Twitter Blog

Archive for January, 2010

There are more than fifty thousand registered applications on the Twitter platform. These applications represent the creativity, ingenuity, and talent of a growing number of developers and companies building innovative new ways to interact with the Twitter information network. There are thousands of individuals who work on Twitter—over one hundred of these individuals actually work at 795 Folsom Street in San Francisco but many platform developers work in offices, coffee shops, apartments, and even friend’s couches around the world.

We want to get together with some of you and celebrate the chutzpah that goes into so many of the apps built on the Twitter platform with our first ever official Twitter conference especially for developers called Chirp. The word Tweet is a noun defined as the chirp of a small or young bird. The Twitter ecosystem is still very young so naming this conference Chirp felt right. For all the details and information about the event please visit Chirp, The Official Twitter Developer Conference web site. Carsonified are helping us so it’s going to be awesome. See you there!

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Twitter trends began as a way to shed light on popular conversations. It’s interesting to know that one topic can now spread across the world in real-time, and Trends help us discover which of those topics are paramount on a global scale.

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Yes there is an app for that.  With the winter deep freeze upon us in many countries, many probably gather with friends and family more and have a couple of “wobbly pops”. You probably party and drink a little more than usual while it is cold, what else is there to do in the winter?

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Social Networking has come a long way in a relatively short time and for some it still might be something that they are not really sure that they want to be a part of. But there are some good reasons to join and perhaps after reviewing those reasons, those who have been hesitant might have a change…

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Photo courtesy Agência Brasil.

Since President René Préval and others issued appeals for humanitarian aid, there has been a massively coordinated global response to begin rebuilding Haiti. In addition to governments and organizations doing their part, technology has played a meaningful role. Donations accepted via SMS, Facebook attracting and educating thousands of concerned individuals, Google providing satellite imagery tools to relief workers, iTunes and Download to Donate converting everyday purchases into emergency funding—software augments humanity in a meaningful way and the arts unite us.

We’re thrilled to have been invited to join a stunning assemblage of industries and individuals who are combining forces to raise proceeds for Haiti and make certain that the life cycle of this particular humanitarian mission extends long after the initial burst of compassion. Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief will be the most widely distributed telethon in history both internationally and across all media platforms. This broadcast marks the first US based telethon to air in China as well. On the evening of Friday, January 22, 2010 global citizens will come together in support of those in need.

The lineup for this program includes more than one hundred of the biggest names in film, television, and music. Proceeds from the telethon will go to The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, United Nations World Food Programme, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, and Yele Haiti Foundation. This effort can be a testament to the positive global impact we’re capable of achieving when we focus on a common goal. Tune in however you like and contribute if you can. We’ve curated additional resources and suggestions at Hope140.org.

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The power of suggestion is an amazing thing.

The first thing that new Twitter users encounter on the microblogging platform has traditionally been a list of “suggested users” – twenty users that Twitter has handpicked as being “interesting people to follow” and, they’ve always maintained, a good…

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Windows Mobile might not be able to compete neck and neck with the popularity of the iPhone and will probably never be able to catch up to the amount of apps that the iPhone offers, but fact is, there are still a lot of phones out there.

If you get the right apps, Windows Mobile can be a very…

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Hi, I’m Josh and I work in the product team at Twitter. One of the areas I’m working on is helping new users get started so they know how to find and discover what interests them. Today we’re making the first of many changes here to help people ease into the twitterverse by finding and following accounts that interest them.

Two of the biggest challenges for new users have been finding accounts to follow that appeal to their interests, and finding their friends and colleagues who tweet. Over time, we’ve learned that by making suggestions of who to follow, we can help users get going more easily on Twitter. In our new design, we’re taking some steps to continue to improve this process. Once a user signs up and selects what they’re interested in, we show them some accounts that relate to that interest. Next, we help them find their friends and colleagues by checking their address books, and third we give them a chance to search for anyone we or they missed in this process.

We’ve found that the power of suggestion can be a great thing to help people get started, but it’s important that we suggest things relevant to them. We’ve created a number of algorithms to identify users across a variety of clusters who tweet actively and are engaged with their audiences. These new algorithms help us group these active users into lists of users by interests. Rather than suggesting a random set of 20 users for a new user to follow, now we let users browse into the areas they are interested in and choose who they want to follow from these lists. These lists will be refreshed frequently as the algorithms identify new users who should be suggested in these lists and some that are not as engaging to new users will be removed. We also have a set of “Staff Picks” that are manually selected by Twitter employees as some of our favorites. Given the recent tragedy in Haiti, we’ve also created a special “Staff Picks for Haiti” to get updated news and content on what’s happening there.

We’re really excited about this change, and look forward to continually improving the experience for all users to discover the best content and get the most out of Twitter.

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Social networks just continue to crop up wherever you are and all over the world. It is like an endless sea of places to go and people to meet. At first glance you might think that it has gone overboard, but with all the different types of people and different ages of people seeking others with the…

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If you’ve been watching Twitter closely, you’ve probably noticed that Twitter spam isn’t quite as bad as it used to be. Since the company launched serious anti-spam features that help users identify and report spammers, the folks over at the world’s largest microblogging platform have been working…

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