean the end for other iPhone Twitter clients. There will apparently never be an “official’ twitter client – it was a mistake and “you won’t see that language used with Twitter clients in the future” he says.
He concludes by assuring that Twitter is still very focused on building its platform and that is what Twitter’s upcoming developer conference Chirp will be about.


More on thenextweb ( by Zee)

Japanese astronaut tweets from space

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi (@astro_soichi) has been in the international space station since December and he is tweeting some amazing photos of the Earth! The international space station (ISS) orbits the Earth about fifteen times per day.
By tweeting the photos of various locations he is generating more interest in the space program than we've seen in several years. The government agency needs to be more involved with social media and this is definitely a small step for man in the right direction!

Source - http://twitpic.com/1e1502

More on examiner ( by Lauren Actkinson-Carlton)

Maria's CD Cover Revealed, Dixie Carter Tweets On Dixie Carter's Death

Dixie Carter issued the following tweet today, acknowledging the passing of actress Dixie Carter. Carter noted: Condolences to the family of actress Dixie Carter. I was a big fan and I loved sharing a name with you. She also tweeted: Happy Birthday to da Pope! He is such a great guy. It's going to be a big year for him. Love that beautiful smile....
Reports from the ongoing SHIMMER tapings in Berwyn, IL say that Madison Eagles has defeated MsChif to become the new SHIMMER champion. She will be the third champion in the promotion's history.


The crazy looking cover for former WWE Diva Maria's new CD, which hits iTunes on Wednesday April 13, has been posted online.


More on wrestlinginc (by Ryan Clark)

Four Implications of the Leaked Twitter Redesign

Twitter's new look won't be limited to the redesigned Twitter home page. Doug Bowman, creative director at the social media company, posted a screen shot of a refreshed design for Twitter Thursday, according to SocialTimes. Of course, the whole screen isn't even shown because, as Bowman wrote in a comment, "Working on what may end up a significant redesign. Not final yet. What we can show without giving away the farm."


It looks like quite a bit is going to change, and as usual, even the smallest of updates could carry a significant revenue implication for Twitter. Here are four implications of a screen redesign for Twitter (and, more important, its investors):


1. What have you done for me lately?
The tweets-per-day metric will tell other users how active you are at a glance, rather than requiring the mental calculus of last tweet date, date joined and total number of tweets. It also shows the "reply" rate, which speaks to interaction with other users instead of simple broadcast tweeting. The total number of tweets doesn't appear to be provided, because having been a super-user last year means nothing this year.


Implication: These features will be incredibly useful to social media marketing professionals in gauging reach and identifying influencers. For Twitter, that means increased end-user commitment from businesses, which entails more opportunities to sell commercial Twitter accounts.


2. I was there first!
While it's possible now to see how long a user has been on Twitter, the leaked redesign makes this stat prominent, and it is measured in number of days to make the numbers nice and big. For early adopters, this is an obvious pride point, and now members can know quickly whether they should feel pride or admiration in any given interaction.


Implication: This metric is likely to fuel follower interactions, as n00bs are drawn to experienced users in an attempt to attain some reflected glory. For Twitter, this increased commitment to the platform fuels growth along every announced revenue stream.


More on bloggingstocks (by Tom Johansmeyer)

The 3 best URL shortening services

Twitter has been instrumental in increasing the popularity of URL shortening service, such as TinyURL. However, many offer more than just a shortening service. Here's our 3 favourite URL shortening services that offer more.

After all, the help ensure users of the micro-blogging service can say what they want to and share URLs without exceeding the 140-character limit.
Simply copy a link, paste it, click, and you've got a URL to share with your Twitter followers. A URL shortener is a simple, no-frills tool.
Now though, URL shortening services are drawing a new crowd of users who aren't necessarily interested in just saving space on Twitter - users including bloggers curious about who's linking to their sites and businesses interested in tracking their social media efforts.
A number of URL shortening sites have added or are adding new features ranging from detailed analytics about who's clicking your links and geographically where they're coming from, to features that 'unmask' shortened URLs - so you know where a link will bring you before you click.
The tools also provide easier ways to shorten and Tweet, without leaving the web page you're viewing.
Here are our top three picks for URL shortening services that do more than save space.

Bit.ly

Cli.gs

Idek.net

More on pcadvisor (by Kristin Burnham)

Why 99% of 3rd Party Twitter Apps Will Die

This post is about Twitter and why application developers are kidding themselves to think more than a few apps have a future.

While the prophets were making predictions about where the river was flowing, thousands of aspiring business leaders and web developers created applications that redirected light from Twitter’s river to fuel their own applications. Ev and Biz, essentially the river gods, didn’t mind these developers leeching off the stream for two reasons:

• Every new 3rd party Twitter app meant another little group of enthusiastic people aggressively promoting Twitter. You need to sign up with Twitter to use a 3rd party application so every person the app developers convinced to sign up for the application meant another user for Twitter.
• Twitter was a giant stream of light and, like most giant streams of light, it didn’t have a lot of cash lying around to spend on testing new functionality with private user groups. The solution? Give developers free access to the stream and let them do the dirty work of figuring out what users really like. This seemed like such a great idea to most developers that they jumped into development without thinking about an end game.

Twitter had an end game in mind though. An application that had enough users to gain momentum in the real time micro blogging space presented a danger to the big river. Why? Because if a 3rd party app can prove a working business model on their platform there’s little to prevent them from buying a bunch of servers and breaking away from the big river entirely.

This made many developers angry because they felt like they deserved a reward for creating something so many users enjoyed. They thought Twitter would let them develop cool new apps and bring the functionality back to the main river by buying out the developers. After all, didn’t Amazon and Google do the same thing for years?

Yes, they did. But there’s one thing that makes all the difference between Twitter and a company like Google or Amazon: money.

More on sethsimonds (by @SETHSIMONDS)

Justin Bieber on People Magazine Cover Tweets Dissatisfaction

Good news to all Justin Bieber fans out there. Justin Bieber, the 15-year old singer that made it to mainstream hit music charts from rising in Youtube is now currently the cover of People Magazine’s April 2010 Issue. Justin Bieber apparently tweeted comments of dissatisfaction about making to the cover of People Magazine. The young star’s tweets were:

Dear @peoplemag Covershoot…next time i laugh real crazy warn me u r still taking pics…still appreciate u but let’s get on the same page

Exclusive story and pics in the new issue of @peoplemag. I look crazy as heck on the cover but if u cant laugh at yourself u aint havin fun.

Justin Bieber is a Canadian pop and R&B singer who rose from being popular on YouTube by Scooter Braun, who later became his manager. Justin Bieber is on a joint contract between Braun and Usher called Raymond-Braun Music Group, and with L.A. Reid and Island Def Jam.

More on Daily World Buzz (Posted by Christy Lovejoy)

10 TWITTER APPLICATIONS TO HELP YOU DISTRIBUTE IMAGES

Below are the several applications that will enable you to effortlessly distribute a variety of images throughout Twitter:

1) TwitPic

TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter. You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, TwitPic’s API, or through the site itself. There are also popular twitter clients that have built-in support for TwitPic.

2) TwitrPix

TwitrPix gives you, your friends, family and co-workers the ability to upload and post photos on Twitter using your mobile phone, desktop web browser or by email. Along with a photo of your choice, you can include a message that will get Tweeted with it.

3) TweetPhoto

TweetPhoto is a real-time photo sharing platform for the social web. Instantly share photos on Twitter, Facebook, and more. Once you login with your Twitter username and password, your TweetPhoto account is automatically created. You will then be able to instantly upload photos on the website, via email, or through your mobile phone and share them with your Twitter and Facebook friends.

4) Smug Mug

SmugMug is an interactive application that allows you to share images and photos on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and Tumbler. This app uses Twitter’s secures OAuth login Process to allow you to conic to Twitter and post relevant images and photos.

5) flick.to.twitt

flick.to.twitt is a service the lets you post a photo to your Flickr account and automatically announce it on your Twitter account. This enables you to use Flickr as a photo sharing option for Twitter and keep your pictures all on the same place.

More on buzzertwit (by BuzzerTwit)

Twitter List Strategy: Create Lists For Twitter User’s Facebook Pages

Twitter Lists are an important part of a business strategy if you want to build a viral marketing army, network, give back to your following, or monitor a person or brand.

Premise: Twitter Lists for Facebook

The premise here is to build a list(s) that showcases Twitter users that have Facebook business pages.

Twitter List for Facebook: Strategy

• Announce: broadcast you have a great Facebook page and ask your followers if they have a Facebook page they would like to share
• Collect: collect and record the Facebook urls people provide to their business page
• Segmentation: separate and segment your Facebook lists by industry, niche, customer, consumer, prosect, affiliated business, geographic, associations and other filters pertinent to your business
• Gratitude: build your lists much like the gratitude lists that keep popping up, a list that showcases Facebook page urls provide value
• List Message: when naming your list fill in added description box with the instructions-”Tweet ur Facebook page url for followers to see”
• Requirement: only list those people or businesses that have a Facebook page and require that person or company to tweet their Facebook page url at least 1x per week

Twitter List For Facebook: Benefits

• Resource: a list of Facebook page owners available to your following
• Networking: list to help others become fans and connect with other Facebook business pages
• Research: another place to find Facebook pages that contain research information
• Monitor: help people or companies monitor other brands
• Eliminate DM: if enough people adopted this strategy, it could render the useless spam DM announcing a Facebook page url
• #FacebookFri: adopt a new hashtag event that allows people to recommend their favorite Facebook business pages- more on this tomorrow

More on deansguide

Lady Gaga Tweets Support of Fan Sent Home From School Over "Lady Gay Gay" Shirt

A Lady Gaga fan was sent home from school in Tennessee for wearing a shirt with the words "I <3 Lady Gay Gay" – and the singer took to her Twitter to support him.

"Been in the studio for days and hours of record after record… when I hear that a little monster was discriminated against* BY TEACHERS," she Tweeted at the 15-year-old Cole Goforth. "I love you cole, you just be yourself. You're perfect the way God made you. #colethegreat."
Goforth was sent home on Monday from Greenbrier High School in Greenbrier, Tenn., because the shirt was considered a "disruption."

For her part, Gaga – an outspoken advocate of gay rights — called the young fan an inspiration.
"It reminds me of my commitment + love for u, and the deep unconditional devotion I feel to write music that will liberate you from prejudice," she Tweeted. "Thank u for wearing your tee-shirt proud at school, you make me so proud, at the monsterball, you are an inspiration to us all. I love you."

More on nbcwashington

Twitter Territory: How States Compare to the Average U.S. Twitter Grade

It's one thing to have a Twitter account for your business, it's quite another to have a robust, active, and engaging Twitter account that stands out among the masses. 


Using data pulled from HubSpot's Twitter Grader, the graph below provides a visual analysis of how individual U.S. states compare to the national Twitter average of 66% and list of 10 top "Twitter" US cities.

Source: hubspot

More on hubspot

Access Twitter While You Pretend to Work

First, rub your hands together in mock-evil fashion. Then, say, "Mwa ha ha ha." And finally, head to Spreadtweet, a Twitter interface masquerading as a spreadsheet.

No, this isn't one of those "boss keys" made popular back in the 80s. Spreadtweet offers Office 2003, Office 2007, and Office for Mac versions that look exactly like their real-world counterparts. But instead of crunching numbers, they give you the full Twitter experience. Here's what the Office 2007 version looks like:

After signing into your Twitter account, Spreadtweet displays your messages as cells. To send a tweet, just click in the What are you doing? field (normally where formulas go) and type your message.
So, just how foolproof is Spreadtweet? Someone would have to look really closely to discover that you were not, in fact, working in Excel. In fact, my PC World bosses have yet to figure it out. Mwa ha ha ha!
Spreadtweet requires Adobe Air. If you don't have it or aren't allowed to install it, there's a Web-based version of Spreadtweet that's not nearly as convincing--especially since it resembles Excel for Mac and you use Windows--but probably better than nothing if you justgotta tweet.

More on pcworld ( by Rick Broida) 

Foursquare Becomes Great Predictor Of Divorce

Social apps are taking on new uses, with Twitter predicting movie box office success and now location sharing apps such as Foursquare potential predicting divorce. Information about pending divorces are of course of interest to lenders, and it’s actually Visa who’s using mobile social network data to predict such, so they know where to find you.


The gist is this: divorce leads to financial difficulties which leads to payments not being made. If a lender knows where to find you, it’s far easier to collect, right? The Daily Beast mentions that how credit card companies do this “is a closely guarded secret,” though we can speculate. In the same way that we’re profiled as consumers, our spending habits with credit cards help build a profile for “high risk of divorce”. Credit card companies already have profiles of what people tend to buy when married and what they start buying when divorced. They want to prevent a situation where you start missing payments.


If you’re one of the growing number of people who use mobile location sharing apps such as Foursquare, Loopt Pulse, Stuck, MyTown and literally dozens more, there’s a pattern profile of your common haunts, when you visit, how often, and so on. If you’re checking in to places a married person might not normally, even if you pay cash, you’ve left a trail. Some location sharing apps such as Foursquare have a public API, meaning that any developer with the right skills can build another application to study anyone’s public check-in patterns. E.g., visiting “boring” places that sell household/ garden-related items shows a sort of commitment to marriage. Tools like Loopt Pulse are used for location-planning before the fact, but can also help add to a consumer profile.


More on socialtimes (by Raj Dash)

Twitter Buys Tweetie, Adds Fuel to Developer Fires

Just two days after comments by Twitter investor Fred Wilson made third-party Twitter developers nervous about what the company might do, those fears have become reality: The company announced Friday that it has acquired Atebits, the maker of Tweetie, one of the top Twitter apps for the iPhone. According to a post by co-founder and CEO Evan Williams on the Twitter blog, the app will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and will now be free (previously, the pro version of Tweetie cost $2.99 to download). Developer Loren Brichter said on his blog that he is joining Twitter’s mobile team and will be developing Tweetie for the iPad.
Developers and other observers immediately started analyzing the purchase as soon as the news broke. Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon connected Fred Wilson’s comments — which the VC blogger denied were about any specific future action by the company — with the Tweetie acquisition, saying: “Wow, weird coincidence! a Twitter board member blogged about killing twitter apps the same week Twitter released/bought 2 clients!” Engadget editor Nilay Patel said that Twitter buying Tweetie was “roughly equivalent to Microsoft building it’s own WP7 phone – bye bye, ecosystem.” And former Engadget editor and gdgt co-founder Ryan Block said: “As of today, if your app depends on Twitter for anything other than identity or content syndication, you are officially on notice.” Some developers even formed their own unofficial “union” with a Twitter hashtag — the #unionoftwitterapps.


More details on gigaom (by Mathew Ingram)


keywords: twitter, developer, tweetie, blog, platform third-party, iphone

The Best Way to Build a Twitter Account? Step by Step.

You signed up for Twitter, added a short bio, uploaded an avatar and are Tweeting regularly, but still nobody's following you.


Now what?
The way most Twitter users (especially new ones) build a base of Twitter followers is by following people themselves. Lots of people follow-back people who follow them, so by going out and following people you should be able to accumulate a lot of followers.


People who follow lots of people tend to have lots of followers themselves.


We see that most users have close to a 1:1 ratio of following to followers, meaning that many users follow-back those that follow them.
If your goal is to build a Twitter account with lots of followers, and we assume these factors have some sort of causal relationship, you should try to keep your ratio near or under 1 (following the same number of people as follow you or less).


Conclusion
The data shows that the best way to build a robust Twitter account is via a stepped approach. Follow a few people (a few of them will follow you back), then follow a few more. Don't go crazy following thousands of people. Do it slowly and build up your followers gradually.


More on hubspot

Jim Carrey Tweets Support For Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods has an unlikely supporter in Hollywood — funnyman Jim Carrey.
On Friday, Jim hit his Twitter page where he defended the golfer, who returned to the course this week professionally to compete in The Masters, Tiger's first tournament since his infidelity scandal broke in November of last year.
"Tiger Woods owes nothing 2 anyone but himself," Jim Tweeted. "2 please his father he gave up his childhood and his freedom in the world. That's enough!"
Earlier this week, Nike unveiled a new ad featuring a solemn faced Tiger, who faces the camera as the voice of his late father, Earl Woods, asks, "What did you learn?"
It has since been revealed Earl Woods' words were taken out of context from a 2004 quote about Tiger's mom Kultida.
Jim, who announced on Monday some news of his own – that he and Jenny McCarthy had ended their five-year romance – also shared his opinion about Tiger's wife, Elin Nordegren.
"No wife is blind enough to miss that much infidelity," he wrote. "Elin had 2 b a willing participant on the ride 4 whatever reason. kids/lifestyle."
On Wednesday, Jim made several other pro-Tiger posts.
"If you really wanna see sexual disfunction get 2 know your favorite basketball star! Curling is the only safe sport 4 a married man!" he wrote.

More on nbcwashington (Copyright Access Hollywood)

6 Tools To Cartoon Yourself For Facebook and Twitter

Below you can find some of the best tools including South Park and Simpsons character generators. Of course that’s not all – you can find many more apps for this online. Feel free to share your findings in comments!

Simpson Avatar Generator

Face Your Manga

WeeWorld

South Park Avatar Maker

Yahoo Avatars

Portrait Illustration Maker

More on socialtimes (by Maris Dagis)

8 Twitter Mistakes that can Destroy your Twitter Reputation

Building an awesome reputation on twitter is difficult and can take months to build, but losing it is very easy and it can be a matter of seconds and you might actually end up destroying it.
These are some of twitter mistakes that you should be aware of and should not make if you want to become a powerful twitter user:



1. Auto DM
This is, by far, the most annoying habit that some bloggers and businesses use to promote their links. These links usually include affiliate links and links to their products. The problem is that though earlier auto DMs were a good facility to promote stuff, but now it has become a gateway to annoyance (and is usually full of spam).
It would be better if you use a personalized DM to introduce yourself and then maybe build a relationship with them.



2. Promoting links via @
If you start asking for retweets and using @ replies to promote links you would perceived as a needy tweeter who is always asking for retweets. Instead of using @s use DMs to request your friends to promote your links. It is personal and is a better medium to promote.




3. No Conversation
Twitter is a platform to share useful information and also to interact and share experiences. If you are thinking of only sharing links, then you would never succeed. Conversation is a prerequisite and if don’t try to interact with people, they will start ignoring your tweets.



4. Bulk Following
A lot of people think that bulk following is sure-shot method to become a twitter hotshot. But they are highly mistaken, because quality following is better than quantity following. A person having 1000 followers can have more influence than a person having 10000 followers. Once you bulk follow, your closing the gate to a network, which could have increased your twitter influence.



5. Over Monetization
According to twitter users, making money from twitter is not very bad, if it is done in moderation. But if you are thinking of bombarding the twitter stream with a number of sponsored tweets, then you will be unfollowed immediately. Make sure you don’t cross the limit.



6. Revealing passwords
Revealing password is one of the worst things you can do to your account. Once you use your password on a twitter app, it gets stored there and then anybody can hack your twitter account. 


More on bloggodown (by Gautam Hans)

Alert: Old Virus With New Tricks Targeting Twitter & Facebook

Malicious software program called “koob-face” is targeting Facebook and Twitter users.
Cyber-criminals are using messages on Facebook to lure would-be victims to click on a link, by promising something like an interesting video or sexy pictures.

The messages look real and are often sent from one of your Facebook friends.

But you have to download a special program, which really is spyware. It infects your computer and then it sends the same bogus message to all your Facebook friends.

"Just one person getting an infection on a social networking site actually opens the door to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, or millions getting infected," said Jeff Debrosse, a computer security specialist.

"Koob-face" has been around for a while, but hackers are trying to lure gullable Facebook users to give up their personal information with new tricks, according to McAfee.

E-mails with a subject line of "Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Customer Support" are sent saying that people's passwords on their Facebook accounts have been reset and that they should log in to a site to get their new credentials.  But if the attachment is opened, it downloads several types of malicious software, including a program that steals passwords, McAfee said.

You can keep your computer secure by always using an up-to-date browser and by keeping your anti-virus software updated.


More on nbcwashington (by Brandon Benavides)

12 Awesome Tools For Efficient Twitter Searches

It's no secret that Twitter's native search tool isn't that efficient. Yes, it offers some nice advanced search options (advanced search isn't accessible directly from your Twitter homepage. You need to go here for that). But it just limits itself to searching tweets when there are so many other things people might want to find out (like followers, profile bios, etc.).
Thankfully, the developers behind these twelve awesome third-party apps have made efficient Twitter searches possible. See a few below:


Tweetmeme: Tweetmeme, apart from showing the most popular tweets across the web, has a search function that's pretty effective.

Monitter: Monitter is probably the most well known Twitter based reputation management tool. It can display different keyword and phrase searches on Twitter, all parallel to each other in a neat interface.

Areaface: Areaface lets you search location based tweets via keywords and phrases. You can pinpoint a location on Google Maps and it will shows recent tweets as well as twitter users from that area in a visually attractive interface.

Twellow: Twellow organizes the information it has gathered from Twitter in a yellow pages format. You can search for services, for people in different professions, and much more. It's like a complete Twitter directory.

More on dumblittleman (by Abhijeet Mukherjee)