Archive for September, 2010
September 27th, 2010
Users have been all a-twitter (sorry, couldn’t help myself) since news of the upcoming Twitter redesign broke last week. The new Twitter.com design, which we discussed earlier this week, promises to transform Twitter from a flat, two-dimensional website full of text and a few avatar pictures into a vibrant, dynamic web experience rich in media like videos, etc.
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September 27th, 2010
Some tech blogs who seem to enjoy splashing inflammatory headlines across their homepage (AHEM.
September 27th, 2010
For those of us who live an on-the-go lifestyle (and let’s be frank: who doesn’t these days?), it can sometimes be a hassle to move your files from one place to another. For iPhone users, it can be a particular burden – Apple’s Safari web browser doesn’t let you save files, and there isn’t any built-in solution for storing or syncing files.
September 27th, 2010
If you’re one of the millions of Twitter.com users (i.e, those users who access Twitter using their webpage, instead of one of the many third-party desktop or mobile apps currently available), you’re soon in for a treat. Twitter announced on the Twitter blog this week an EPIC redesign that they’ll begin to roll out to users gradually over the next several weeks.
September 27th, 2010
The big Twitter news of the week is that one of the microblogging platform’s most popular users, rocker John Mayer, has quit the microblogging service, leaving his 3.7 million fans, many of whom joined the service specifically to receive his frequent tweets, out in the cold.
September 27th, 2010
In recent months we’ve seen a dramatic upswing in the number of police departments and other organizations using Facebook and other social networks to “shame” criminals (and suspected criminals). These methods have ranged from posting photographs of suspected drunk drivers and other as-of-yet unconvicted individuals to sexual offender applications which show Facebook users a list of any registered sex offenders living in their area.
September 25th, 2010
There can be a new definition of success for startups of all shapes and sizes. Ev and I spend an hour with every new Twitter employee as part of the orientation process and during this hour we cover quite a bit of material—including our mistakes and our aspirations. New team members learn that with their help we will make a positive global impact, we will build a successful business, and we will have fun along the way. Ev often punctuates this point emphatically stating that success is only defined by all three of these goals.
Young companies like ours are particularly well positioned to build altruism into the corporate culture from an early stage and that is something we have made central to our work at Twitter. Our Hope 140 site highlights some of the work we have done in this area but I’d like to call attention to a specific project that has been maturing for about a year. A world in which all children can pursue a quality education is something worth celebrating. This weekend, our Fledgling Initiative has finally ripened and we want you to join the cause.
The Fledgling Initiative was hatched to craft awesome wine for the benefit of Room to Read, a non-profit organization extending literacy and educational opportunities to children worldwide. Every bottle and every case of Fledgling wine sold will help promote literacy in Uttarakhand, India. These wines are being made using some of the best vineyards in California by the acclaimed winemaking team at Crushpad. Incidentally, 2009 appears to be an excellent vintage in California, potentially one of the best of the decade.
Twitter employees have been involved in every aspect of the wine making process from harvesting to crushing to bottling. We put effort into this because we believe in the cause and because it has been a fun and rewarding experience. We hope you will order and enjoy some our Fledgling wine. Twitter and Room to Read believe that all children, regardless of gender or background, have a right to education. By empowering children through this lifelong gift, we envision a world in which people are able to realize their full potential.
September 22nd, 2010
The short story: This morning at 2:54 am PDT Twitter was notified of a security exploit that surfaced about a half hour before that, and we immediately went to work on fixing it. By 7:00 am PDT, the primary issue was solved. And, by 9:15 am PDT, a more minor but related issue tied to hovercards was also fixed.
The longer story: The security exploit that caused problems this morning Pacific time was caused by cross-site scripting (XSS). Cross-site scripting is the practice of placing code from an untrusted website into another one. In this case, users submitted javascript code as plain text into a Tweet that could be executed in the browser of another user.
We discovered and patched this issue last month. However, a recent site update (unrelated to new Twitter) unknowingly resurfaced it.
Early this morning, a user noticed the security hole and took advantage of it on Twitter.com. First, someone created an account that exploited the issue by turning tweets different colors and causing a pop-up box with text to appear when someone hovered over the link in the Tweet. This is why folks are referring to this an “onMouseOver” flaw — the exploit occurred when someone moused over a link.
Other users took this one step further and added code that caused people to retweet the original Tweet without their knowledge.
This exploit affected Twitter.com and did not impact our mobile web site or our mobile applications. The vast majority of exploits related to this incident fell under the prank or promotional categories. Users may still see strange retweets in their timelines caused by the exploit. However, we are not aware of any issues related to it that would cause harm to computers or their accounts. And, there is no need to change passwords because user account information was not compromised through this exploit.
We’re not only focused on quickly resolving exploits when they surface but also on identifying possible vulnerabilities beforehand. This issue is now resolved. We apologize to those who may have encountered it.
September 17th, 2010
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Users have been all a-twitter (sorry, couldn’t help myself) since news of the upcoming Twitter redesign broke last week. The new Twitter.com design, which we discussed earlier this week, promises to transform Twitter from a flat, two-dimensional website full of text and a few…
This is a content summary only, please visit twittown.com for the full article.
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September 17th, 2010
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Some tech blogs who seem to enjoy splashing inflammatory headlines across their homepage (AHEM.
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This is a content summary only, please visit twittown.com for the full article.
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