microblogging

Twitter will soon allow bigtime advertisers to customize, automate and publish their ads in bulk directly to the website of the microblogging service, as reported by the sources aware of the situation.

Advertisers will be given an application programming interface, or API, to deliver big amounts of ads on Twitter. Access to the API will be rolled out initially as a pilot test for a restricted number of advertisers.

Chinese Internet company Sina Corp plans to launch a virtual currency for its microblogging service Weibo in the third quarter this year in a move to monetize the platform, reports the source with the direct knowledge of the matter.

Two years ago Sina launched its Weibo service which now has 140 million users. In a document released online recently, Sina detailed the use of its virtual currency, Weibi, for developers. (open.weibo.com/wiki/index.php/)

Multiple sources report that Twitter is planning to launch its own built in Twitpic competitor. Observers believe that photosharing is a logical next step for Twitter’s expansion.

Recently Twitter spent $40 million on power user client Tweetdeck which represents 13% of its userbase.

It remains unknown what the photosharing URL shortener will look like if any and what the service Twitter for Photos itself will be.
 

Spam tweets that offer links to a sex dating service were recently sent by an official Twitter account, according to the finding of security researchers.

According to the report made by the Wall Street Journal who cited sources familiar with the matter Google Inc and Facebook Inc among others are talking to Twitter executives over possible takeover of the microblogging company.

Executives at Twitter have held "low level" talks with executives at Facebook and Google in recent months about a possible takeover of Twitter, reports the WSJ on its website.

Other companies are also negotiating with Twitter, as noted by the Journal.

Twitter confirmed earlier rumors that it is being blocked in Egypt. Now the microblogging service posted two tweets where it says the rumors are true.

“We can confirm that Twitter was blocked in Egypt around 8am PT today. It is impacting both Twitter.com & applications,” Twitter communications head Sean Garrett just tweeted out via their new PR account. “We believe that the open exchange of info & views benefits societies & helps govts better connect w/ their people,” he continued in a second tweet.

A new research by the Carnegie Mellon University users of the popular microblogging website Twitter differ by regional dialects. Thus, New-Yorkers say "suttin" for "something" while other say "sumthin."

As Twitter users have only 140 capacity to send a message they tend to shorten words so as to cram into the limitation and this happens differently across the United States,

This week Twitter released its another year-end top trends list. Thus, the trends of the passing year recorded by the popular microblogging service are as follows:

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

Twitter also broke down the top trends for several categories. The top trends for news events were:

Evan Williams, a co-founder of the popular microblogging website Twitter, refuted speculations that the company has any plans to raise a large round of funding. Williams told an industry gathering in San Francisco on Wednesday that Twitter has "a lot of money in the bank." He declined to comment on whether the company was in discussions with investment firms about funding.

Twitter is bringing a new social and community element to television, according to the company officials. Twitter says its service makes "community viewing" possible now-no assembly required. According to the new stats 60% of people routinely watch the tube while also surfing the web on their laptop. On the other hand, Nielsen figures also show that tweet traffic on the East Coast spikes every time an episode of Dancing with the Stars came on TV.

According to the new stats from website software and training company Intellimon which conducted a survey of 4,000 online business in partnership with the University of Bradford, top representatives of business elite consider social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter of little value for them. While it may be a popular place for many everyday people and celebrities, enterprises doesn’t see too much prospects and potential in these networks.

Northwestern University researchers, Choudhary and Ramanathan Narayanan, are now ready to name the most influential people on Tweeter of the day.

That became available thanks to the new technology that allows sift through the tens of millions of tweets sent each day on the microblogging website

A security researcher Sean Sullivan of the Finnish security company F-Secure came to a conclusion that social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter have a natural defense against hardcore hackers. He says that it is exactly the speed of infection spread which makes the scam scheme inefficient for hackers.

Social networking websites continue calling itself other names just to show their significance and resistance to be anything less. Sarah Perez, Twitter VP for business and corporate development Kevin Thau said that Twitter is not a social network. Several years ago Facebook said the same thing about itself. In an email sent to a user whose account was deleted Facebook wrote:

"Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you, not a “social networking site".

Twitter is rolling out a new version of its website to simplify for its millions of users to navigate the service and discover new information. The company announced the redesign of the website which will include YouTube videos and other content featured in a new two-panel layout.

Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams said the overhauled twitter.com features a completely new architecture, which is more responsive and user-friendly

"It makes it such a richer and faster experience," Williams said at a press conference to announce the new site.