Articles about Twitter

One of the defining features of Twitter is trending topics. It's easy to catch up on what's hot right now, and it's something that Instagram is borrowing in its latest update. The millions of users of the photo service now have access to a new Explore page that includes not only a trending component that highlights events and topics that people are posting about, but also trending tags and places.

These new options make it easier to home in on content of interest, and changes have also been made to Search. You have the option to search Places, Tags, and People separately, or you can use the Top section to search all at once.

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There are only a few days until Apple Music launches, but already there is quite a backlash against the music streaming service. It's not just smaller, independent labels that are complaining about Apple's refusal to pay artists any royalties during the initial three month free trial period. Taylor Swift has added her voice to the growing number of complainants, writing an open letter to Apple in which she says she will withhold her new album 1989 from the service.

In the letter, entitled "To Apple, Love Taylor", the singer says that the company's decision not to make royalty payments is "shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company". Swift is an artist who could afford to shoulder the cost of three months of not being paid by Apple, but she has chosen to make a stand and stick up for those who are less fortunate.

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Videos that automatically play when they appear on screen are making their way to Twitter. Taking the lead from Facebook, the microblogging service is introducing the feature to reduce the need to click in order to watch a video.

It's something that will be loved and loathed in just about equal measure -- and if you fall into the latter camp, you'll be pleased to hear that it's possible to revert to the old click-to-play method. Twitter thinks that autoplay will help to ensure that you miss fewer videos about breaking news, but it remains to be seen just how popular it proves.

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Limitation breeds creativity. When a person's proverbial hands are tied, their humanity will always shine through. In other words, the human mind finds a way. Humans are very resourceful; for example, prisoners can make alcohol in a toilet. Yum.

Twitter is another good example of a limitation breeding creativity. You see, the 140 character limitation can make it difficult to communicate, forcing the user to think outside the box. While some people find it to be harmful to the English language -- use of abbreviations and lack of punctuation -- I find it to be healthy exercise for the mind. Today, Twitter announces that it will be removing this limitation -- on direct messages (DMs), that is. Is this change good or bad?

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You don’t have to be following too many accounts on Twitter for it to become overwhelming; there is an incredible amount of data created every minute. To make things more manageable, lists make it possible to organize content into different categories so it can be quickly filtered. Today Twitter announces an extension of the lists concept that can be used to tackle spam and trolling.

It is now possible to not only create lists of accounts you would like to block (so you are invisible to them), but also share these block list with others. It's a technique that has already been implemented by some third party Twitter clients, but it is now officially supported. Privacy and abuse have long been issues for Twitter, and this is just the latest move to try to tackle the problem.

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An average Lyft or Uber passenger can come across some really strange and hilariously twisted things, and for some of us reading these experiences is quite entertaining.

That’s why I would like to personally thank Hilary Mason for creating Twitter bots that retweet when someone includes the words "my uber driver" or "my lyft driver".

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Periscope from Twitter seems to get mixed reviews from users and the tech community. However, it isn't going away, at least as far as we know. The video sharing app received a lot of attention, which really is what Twitter wants from any improvement or new apps.

Periscope isn't new, but the app for Android is. It boasts the ability to replay your live broadcast to your followers, it can be private if you only want certain followers to see it, you can also share these broadcasts via Twitter, manage notifications and Hearts, which tracks how many viewers like your broadcast.

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Twitter has become more than just a soundboard for those looking to voice an opinion -- although obviously it is still that. It has morphed into a valuable resource for delivering information in real time. This is particularly useful when it comes to keeping up to date with breaking news.

Starting today Google will tap into this wealth of information for its search results. The feature is starting life in Google apps on iOS and Android mobile devices, but will spread its way around the world and to the desktop soon.

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Microsoft has given up trying to stop people from pirating Windows. We already knew that Windows 10 was going to be free, but now Terry Myerson has revealed that it will be free to everyone, including people who are running pirated copies of earlier versions of the operating system.

Speaking to Reuters the Windows chief said: "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10". The move is an admission that the fight against piracy was a battle Microsoft was never going to win, but the benefits that will be felt extend far beyond just a free copy of Windows.

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Live streaming video from your phone is such a stupidly genius idea, that many people are probably kicking themselves for not coming up with a solution themselves. While the concept is not new, the innovation of Meerkat and Periscope is their simplicity and ease of use. In other words, sometimes it is the execution that makes something take off.

As far as I am concerned, Meerkat is dead -- replaced by the arguably superior Periscope. Since Twitter owns Periscope, it pulled a wise, yet evil move -- block Meerkat from tapping into the social network. Today, in an odd announcement, Periscope announces that a Twitter account is no longer needed for the video service. Why do I call this odd? Periscope could drive Twitter account sign-ups -- why impede that?

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There's now less than a year until people will be able to get their hands on Facebook's virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift. Writing on Twitter, Oculus VR's vice president of product Nate Mitchell confirmed that the device will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2016.

The announcement was echoed on the official Oculus Twitter feed as well as in an official blog post. While the launch is slightly later than many people had hoped -- initial plans had the release pegged for some time in the latter half of 2015 -- it brings to an end months of guessing.

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The last few weeks have seen two new live video- streaming apps break into the market in a big way. Meerkat hit first and garnered plenty of attention, but was quickly usurped by the introduction of Periscope, which Twitter purchased earlier this year.

Despite Meerkat’s early lead, Twitter has been throwing its weight around to keep Periscope on top, including disabling some of Meerkat’s Twitter integration features. Still, the race between the two remains neck and neck, with celebrities like Aaron Paul, Ashton Kutcher, and Madonna taking sides. But what are the real differences between the two apps? I’ve been using them both for about a week now, taking a close look at the functionality as a watcher and as a streamer and here’s what I have discovered.

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Using Twitter used to just involve writing something under 140 characters in length, but over time the service has evolved, and you can now include photos, animated Gifs, short videos, files and more with your tweets. And if that’s not enough, how about embedding fully playable DOS games?

The Internet Archive lets visitors play classic console and arcade games directly on its site, and it recently added 2,600 playable DOS games too. It’s those games that can be embedded on Twitter.

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Some people on the Internet are really sick. No, I do not mean physically, but mentally deranged. A normal-looking sane person can become a hate-spewing monster once they are anonymous online. Hell, some people are abusive bullies even with their real identities! Sadly, social media is a place where bullying runs rampant -- if you are fat, gay, handicapped or in any way different, people will remind you of this with nasty tweets. Women are subject to sexually-charged harassment too.

Luckily, one such social media site, Twitter, has been putting a strong focus on curtailing bullying and offensive tweets. Today, the company is stepping up its efforts, but it seems to be going too far. What can only be described as heavy-handed censorship, Twitter will be deciding what is offensive and even forcing users to delete tweets. In other words, the company is attempting to unring a bell, by making users erase language that has already been communicated.

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Twitter today announces a number of key changes to the way its messaging system works. Until now it has only been possible to exchange a private Direct Message with another user if you both follow each other. This all changes as Twitter introduces the ability to DM anyone as long as they have the feature enabled on their account.

Just last week, Twitter announced that it will use a Dublin-based branch to handle all non-US account data but today's news is all about communication. If you're happy to receive DMs from anyone on Twitter, you can flip the switch on a setting that makes this possible.

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