Articles about Twitter

Twitter is super-awesome and fun; all the cool kids use it. If you aren't on the social network, you just aren't trendy. It is a great way to stay on top of Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and other very important people. But seriously folks, it's also a great means of tracking news, interests, and updates from your friends.

The service is only engaging when you follow interesting people, and that is a problem. Why? There are a lot of quality people to follow on the network -- which can make your feed noisy -- making it easy to miss important Tweets while away. Today, Twitter aims to alleviate some of that pain, with a new feature called 'While you were away'. As much as the company would like us to be on the service 24/7, some of us have jobs and have to, you know...sleep. Now, you can be kept abreast of top Tweets that you may have missed throughout the day. Don't worry, the list only contains people you follow.

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Twitter is my favorite social media site because it is easy to use. There aren't tons of privacy "gotchas" like on some other sites. I can log in, share my thoughts in 140 characters and be done. Best of all, the time line is basically chronological. On Facebook, I have no idea what the heck is going on -- the order of posts sometimes seem to be random.

So if I like Twitter for its simplicity, I should also want to Tweet without much effort too, right? Right. In a new update for Windows Phone, users can now send Tweets using Cortana. Will you use her to relay your social media communiques?

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US Central Command's Twitter account appears to have been hacked by CyberCaliphate, a hacker group claiming association with ISIS.

The Twitter feed has since been taken down, but posted messages included "AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS. #CyberCaliphate", "Pentagon Networks Hacked! China Scenarios", and "Pentagon Networks Hacked. Korean Scenarios". These last two posts came with military maps and information relating to the countries in question.

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What's happening on Twitter is often a fair reflection of what is happening in the world. While it may not represent a perfect cross-section of society, a quick glance at what's being tweeted about -- and the tone being used -- can help to give a sense of the global mood surrounding a subject.

Twitter has been used to predict the outcome of elections, who will win X Factor, and much more; now it's being used to guess movie award winners. The 72nd Golden Globe Awards takes place this weekend, and the numbers have been crunched to see which movies and shows people are talking about the most -- whether these end up as winners remains to be seen, but these are what's on people's lips at the moment.

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Surveys often reveal facts that are largely common sense, and this is certainly true of a study by the Pew Research Center -- the findings being that is seen as "very important" to workers. Nearly half of the 1,066 people surveyed said internet, email and cell phones made them more productive, while just 7 percent said the opposite was true.

So far, so predictable. But the same study also reveals that just 4 percent of workers feel that social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are "very important". These are findings that Facebook would almost certainly disagree with, as would Twitter and LinkedIn, despite reports suggesting that Facebook is valuable to business users.

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Lizard Squad, the group believed to be behind the Christmas DDoS attacks on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network now has a new target -- Tor. Just a week ago, the leader of the Tor Project, Roger Dingledine, warned that the anonymizing network could come under attack, and now it seems as though his prediction was correct.

War has already been declared on Lizard Squad by Anonymous, but this does not seem to have been enough to deter the group from its attacks. Reports suggest that more than 3,000 Tor relays have been compromised, and there are fears that this could impact the anonymity Tor was designed to offer.

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In the grand scheme of things, America is a very young nation. Still, we Americans have deep-rooted traditions that are carried over from our ancestors of the old-world. This is most apparent during the holidays -- in November and December -- as the country transforms for Christmas and Chanukkah. Even people that aren't of the Christian or Jewish variety are welcome to participate.

Lately however, Americans are using social media to enhance the holidays. In other words, even though old-world traditions like Christmas trees and Menorahs remain, modern services like Twitter and Facebook are being leveraged too. A new survey from Ebates.com shows us how much so.

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A little over a year ago, Facebook introduced videos that play automatically. If a report from AdWeek is correct, it looks as though others thought that this was a great idea because Twitter is reportedly considering implementing the same feature. As this is a report that appeared in AdWeek, it should be clear that one of the most likely reasons for introducing the feature would be to increase the visibility of ads.

Just as with Facebook, the concern here is that -- as well as being considered by many as an invasion of, if not privacy, then virtual personal space -- it will lead to an unwanted increase in data usage.

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A little over a year ago, fashion photographer Viktorija Pashuta released images from a photo shoot entitled What If Girls Were Internet Browsers. It was a simple, fun idea in which Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari were given female personas and represented by models. Now Viktorija has a new project -- What if Guys Were Social Networks.

The idea's very similar to last year's project. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, tumblr, Pinterest, flickr and LinkedIn are all anthropomorphized into eight men, each with their own unique look and personality. In the line-up of social networks, all of the major players are represented, but the new kid on the block, Ello, is notable by its absence.

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Over the years Twitter has come in for a lot of flak for the level of abuse that runs rife on the social network. Now the site is taking action by making improvements to the existing blocking features as well as refining the harassment-reporting facility. With the likes of #gamergate and various other high profile cases, Twitter users have found themselves on the receiving end of vitriol, hatred and abuse.

Today's updates aim to clamp down on these activities, making it easier for users to report problematic tweets and easier for Twitter to respond quickly to problems. There is a particular focus on making life easier to users of mobile versions of Twitter, and the blocking feature is now more prominent in apps.

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Twitter is a great tool, not only for communicating, but also for making money. There are a whole host of individuals out there who have forged successful careers out of money made on Twitter. However, you do not have to be a social media genius to get in on the action.

All you really need to make money on Twitter is some creativity and ambition. Below are 7 tips that can help you out.

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Researchers have warned that big data trends discerned from social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, misrepresent the real world because they use biased information.

Computer scientists at McGill University, Montreal and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, have discovered that social media is often guilty of "population bias", as large sections of society are not represented by the sites.

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The UK parliament is calling on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to simplify their terms and conditions. The Science and Technology Committee has expressed concern that privacy policies and other documents are strewn with legal terms that most people do not read or understand. This means that most social network users are simply not aware that they have agreed for their personal information to be used in various ways -- and are certainly unaware of how it might be used.

The Committee is calling for social networks to make a commitment to explain in very clear terms how personal data is shared and used. It wants to work with the government to draw up a set of standards -- almost a social networking manifesto -- that companies can sign up to.

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Hate 'em, loathe 'em or abhor 'em, it's hard to avoid ads. You know that you're a consumer. Companies exist because you consume, and you are encouraged to consume more and more. To help lead you to consume, you need to be subjected to advertising -- it's all part of the money-go-round of using the web.

Tailored ads are more likely to bring in cash, and social networks are in the business of gathering information about their users with a view to delivering the most laser-focused targeted advertising possible. The latest venture by Twitter involves keeping tabs on the apps you install on your iOS or Android phone or tablet.

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You're probably well aware that Twitter features a search option at the top of the page which you can use to track down individuals or topics. Less well-known is the dedicated search page which is the Twitter version of Google (complete with advanced search parameters), albeit one that is -- obviously -- limited to searching within the confines of Twitter itself.

A couple of days ago, this search engine became slightly more useful when Twitter announced that it was indexing every single tweet that has been sent since 2006. Creating a somewhat Shakespearean internet-within-the-internet, Twitter is a valuable resource not only for information but also social commentary. Another update today makes it possible to share any interesting tweets you discover via direct message in addition to the recently added URL sharing option.

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