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Twitter’s search tool has just undergone a slight makeover with a number of new features that should help get users to the information they’re looking for quicker than before. The most noticeable upgrade is the addition of autocompleted search suggestions that appear below the search box as you type. The dropdown will show terms that […]
Nearly 20 percent of the top search queries on Twitter at any given moment won’t be a popular search query just one hour later. That’s according to a new research paper that Twitter will present this week at a social media conference. Twitter researchers Jimmy Lin and Gilad Mishne analyzed all search queries on the […]
Gabriel Stricker is still listed on Google as Director of Communications, Search. However he’s now VP of Communications for Twitter. He follows Karen Wickre, Google’s former Senior Media Liaison, who joined Twitter about seven months ago. And quite some time before that, Carolyn Penner left Google’s PR team for Twitter. I also noticed that Shailesh […]
The good folks over at Stone Temple Consulting released an in-depth interview with Bing’s Principal Group Program Manager for Bing Social Search, Paul Yiu. The Bing social search team integrates social content and indicators into the search results to add both personalization and relevance to the search results. Bing currently ties in data from both […]
Yandex is the next in line to gain access to the Twitter “firehose.” The Russian search engine is announcing that it will begin integrating the Twitter feed into its search results. Twitter reported the deal to us late last week but declined to disclose its terms. As part of their agreement Yandex will have access […]
Many U.S. Senators and Representatives are tweeting opinions, updates, images, documents, etc. these days, and Twitter can be a very useful, if not an essential tool, to learn about what’s going on directly from each member, especially regarding controversial legislation such as SOPA. An easy to use but powerful web tool (it’s also free) named […]
I’m at the new Twitter HQ (not for six months) in San Francisco with the tech press corps awaiting a Twitter press conference that I will attempt to faithfully live blog. In the meantime, here are some shots from the new space, which is three floors and exceeds 200,000 square feet. The build out should […]
As we reported a few months ago, Twitter has rolled out the “activities tab” for web users. This tab allows Twitter to operate more like a classic social network as you can keep tabs on your friends… pun intended. Here’s a look at how the activitiy tab looks: This tab shows items favorited by those you […]
Twitter and Mozilla have struck a deal that makes Twitter search one of the default search options in the new Firefox 8 web browser. It’s included in the Windows, Mac and Linux versions, which can be downloaded now. As Mozilla’s blog post explains, the Twitter search option can be used to search Twitter usernames, hashtags […]
As with Google, Twitter saw a spike in activity related to the death of Steve Jobs. However, the company said that the number of tweets per second didn’t break new records. The Peak Records Twitter told us that at 5pm PT yesterday, it saw 6,049 tweets per second happening at peak, with tweets continuing throughout […]
Twitter has acquired Julpan, a small start-up search service in New York that had focused on analyzing social activity in order to improve search results. Twitter says the acquisition will be used to boost its ability to help users discover interesting content. “We’re looking at how to best surface content to users based on their […]
This week at TechCrunch Disrupt, Twitter announced Web Analytics to webmasters (and Tweeters) see how their content is being shared and how their buttons are being used. This new platform integrates fully with the new t.co shortener to help see content distribution. During the presentation it was announced that the t.co ‘link wrapper’ is now […]
Started just 5 years ago, Twitter announced today at the “State of the Union” that they have officially reached their 100 millionth ‘active’ user. Of the active users, 55% use Twitter on their mobile devices. Each month over 400 million unique visitors use Twitter.com alone. Today Twitter is posting a billion tweets every five days, about […]
In a new article from eMarketer and Lab42, information was released around brands and Promoted Tweets. Surprisingly, 89.4% of users polled stated that they follow a brand’s Twitter account. Most users (30.6%) follow 1-5 accounts and 8.2% follow over 50 accounts: Additional information from the report showed promising results about Twitter’s Promoted Tweets product. Overall user sentiment […]
In a recent report released by BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO company, stats were released showing correlation between social buttons and social shares. Data showed that pages that displayed the Tweet button saw 7 times more social media mentions than pages that didn’t feature the button. This data was pulled from the “top 10,000 sites on […]
I like the new user photo galleries that Twitter started rolling out yesterday. They’ll make photo search and discovery much easier, especially for those of us who’ve scattered our photo uploads across TwitPic, yFrog, Mobypicture and other photo services. But I’m also hoping that the product Twitter launched yesterday is a shell of what it’ll […]
Twitter has begun rolling out User Galleries, a new feature that should make the process of searching (and finding) images shared on Twitter a lot easier. The galleries will show images — but not videos — that are shared on Twitter via many of the major photo upload/sharing tools, such as TwitPic, yFrog, Instagram and […]
When you typically think Twitter, you probably think about text based 140 character updates. New improvements being rolled out geared towards spotlighting user activities and interactions may change this perception. These very visual changes are very “Facebook-esque” in their appearance and could be very appealing to new, less-savvy users. The most dramatic change is a new “Activity” tab […]
Twitter says it’s planning to create “user media galleries” that will house all of the media a user shares on the service — including items uploaded and shared via other services. The news comes at the same time that Twitter has begun accepting direct photo uploads via the Twitter.com interface. As Mike Cane pointed out, […]
Nearly a year after its launch, the “new” Twitter interface will roll out to all users this week — whether they want it or not. The company tweeted this afternoon with a warning to those who’re still using the old Twitter interface: If you’re currently using Old Twitter, we want to let you know that […]
As it continues to develop the advertising opportunities available on its service, Twitter is now allowing brands to target their promoted tweets to followers only. Like other promoted tweets, the messages appear at the top of users’ timelines upon login, and scroll down afterwards. They can also be dismissed immediately. The company announced the new […]
For ages, Twitter has operated a standalone Twitter Search site in addition to allowing people to search from within Twitter.com itself. Today, that standalone site has gained a new location and been upgraded to match the Twitter.com search experience. Previously, Twitter Search was located at https://search.twitter.com. Now, that address leads to https://twitter.com/search, as tweeted by […]
There’s been a boatload of survey data released in the past six months documenting the adoption of social media by US small businesses (SMBs). The numbers range from about 40 to 70 percent of SMBs reporting they’re using social media to some degree. Yet survey data aren’t always accurate because it’s challenging to get a […]
In the last few days, several noticed that the Google Toolbar PageRank value for www.twitter.com had plummeted to 0 (it’s now back to its previous 9). Was Google punishing Twitter for how things went down with the feed expiration that temporarily derailed Google’s Realtime search efforts? Nah, Twitter’s website has just been suffering from technical […]
Business Insider broke the news today that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Twitter apparently due acquisition tactics of applications. Twitter had begun offering “official” versions of apps by way of acquisition back in 2010 with some notable apps including Tweetie and TweetDeck. Entrepreneur Bill Gross had also started buying Twitter apps under a company named TweetUp. […]
Biz Stone is following in Evan Williams’ footsteps in stepping away from day-to-day operations at Twitter, joining with Williams and Jason Goldman, also a Blogger and Twitter veteran, to re-form The Obvious Corporation, the company that incubated Twitter. On his blog, Stone explained his departure: “…it has come to my attention that the Twitter crew […]
Twitter launched Twitter For Newsrooms, a detailed resource to help professionals in news, TV, sports and entertainment use Twitter effectively. The guide is geared toward the novice to intermediate user and helps to standardize the use of Twitter. Specific sections include: #Report #Engage #Publish #Extra The guide contains advice including: ways to properly brand yourself, recommended tools, […]
Did you know that out of all social networking users 92% partake in Facebook, 29% participate on MySpace, 18% are on LinkedIn and Twitter is the least utilized network with just 13% usage? Or that males on LinkedIn nearly double the number of females, yet female usage of Twitter almost doubles male usage? Today Pew […]
While Facebook gets the lion’s share of attention, the overall adoption of social media is also lifting several sites to all-time traffic levels and there’s no sign that this will change anytime soon. According to a new comScore report, LinkedIn, Twitter and Tumblr — in addition to Facebook — all hit new highs for U.S. […]
Twitter announced a new feature allowing users to tweet easier and safer. The official t.co Twitter shortener will now automatically shorten URLs right from the Tweet box when using the web version of Twitter. The feature shortens links to 19 characters, and shows users a preview of the destination link. When a user’s link will […]
Dick Costolo will be interviewed today by Walt Mossberg at the D Conference. Having survived another drive across the nearby Portuguese Bend landslide here in Palos Verdes, I stand ready to live blog. Let’s do this thing. Walt: Asking about the Pew study today with new stats on Twitter usage (see Pew: Twitter Usage Grows […]
Thirteen percent of the U.S. online population now uses Twitter at least occasionally, according to new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, marking a significant increase from the 8% previously measured in November 2010. Growth was especially strong among non-Hispanic Whites and those between 30 and 49 years old. Among online African-Americans, […]
In a bid to increase its presence across the Web, Twitter today announced the “follow button,” a snippet of code that can be placed on any Web site that allows readers logged into Twitter to click and follow instantly. Previously, a Twitter user would have to click-through to the Web site’s Twitter.com page and click […]
When rumors circulated in recent days that Twitter was about to buy Tweetdeck, there were red flags flying everywhere from people assuming that Twitter would buy the popular client software and then shut it down. Not so, says Twitter. In a blog post confirming the acquisition, Twitter promises that “we will continue to invest in […]
As you might expect, I monitor a number of search-related topics being discussed on Twitter. Over the past few days, there’s been spike in funny bit of advice that Google is giving Yahoo — that no one says, “Let’s Yahoo It.” But how did that get started? Let’s start with the joke first: Dear Yahoo, […]
Twitter has launched a new home page design that the company says should be visible to all users now. Sure enough, I logged out and there it was. As you can see from the screenshot above, the new home page is less cluttered and instead focuses on a single statement: “Follow your interests.” Gone are […]
Twitter announced that it has improved its “Who To Follow” feature with better people search results and added a new advanced search page, making it easier to do such searches at Twitter.com. People Search Gets Subject-Specific Now when you search for a topic in Twitter’s search box, Twitter will suggest people to follow based on […]
More changes today atop the perch at Twitter: Jack Dorsey, the company co-founder who famously sent the first tweet five years ago, is back in a day-to-day role as Executive Chairman and will be in charge of the Twitter product. Evan Williams, meanwhile, is “less involved day-to-day” at Twitter, the company tells us. Appropriately, Twitter […]
Twitter’s 5th birthday celebration is underway — the company is sharing a new video, new website, blog posts, and has a national TV appearance on tap, too. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is scheduled to appear on tonight’s Conan show on cable network TBS. That’ll be the cap on what’s already been a celebrity-filled birthday. Twitter […]
Looking for images that are being shared and posted in realtime? That image search space has gotten more competitive, as Nachofoto reenters the field. Below, what it offers, along with general realtime image searching tips using other services like Topsy, Google Realtime Search and Twitter itself. I’ve used realtime search tools often, in order to […]