• Latin music’s big night on Twitter

    Friday, April 27, 2012

    Last night’s Latin Billboard Awards proved to be a big night for Latin music’s hottest artists, and for fans on Twitter. The conversation really took off on Twitter, both in Spanish and English -- there were nearly half a million Tweets about the show, which was more than double last year’s volume. Fans particularly turned to Twitter to share their reactions when Don Omar and Maná won trophies, and during Marc Anthony’s Premio Salon de la Fama award tribute, sending thousands of Tweets during those moments.

    Before the show started, folks behind the scenes were sharing pictures of the stars as they walked the red carpet:

    Posted by @ at 2:09 PM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: An authorial bonanza

    If you post to Twitter, you’re a writer in your own right. While you may not be writing novels, you’re telling your own stories 140 characters at a time. This week on #OnlyOnTwitter we have a number of posts about writers and writing. From authorial Twitter takeovers to crowdsourcing speechwriting to a Twitter staging of a play— it’s everything from 140 characters to 140,000 words in this week’s edition of #OnlyOnTwitter.

    You missed Zac Efron’s party
    Actor Zac Efron held a fan chat to promote his new movie "The Lucky One". One unlucky fan wanted to throw a party at Zac’s house and found out he might have missed the boat.

    Posted by @ at 11:42 AM

  • Hack Week: Efficiency edition

    Thursday, April 26, 2012

    We love Hack Week so much that we’ve been doing it once a quarter, and this time, the week’s theme was efficiency. For five days, we suspend all but the most critical projects to focus on building out new ideas and tools. Engineers and others from across the company self-organize into teams around whatever projects they’re most passionate about, new and old.

    Collectively, we review and vote on our favorites — some hacks make it into product roadmaps, some improve our internal systems, and all of them teach us something about the breadth of what’s possible with a little extra passion and flexibility. People designed everything from a tool to quickly and easily test new features with users to a better way of finding open meeting rooms.

    One of the big hits of the week was very professional promo spot for it:



    We’ve already blocked out time for next quarter’s #hackweek, theme TBD. Personally, I plan on ignoring whatever the theme is and running another session of #CodeClass.

    - Marcus Phillips, Software Engineer (@mracus)

    Posted by @ at 2:20 PM

  • More to discover on our latest iPhone, Android apps

    Today you can download new versions of Twitter for iPhone in the Google Play. These updates make it easier to find out what’s happening on Twitter with improvements to discover, search and notifications.

    Discover
    The Discover tab helps you find interesting and timely content that matters to you. With this update, you can see Activity on Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. Activity is a stream of updates that shows which Tweets are favorited or retweeted by the people you follow and which accounts those people follow or add to lists.

    Activity appears below the redesigned stories in Discover. Now you can tap any story once to see Tweets about a particular trend or news article. You can then read the entire story or join the conversation by replying, retweeting or favoriting related Tweets.

    Search
    Search is now simpler in both mobile apps. You can see suggestions for different spellings and related terms for your queries. Finding the people you’re looking for is faster, too. In the Connect tab, you can start typing the first or last name or username of the person you’re looking for and the name will autocomplete for people that you follow.

    We’ve also made a few improvements specifically for iPhone: when you tap the search box in Discover, you’ll see your most recent queries. You can also go directly to someone’s profile when searching for a username in Connect.

    Notifications
    Lastly, we’ve added push notifications for Interactions, so you can know immediately when your Tweets have been retweeted or favorited, or when somebody new follows your account. You can manage your push notifications settings to stay as connected as you’d like.

    Download Twitter for iPhone today from the Google Play.

    This update was a great collaboration between many teams at Twitter including Android, iOS, Discover, Search and others. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this effort.

    - Sung Hu Kim, Product Manager (@sunghu)

    Posted by @ at 10:56 AM

  • Música en Miami

    Wednesday, April 25, 2012

    Thursday night, Telemundo is bringing you one of the hottest parties of the year: the #billboards2012

    — Paulina Rubio (@paurubio) instagr.am/p/Jx9qqLnjRu/

    — Jorge D. Bernal (@JorgeBernal) #Billboards2012

    — Premios Billboard (@LatinBillboards)
    As soon as the limos pull up, the @LatinBillboards team will be providing you with exclusive behind-the-scenes Tweets. They’ll share pictures as the stars arrive — before you can even see them on TV — for those of you who can’t wait to see what everyone’s wearing. As they make their way down the red carpet, some of the biggest names in Latin music will be tweeting their night.

    Over at @Telemundo, find out who’s performing next, so you won’t miss your favorite artists. The lineup includes Paulina Rubio (@paurubio), Pitbull (@pitbull), Prince Royce (@PlanetRoyce), and the highly-anticipated Brazilian sensation Michel Tel (@MichelTelo). And @LatinBillboards will capture some of the most emotional moments of the night, with exclusive Tweets and pictures from backstage, catching presenters and performers right before they face the crowd — and winners right after they walk off the stage.

    And of course, share your own thoughts as the night unfolds -- remember to include #Billboards2012 and you may even seen your own Tweet on air.

    ¡Lluvia de estrellas estilo latino!

    Posted by @ at 12:00 PM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: Photos across space and time

    Friday, April 20, 2012

    One of the best things about Twitter is sharing pictures in real-time. Pictures from behind the scenes, pictures from abroad, pictures from the past. This week we have a number of Twitter moments of people sharing experiences and sharing photos in a way that could happen #OnlyOnTwitter. We have DC residents pointing the cameraphones at the sky to snap pictures of a space shuttle’s last flight. We have José Andrés finding Anthony Bourdain’s favorite restaurant in Singapore and posing with the chef. And we have a Twitter account dedicated entirely to plumbing the depths of the Sports Illustrated photo archives.

    All of that and more, happening every day #OnlyOnTwitter.

    April 17, 2012

katgraham Hi Kat! You ready? We're ready!

Posted by @ at 10:37 AM

  • Introducing the Innovator's Patent Agreement

    Tuesday, April 17, 2012

    Cross-posted on the you can #jointheflock and have the IPA apply to you.

    Today is the second day of our quarterly Hack Week, which means employees – engineers, designers, and folks all across the company – are working on projects and tools outside their regular day-to-day work. The goal of this week is to give rise to the most audacious and creative ideas. These ideas will have the greatest impact in a world that fosters innovation, rather than dampening it, and we hope the IPA will play an important part in making that vision a reality.

    - Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering (@adam_messinger)

    Posted by @ at 10:00 AM

  • Sunday night TV on Twitter

    Monday, April 16, 2012

    By now it’s clear that Twitter serves as the roar of the crowd during live events like the award shows. Twitter is also a great place to watch your favorite comedies and dramas arm-in-arm with the rest of the world--and even the show’s stars themselves.

    Sunday night has long been a great time to make a date with your TV, and last night was a particularly fun one to keep your eyes on Twitter as well as the screen.

    During the premiere of HBO’s highly anticipated new show @GirlsHBO, television fans were tweeting in full force. Right along with them were the stars and producers of the show: The show even has some famous fans who took to Twitter to share their reviews: Fans, reviewers, and stars of other shows took to Twitter last night too: The Good Wife each inspired active conversations last night. No matter what your must-watch shows are, the viewing party happens on Twitter every day of the week.

    Posted by @ at 5:00 PM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: A Betty White Prank

    Thursday, April 12, 2012

    Every week we capture and share the incredible moments that could happen #OnlyOnTwitter. This week was all about new people joining: country music legend Merle Haggard sent his first Tweet, Mitt Romney’s wife Ann joined to refute a detractor, and everyone’s favorite Golden Girl Betty White joined and then pranked a co-star. But that’s not all! Twitter saved a kidnapped man, transported us to Grateful Dead concerts in 1972 and gave us hints of how to find Easter eggs from Ryan Gosling*! So many great moments on Twitter this week.

    * — We promise we won’t do another Ryan Gosling story next week. Maybe. If you see another good one, share it using the hashtag #OnlyOnTwitter!

    #blushing

    — Valerie Bertinelli (@Wolfiesmom) Ars Technica)

    • Posted by @ at 11:19 AM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: With a cameo appearance by Ryan Gosling

    Friday, April 06, 2012

    Welcome to another edition of our on-going effort to capture and showcase the incredible array of moments that happen #OnlyOnTwitter. This week we bring you a conversation with Madonna, a Q&A with the Vice President, and a chance encounter with Ryan Gosling.


    Tim Gunn joins Twitter
    Project Runway host and self-described “Fashion Therapist” Tim Gunn joined Twitter and was warmly welcomed.

    Posted by @ at 1:29 PM

  • Tweet me out to the ballgame

    With the remaining teams taking the field today, the Major League Baseball season is officially underway. This season, Twitter can be your all-access pass to everything happening during games, off the field, and at the front office.

    We’ve March 3, 2012 at 9:37 AM

  • Shutting down spammers

    Thursday, April 05, 2012

    Twitter continues to grow at a record pace -- we now have 140 million active users and more than 340 million Tweets each day. As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers. While spam is a small fraction of the discussed the ways we deal with spam on Twitter. Our engineers continue to combat spammers’ efforts to circumvent our safeguards, and today we’re adding another weapon to our arsenal: the law.

    One challenge in battling spam is bad actors who build tools designed to distribute spam on Twitter (and the web) by making it easier for other spammers to engage in this annoying and potentially malicious activity.

    This morning, we filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. With this suit, we’re going straight to the source. By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.

    While this is an important step, our efforts to combat spam don’t stop here. Our engineering team continues to implement robust technical solutions that help us proactively reduce spam. For example, earlier this week, our engineers launched new anti-spam measures within Twitter to more aggressively suspend a new type of @ mention spam. Additionally, we now use reporting and blocking spammers you encounter on Twitter.

    We are committed to fighting spam on all fronts, by continuing to grow our anti-spam team and using every tool at our disposal to shut down spammers. Today marks an important step forward.

    Posted by @ at 10:05 AM

  • Twitter recap: March Madness

    Tuesday, April 03, 2012

    It’s been a March of “Madness” on Twitter as NCAA fans shared brackets, cheered for their teams and taunted the competition. We’ve been watching closely to pull together a picture of the Twitter conversation around the NCAA post-season.

    In the end, it came down to Kansas versus Kentucky at the New Orleans Superdome. Despite a Kansas rally in the last four minutes, Kentucky commanded the game from the start. The big story on Twitter was freshman Anthony Davis’ ability to dominate the game while scoring just six points:

    Just as at the Superdome, Kentucky controlled the conversation on Twitter, sustaining a higher Tweets-per-minute (TPM) rate than Kansas throughout the game. The conversation peaked at the end, when Tweets about the Championship exceeded 30,000 TPM.


    Before the final game, the tournament buzz peaked on March 25th, when Kansas and the University of Kentucky advanced to the Final Four and helped inspire more than a million Tweets in the process:


    Last month, the conversation started, as it always does, with the brackets. And what better place to share your completed bracket than Twitter? Across sports, stars shared their brackets with an account called @TheLockerRoom

    Of course, March Madness went viral far beyond the sports arena: members of Congress got in on the predictions as well.

    As the tournament progressed, the turning point for one favored team came when UNC’s Kendall Murphy broke his wrist. Fans across the country showed their support by marking their own wrists with the number 5.

    From the first upset to the final free throw, some of the best moments of March Madness happened on Twitter. Follow @TwitterSports and your favorite athletes, coaches, teams and reporters to find out what’s happening in any sport.

    Posted by @ at 10:49 AM

  • Better connected: Twitter for BlackBerry

    Monday, April 02, 2012

    A new version of Twitter for BlackBerry introduces new features that make it easier to connect to the people and things you care about.

    Twitter for BlackBerry makes it easier to share links to web pages directly from the browser. When you tweet a link it will automatically be shortened so it takes up fewer characters. And, you can upload photos to Twitter (pic.twitter.com) right from your device’s camera or when writing your Tweets.

    Now you can connect your Twitter account with BlackBerry Messenger. This makes it possible to share your latest Tweet as your BBM Personal Message. You can also access your contacts' Twitter accounts right from their BBM profiles.

    You can download this version of Twitter for BlackBerry now from BlackBerry App World.

    Posted by @ at 10:58 AM