When we tweet what’s happening around us, we share not only our thoughts, but also web pages, photos, videos, location...anything. Mobile phones are increasingly part of our lives, and we seem to be doing everything but making phone calls. Reading the news, watching a YouTube video, and taking photos at events like the World Cup are things we expect to do on mobile phones – sharing our experiences on these little screens should be just as easy and fast as on big ones.

When apps work well with each other, sharing becomes as second nature on machines as it does in person. The Android platform is really good at that, and we’ve worked with the Android team to make it super easy to share what’s happening. Today we are excited to announce that Twitter for Android is available in Android Market!

Twitter for Android is a fantastic application to use, and sharing any link or photo is super simple too – just look for the share button in your favorite application and choose Twitter.

Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone. Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar.

Check out the screenshots to see it in action.

Posted by @Leland at 1:15 PM

Tickets for the tweetup plus the game are less expensive than the regular game tickets, and $2 from each ticket purchased will be donated to one of our local partners, Room to Read.

Malaria threatens one half of the world's population, resulting in 350 million cases each year and nearly one million deaths on an annual basis—many of them children. World Malaria day is this Sunday, and the impact of organizations devoted to the cause has already begun. In partnership with A worker in Tanzania inspects mosquito nets before delivery.

When you send a tweet about Malaria and pledge your donation of $10, you are providing a life-saving bed net to protect against this mosquito-borne infections disease. Your generous donation will be matched by The Case Foundation, providing the opportunity to double the impact of each tweet. For more information about Twitter and the fight against Malaria, visit our Hope140 site dedicated to helping all of us become a force for good.

Twitter was inspired by SMS and we continue to embrace this simple but ubiquitous technology. In fact, Twitter's 140 character limit was designed specifically to allow for any tweet to be read in its entirety whether you're using a rudimentary mobile phone, or a more sophisticated Internet enabled device.

Over the last eight months we have been working with a startup called Cloudhopper to become one of the highest volume SMS programs in the world—Twitter processes close to a billion SMS tweets per month and that number is growing around the world from Indonesia to Australia, the UK, the US, and beyond.

To help us further grow and scale our SMS service, we are happy to announce the acquisition of Cloudhopper, a messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the planet. Please join us in welcoming both
Local businesses use the power of Twitter SMS

Last month we previewed an incredibly simple set of web tools which enable partner websites to easily integrate Twitter functionality into their site experience called @anywhere. The idea is that web users will be able to engage with existing Twitter features from all of their favorite sites. Today, we're happy to announce media.twitter.com. Let's see what you can do with @anywhere. We can't wait.

retirement of Justice Stevens, the health care bill, or Justin Bieber's latest album, you can virtually time travel and replay the Tweets. The future seems bright for innovation on the Twitter platform and so it seems, does the past!

Although our services extend beyond the Web, Twitter ranks as one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Over the years, we've resisted introducing a traditional Web advertising model because we wanted to optimize for value before profit. The open exchange of information creates opportunities for individuals, organizations, and businesses alike. We recognized value in this exchange and planned to amplify it in a meaningful and relevant manner.

Stubborn insistence on a slow and thoughtful approach to monetization—one which puts users first, amplifies existing value, and generates profit has frustrated some Twitter watchers. Believe me, when your name is Biz and you're a co-founder of Twitter, it also means putting yourself at the mercy of folks like Stephen Colbert who hit home runs with lines like, "So, I assume that 'Biz' in 'Biz Stone' does not stand for 'Business Model'."

We hope you'll share in our enthusiasm as today we unveil a simple service we're calling Promoted Tweets. It's non-traditional, it's easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter. Our COO Dick Costolo will be talking about this much anticipated offering in detail today at the AdAge Digital conference. Tomorrow at Chirp, both Dick and our fearless leader Evan Williams will further discuss this program and what it means for the Twitter ecosystem.

This announcement is a long time coming and we're thrilled to finally be able to share it with you. As this project matures, there will be more to talk about. We will learn a lot as the program grows. In the meantime, if you have questions about Promoted Tweets, please read through this Q&A provided by the small but incredibly hard-working team behind Promoted Tweets. Hopefully, you'll get a good idea of what we're working to achieve.

Q: What are you launching? What are Promoted Tweets?
A: We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America—with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.

Q. What will users see?
A. You will start to see Tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you. We'll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don't resonate.

Promoted Tweets will be clearly labeled as “promoted" when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.

Q. You said, “first phase"; what else do you have planned?
A. Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.

Q: Is this what you said we would love and would be awesome?
A: While we are excited about the platform in general, there are several specific aspects of the launch that we are delighted to highlight. Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad" in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn't already an organic part of Twitter. This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.

There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet. Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar—they must resonate with users. That means if users don't interact with a Promoted Tweet to allow us to know that the Promoted Tweet is resonating with them, such as replying to it, favoriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.

Q. Anything else to say?
A. This is a new thing and we expect to iterate to make it better. We're really excited to get it out to you and look forward to getting your feedback.

Twitter has been growing by leaps and bounds around the world. Mobile has always been a focus for us—starting with SMS which lead to the 140 character limit. People everywhere should be able to access Twitter without friction or confusion. Careful analysis of the Twitter user experience in the iTunes AppStore revealed massive room for improvement. People are looking for an app from Twitter, and they're not finding one. So, they get confused and give up. It's important that we optimize for user benefit and create an awesome experience.

We're thrilled to announce that we've entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, a leading iPhone Twitter client. Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks. Loren will become a key member of our mobile team that is already having huge impact with device makers and service providers around the world. Loren's work won the 2009 Apple Design Award and we will eventually launch Twitter for iPad with his help.

As we work to provide the best possible Twitter experience on all of the major mobile platforms, momentum will increase dramatically. Millions more active, engaged, mobile users means more opportunities for all of us. Developers, services, and publishers will be able to leverage the Twitter iPhone and iPad applications to create additional innovative tools and integrations for users. We'll have more specific information on this once Loren is officially on board. In the meantime, please join us in welcoming Loren to the Twitter team.

Piedad Córdoba Ruíz began using Twitter as a platform to speak to constituents. Signups in India have increased nearly 100% since the beginning of 2010 due in part to politicians like Abhishek Bachchan. We partnered with Bharti Airtel, India's largest carrier, to ensure that a large portion of India's 550 million cell phone users can send and receive tweets via SMS at standard rates. We've also been partnering with carriers in countries like Indonesia and Haiti to bring Twitter to as many people in as many places as possible.