Is Twitter Testing a New Look for Threaded Conversations?

It looks like Twitter is testing a new look for messages and replies on Twitter.com.

Twitter has offered users the ability to see previous tweets and replies for some time, but now it appears the service will make the thread of those conversations more visible in the general timeline.

On Friday, David Higgins ran across the new look:

Others have run across the new look on their feeds as well.

 

In the past, in order to view the full context of a Tweet reply, users had to click on the tweet in question to see its expanded view. Now, it looks like the context for some tweets will appear in-stream.

For now, it looks like Twitter is rolling out this UI update slowly. We reached out to the company but haven't received a response.

What do you think of this look? Let us know in the comments.

Source : mashable

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Sports News App Aggregates Tweets Related to Your Favorite Teams

Sports fans that use a tablet or smartphone — the "second screen" — during live game broadcasts are becoming more and more common these days. For this year's Super Bowl, a Century 21 Real Estate survey found that 36% of polled viewers said they would use a second screen to supplement the game-viewing experience.

A Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup is catering to that trend with a new tablet app that aggregates real-time tweets from 1,000 media sources and 2,000 players. So if the game is on or you just want to see the chatter surrounding your favorite teams, the free "Beyond the Box" app by Murphy Ave. Inc. does the legwork for you with refined Twitter updates from interesting people, players and sources.

The app includes content covering NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL teams. You can pick your favorite teams to get timelines of updates, analysis and links from the app's various aggregated sources. For example, for my hometown football team — the Denver Broncos — I can instantly read tweets by everyone from linebacker Von Miller to SB Nation's Mile High Report to the team's official Twitter feed.

App co-founder Shailo Rao told Mashable that it brings everything together into one timeline, because he says it's hard to navigate to twenty different sports sites or apps that someone might frequently visit.

"[Beyond the Box] aggregates all the great content about your favorite teams or about other teams in the league that you just want to track," Rao said. "You'll get a different take that goes beyond what the TV commentators are telling you."

The app [iTunes link] launched Thursday and is currently only available for iPad and iPad Mini.

Rao, a self-professed sports junkie himself, said Beyond the Box reduces the need for sports fans to manually curate feeds: "Twitter is the new RSS."

He also said the app can allow fans to discover new sources, including the ability to engage directly with players and their thoughts through tweets.

"It's not just about what the local beat writer or what the team itself wants to pump out," Rao said.

Rao also pointed out that unlike competitors (think Turner Sports' Bleacher Report Team Stream and ESPN's SportsCenter Feed), Beyond the Box is not restricted by content restrictions or exclusive partnerships, which could eliminate bias that may come along with those things.

In the future, Rao said they might expand to college and international sports (e.g., world soccer and cricket).

Though you could likely just spend the time to curate your own Twitter lists of sources to follow instead, this app not only does that work for you, but it has a clean user interface. Even when a league is off-season, an app like this can be an interesting way to more easily follow the social conversation (like the ongoing NFL Draft 2013).

Rao, along with co-founder Vam Makam, are developing Beyond the Box in Stanford's accelerator, StartX.

Do you use sports news aggregator websites or apps? Let us know in the comments.

Source :

 

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Twitter Two-Factor Authentication is Obvious — And Necessary

Alongside the buzz about Twitter becoming our primary source of news is the realization that not everything you read on the microblogging network can be trusted. Usually, this is because people are too quick to tweet without verifying facts, but sometimes it's because the person behind the tweets isn't who you think they are.

This is exactly what happened to the Associated Press on Tuesday, when the wire service's Twitter account @AP was hacked, and sent out a false tweet about the White House and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Recently, a number of prominent Twitter accounts, including those of 60 minutes and CBS News were reportedly hacked by Syria. While I don't know how the AP's account was hacked, or who did it, I do know that it should not be happening.

How to Prevent Hacks

There are several relatively simple ways to prevent Twitter hacking. The first, which may be obvious, is for people and brands to do a better job of managing their Twitter security by using more complex passwords, and incorporating password-management tools (e.g. LastPass, Norton Internet Security).

The other option is for Twitter to introduce two-factor authentication. For the uninitiated, "two factor" means two barriers to entry. For example, when signing in, users must enter their password, as well as a security code that they can only access from a personal device, such as a smartphone.

For Google, which has the option of two-factor authentication on its apps (Microsoft recently introduced it, as well), it works like this: When you sign into a new device for the first time, Google’s security system sends you a code via text, voice call or mobile app. Enter the code from your phone during sign-in, and you’re good to go. What's more, you don’t have to go through this process every time: Google can remember your device for 30 days.

Simply put, it enables two levels of protection, and makes it much harder for someone who stole your password to simply sign in as you from another computer: The second-factor authentication would show up on your phone — not theirs.

Indeed, two-factor authentication adds extra work for users, and could pose a problem if you don't have access to your phone. But while it's not necessary for everyone to use it, others most certainly should.

The Chosen Ones

What do most of the hacked Twitter accounts have in common? They were all "verified."

What is “verified,” you ask? According to Twitter, it means you are who you say you are. Once you have a verified account, you're not supposed to change your Twitter handle willy-nilly. You also get occasional reports on account activity — nothing major, just updates on your most successful Tweet and how to extend your reach. But there's little mention about security. In light of recent events, however, that most certainly should change.

Here’s my suggestion, Twitter: Require anyone with a verified account to use two-factor authentication.

I consider it a privilege to be verified, and was honestly quite excited when it happened. It was, for a while, a pretty rarefied blue check mark. These days, Twitter is verifying a lot more users, but all of them are still, more or less, in the realm of trusted brands (i.e. people, products, companies, governments, politicians and celebrities).

When you see the check mark, you assume it’s a more trustworthy account, and possibly one worth following. With the size and kinds of audiences these accounts often have, they’re also natural hack targets. A hacked verified account is an especially damning loss of trust. When the AP reports explosions at the White House, users take notice — even if, as it was in this case, not true.

If Twitter had already been requiring two-factor authentication for these trusted accounts, I can’t imagine that we’d be seeing as many hackings.

In a nutshell, when Twitter sends that “Congratulations, You’re Verified” email, it should append a “Rules of the Road” note that includes this one critical question: “With your new power comes responsibility. Welcome to two-factor authentication, which will help us and you protect your account and tweets.”

I know others agree with me. Now it’s time for Twitter — and at least its verified members — to get on board.

Source : mashable

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Twitter Music site code reveals app will feature Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, SoundCloud, Vevo, and YouTube

Twitter Music still isn’t official available, but we keep learning more and more about the upcoming service. The latest information comes from the site’s code: designer Youssef Sarhan has discovered the service will have both a Web interface and a separate app, will offer streaming, as well as integrate with Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, Soundcloud, Vevo and YouTube.

Although many have already noted the music.twitter.com subdomain, and some have looked at its source code, Sarhan dug a bit deeper. After noticing the image for the “Sign In” is located at music.twitter.com/_login he decided to look at the source code for that page’s CSS file. Update: It appears Twitter has removed the _login page completely to prevent further leaks.

For those wondering about the design, we don’t know too much. There will, however, be music specifically labelled as “explicit.” As you can see on the left-hand side of this screenshot, you will be able to turn it on or off:

Meanwhile, the controls for playback will feature a CD (right-hand side above). Curiously, there’s a next button but no previous button.

Sarhan discovered that the service will very likely integrate with the aforementioned six services:

• .iconmusic-spotify-connect-btn
• .iconmusic-player-source-rdio
• .iconmusic-player-source-itunes
• .iconmusic-player-source-soundcloud
• .iconmusic-player-source-vevo
• .youtube-vid player

Other notable features include artist biographies, being able to compose tweets from the music app, follow other users, charts and shows, being able to buy songs, verified users, and search (we discovered these last two):

• .artist-bio
• .iconmusic-compose-tweet-btn-bg
• .iconmusic-profile-large-following-btn
• .iconmusic-menu-charts
• .iconmusic-menu-shows
• .iconmusic-player-btn-buy
• .iconmusic-verified-small
• .search-tooltip .iconmusic-btn-search-close

We reached out to all the companies involved and so far only SoundCloud has gotten back to us, stating that “we are in regular discussions with Twitter on a number of initiatives. At this time, we cannot comment on anything specific.”

Update: Spotify also responded to our query, and would not provide additional details.

Top Image Credit: khrawlings / Flickr
Source: thenextweb.com

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Twitter's music app is real, according to Ryan Seacrest

Update: The acquisition announcement may spill nicely into a formal Twitter Music announcement, according to a Thursday evening report.

Sources speaking with AllThingsD said Twitter plans to launch the standalone Twitter Music app Friday, while another source noted the app is coming to coincide with the start of the Coachella music festival, which gets underway this weekend.

That source said Music's launch may not necessarily happen Friday.

According to the publication, the app suggests artists and songs based on a "number of personalized signals," including followed Twitter accounts. Users will apparently be able to listen to song clips from within the app, use third-party services like iTunes and SoundCloud, plus watch music videos thanks to Vevo.

Original article...
We Are Hunted on Thursday announced that it's ditching its independence and joining Twitter, making good on a report from last month that said such a deal had happened.

Twitter backed up the news with a welcome tweet to the online music discovery service.

Though wearehunted.com will be shut down along with all user accounts, the crew at WAH will "continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team," its website read, though it failed to outline what these new, delightful services will look like. It did leave us with this:
"There's no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day. We can't wait to share what we've been working on at Twitter."

Tweets confirm Music app?

Last month's report dropped "Twitter Music" as the name for a purported Twitterific tune app, and this purchase looks to be part of the social network's master plan to break into the music biz.
What's been said about Twitter Music is that it pulls recommendations based on Twitter followers, emerging artists and from selections tagged with a #NowPlaying hashtag.
It's also believed that users won't need to have Twitter accounts to use the service but will serve as a standalone iOS app. However, none of these features are confirmed.
Despite the lack of a formal announcement from either company, the web caught a tweet from none other than professional talker Ryan Seacrest that basically confirms the app's existence.
He also tweeted a musician with some of the app's details: "lovin the app...shows what artists are trending, also has up and coming artists..."

What's more, the We Are Hunted Twitter account tweeted @RyanSeacrest the above message, and CC'ed the @twittermusic account.

Twitter Music took the time to retweet Seacrest's blast, continuing the spread of app love.
Why bother with an official announcement when you can rely on the host of "American Idol" to give you public props?

Source: techradar.com

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Twitter Music App is Launching Friday

Get ready to rock. Twitter is about to launch its long-rumored standalone music app Friday, according to a report.

The app's existence was rapidly becoming one of the worst-kept secrets in social media, especially after American Idol host Ryan Seacrest randomly tweeted about its existence earlier Thursday.

As soon as Seacrest did that, the social music startup We Are Hunted tweeted back at him — and then immediately announced it had been acquired by Twitter. (Another poorly kept secret, this acquisition likely occurred last year and was revealed by CNET last month.)

When we asked Twitter whether the app existed, they pointed us — rather meaningfully — to the We Are Hunted announcement. Now AllThingsD is reporting that the music app will launch Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

We Are Hunted focused on the top trending music on social media, and the Twitter Music app will likely do the same — plus suggest what other tunes you might like based on what you've listened to, and allow you to buy tracks via iTunes.

A streaming-only service, it will feature Soundcloud clips you can listen to from within the app and music videos from Vevo, according to AllThingsD. CNET previous reported that the app would be divided into four sections, including "#NowPlaying", and that a Twitter account would not be necessary to use it.

What we don't have a lot of details on is what platform the app is launching on. CNET's report said it would be iOS only; AllThingsD's sources don't specify.

Will this be one more app that Android users have to wait more months to experience? Would you download it? Let us know in the comments.

Source : mashable

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Twitter Founders Move on to Their Next Big Thing

What do you work on after launching one of the largest social networks in the world? It took some time, but each of the three Twitter founders appear to have come up with their own answers to this question.

Ev Williams stepped down as Twitter's CEO in late 2010 and scaled back his role at the company in the months that followed. He pursued new projects at The Obvious Corporation, a startup incubator that Twitter's co-founders launched in the mid-2000s, and which served as the original home of Twitter. A few months later, Biz Stone announced that he too would be stepping away from day-to-day duties at Twitter and joining Williams at Obvious to focus on new projects.

Since then, the two Twitter founders and their team at Obvious have helped launch several startups including Medium and Branch, and have worked with or invested in a number of other promising startups like Neighborland and Findery. The underlying goal all along, according to Williams, was to use Obvious to figure out what he and Stone wanted to work on next.

"We rebooted Obvious in 2011 with a vague plan," Williams wrote in a blog post this week. "We started investing, incubating, and experimenting to figure out what worked and what we wanted to do at this stage in our careers; we just knew we wanted to work together do stuff that mattered." Now, nearly two years later, Williams says he and Stone have settled on their next projects.

Williams says that he is now spending "about 98%" of his time working on Medium, the publishing platform that Obvious announced a year ago. Just like Twitter before it, Medium has been spun out from Obvious, and is now said to be operating as its own company, with a staff of about 30 people.

Stone, meanwhile, has committed himself to working on a new mobile startup called Jelly, which is also affiliated with Obvious. Details of the project are still vague, but Stone suggested in a blog post earlier in the week that it will be a free app that helps people "do good," and which will take up most of his time. "Personally, Jelly will command my full attention aside from some advisory roles elsewhere," he wrote.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter's third co-founder, remains involved with the social network's business operations, but most of his focus is outside the company. In October, Dorsey wrote on his personal Tumblr that he only works at Twitter on Tuesday afternoons. He spends the rest of his time running Square, the mobile payments company he co-founded in 2010 and which is now valued at more than $3 billion. As if Square isn't enough of ambitious follow-up to Twitter, Dorsey has repeatedly expressed an interest in eventually running for mayor of New York City.

Whether these projects become the Next Big Thing like Twitter is unclear, but for each of Twitter's founders, they represent the next big thing in their careers — and that may be just as important.

Source : mashable

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Twitter Cards Could Usher In A New Era

Twitter has just completed their developer event at San Francisco, California, so what kind of new content can we expect from this micro-blogging site? Well, it seems that Twitter users will soon be able to enjoy a new feature known as Twitter Cards, which can be said to be content preview cards of sorts. It makes sense, really, to move forward in such a direction, considering how a company is never going to be able to survive on its own without making any changes to its business model to cope with the ever changing times.

Whenever a user links to a page that has Twitter-specific markup, there will be a tweet that features an application’s name, icon, description, rating and price in the App Card, in addition to its link to the Google Play or App Store page. As for Product Cards, those will help highlight merchandise by including important details such as pricing, ratings, if any, and of course, the all important image in this visual generation. Do you think Twitter Cards will be big in the future?

Source : ubergizmo

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Now There's A Way To Apply For Jobs Directly Through Twitter

By now, many employers think that who you are online is more revealing of your character than a résumé. Some companies have even decided to stop accepting paper résumés altogether.

So it seems it would only be a matter of time before someone created a platform that would connect job seekers to employers using Twitter.

Joe Budzienski has done just that with Gozaik, a free social web application recently launched in Beta that basically uses aggregated technology to dissect Twitter for job openings and releases this information to Gozaik users who can then apply for the jobs using their Gozaik résumés. This will work in much the same way as when you send someone a link to your LinkedIn profile.

"There's been a lot of talk in the past year for candidates to seek out employers and employers to do the same, but there was no way to allow [Twitter] users to expose themselves outside of 140 characters," Budzienski tells us. "It seems so simple and you wonder why no one's created something yet that allows employers to communicate with [job seekers] on Twitter."

Budzienski says two of the biggest problems in the job market today is that "recent graduates and young professionals seriously struggle to express how they'll be able add value to a workplace" and that there's no "easy apply option with a multimedia resume."

So how does it work? It takes about 15 minutes for new users to create a Gozaik resume, which is a "series of mosaic-style tiles," that includes sections for an introductory video, academic achievements, skills, recommendations, photographs, art, awards, volunteer experiences, and social media handles. Here's what a Gozaik profile will look like:

Then, once users find a job opening they're interested in, they can tweet to the employer with a link to their Gozaik profile. A screenshot of an example is below:

 

With Gozaik, Budzienski says that job seekers will be able to stand out in the competitive job market by showing employers not just their skill sets, but also providing a look into their personality and who they are as individuals, because "a paper résumé isn't going to do that for you any more."

Source: businessinsider.com

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Will That Tweet Get You Fired? This App Warns You

If you've complained about your boss or job on Twitter, watch out for a warning from a new app called FireMe!. Ricardo Kawase and his team at the University of Hannover, Germany, created the tool, which tracks certain negative phrases about bosses and jobs and rates how likely they are to get the poster fired.

When FireMe! flags such a tweet, it automatically sends a tweet to the user in question, reading something like, "Can you imagine if your boss gets to know that you said: 'I hate my job so much'. You said that on Twitter and the whole world can see it!" according to New Scientist. (I’d be surprised if that exact tweet was sent, since it clocks in at 138 characters with no space for a handle.)

The offending user is also sent a link to their FireMeter! score, a percentage showing how likely they might be to get fired. It's based on negativity toward their job and how often they'd cursed in the last 100 tweets. The score is just for fun, but weighs into the overall philosophy of helping people watch what they tweet. For the record, I have a 4% chance of being fired, according to the tool, probably because I use bad words now and again.

Those sent a message were given the option to delete their tweet. After 4,304 warning tweets over three weeks, 249 people deleted their questionable message within two hours. Kawase's team, which will present findings to the Web Science conference in Paris next month, found those slamming their jobs tended to tweet more often than others and had fewer followers than those who shared positive thoughts about their work.

With that in mind, FireMe! also highlights those who have kind words for their jobs and employers:

A little love can go a lot further than some hate.

Source : mashable

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Twitter Killing TweetDeck for iPhone and Android

Twitter will shut down multiple TweetDeck apps to focus on the product's web-based version, the microblogging service announced Monday.

In yet another sign of the battle between social media's two biggest players, Facebook integration will be removed, too.

The announcement was met largely with a chorus of "nooooooooo," "whyyyyyyy" and "gaaaaaaaah" on social media, reflecting TweetDeck's widespread popularity with hardcore Twitter users.

TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for iPhone and TweetDeck for Android will be removed from their respective app stores in May, and stop working soon after, according to a TweetDeck blog post.

"To continue to offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we’re going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck," the post says.

TweetDeck is a well-regarded Twitter client that the microblogging network bought in 2011.

Moving forward, TweetDeck's web and Chrome apps will be the first that Twitter enhances with updates and new features, while the Mac and PC apps will continue to evolve as well.

Your final couple months using TweetDeck's AIR, Android and iPhone versions may not be smooth sailing, either. Those apps will continue to rely on version one of Twitter's API, which will be retired this month. Blackout testing on version one begins March 5, so mobile TweetDeck users will likely begin experiencing outages with their apps on Tuesday.

"In many ways, doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience and discontinuing our app support is a reflection of where our TweetDeck power-users are going," the post reads before later adding: "And for those of you who are inconvenienced by this shift, our sincere apologies."

Is this a pain, or not such a big deal? Give us your take in the comments. 

Source : mashable

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Twitter will have a native client ready for Firefox OS launch, will support Web Activities for easy tweeting

Twitter has announced that it will release a native Firefox OS client in time for the launch of Mozilla’s upcoming mobile operating system later this year.

According to Twitter, the app will be in the Firefox Marketplace by the time the first Firefox OS handsets ship. The company showed off the interface for the app, which includes Home, Connect, Discover and Me tabs, much like its other apps. It will also include a unique feature of Firefox OS: Web Activities. Users will be able to tweet directly from supported apps, such as the built-in photos app.

Mozilla is showing off Firefox OS at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week after revealing the platform’s first devices, which come from ZTE and Alcatel.

It also announced two new handset partners, LG and Huawei, and over a dozen new carrier partners. Sony has also lent its support to the fledgeling operating system this week with the announcement that it will release a Firefox OS handset in 2014.

Twitter’s support for Firefox OS is a significant win for Mozilla. At this point, a native Twitter client is a must have for any mobile operating system that’s aiming for widespread adoption.

In addition to Twitter, other software partners have come on board to support the Firefox Marketplace: AccuWeather, Airbnb, Box, Cut the Rope, Disney Mobile Games, EA games, Facebook, Nokia’s HERE maps and Soundcloud.

Photo credit: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images
Source: thenextweb.com

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Twitter ratchets up phishing protection by adopting DMARC standard

Phishing emails often pose as being sent by major league sites rather than princes from far-flung countries, but Twitter's implemented a new measure to stamp out phonies that borrow its name.

Costolo and Co. announced that, earlier this month, they began leveraging a tech called DMARC that establishes a way for email providers to authenticate senders and reject messages penned by impostors. While the DMARC specification does need support from e-mail services, outfits including AOL (which happens to be our parent company), Gmail, Hotmail / Outlook and Yahoo already make use of it. According to Twitter, it's now "extremely unlikely" that the majority of their users will receive emails masquerading as being sent from a Twitter.com address. We're sorry to disappoint, but it looks like you'll have to get your fix of foreign lottery notices from somewhere else.

Source: engadget.com

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Twitter Will Decide the Value of Your Tweets

Twitter is about to start attaching value ratings to users' tweets.

The value judgements will be assigned to the public metadata of tweeters' posts, and used by Twitter's streaming API to help developers more selectively curate massive amounts of status updates.

Designations of "none," "low" and "medium" will most likely debut on Feb. 20, according to a post by developer advocate Arne Roomann-Kurrik on the Twitter developers' blog. A "high" value option will be rolled out sometime after the initial batch.

How exactly tweets will be ranked is not entirely clear, but Roomann-Kurrik says "medium" — and, later — "high" value posts will be roughly analogous to the "Top Tweets" results you get when you search a word or hashtag on Twitter.com. That likely indicates tweets drawing high engagement or coming from users with large followings.

Boiled down, the idea is to make Twitter's streaming API more useful for developers, who can tweak applications to specify what types of tweets they would like surfaced on a given subject or subjects. Roomann-Kurrik gets into more technical specifications of how this will work in his blog post.

That's mostly a positive for users, as the change should help surface better content. It's definitely a positive for Twitter, which will have the power to designate "high" value tweets (in some cases, perhaps, for a price) and possibly experiment with new ways of displaying tweets. On the other hand, judging the value of tweets is a significant and unprecedented step for the company. Some could find it a bit invasive and, well, judgmental.

In the same blog post, Roomann-Kurrik also announces another impeding tweak to the Twitter API that will give developers the option of language-specific tweet curation.

Are value ratings for tweets more useful or annoying? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Source  : mashable

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Twitter now supports large image viewing from profiles and search, the ability to add videos to galleries

Today on its blog Twitter announced a number of changes to its web interface that should allow users to better view photo and video content while using the service.

Photos that are clicked on from either a profile page or a search result will be shown, in large form, in-page, keeping the user where they were, and preventing the need for more navigation. Also announced today is the ability to include video from a number of sources in media galleries.

Here’s a shot of the new photo feature in action, via Twitter:

According to the firm, Vine, YouTube, and other partners that already appear in expanded tweets will be supported. As Twitter expands its service to be more content rich, this sort of update is to be expected. The company wants you to come, stay, and enjoy your time with it as much as possible.

Earlier today Dropbox announced the ability for users to share photos more simply amongst each other. That and the spat between Twitter and Facebook over Instagram and one thing is quite clear: photo content is key to user engagement.

For more coverage of Twitter and its happenings, our channel on the topic is required reading.

Top Image Credit: Shawn Campbell 

Source: http://thenextweb.com

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Facebook Cuts Down Twitter's Vine

Facebook has blocked Twitter’s new Vine app from being able to find your Facebook friends on the service.

The app launched this morning, and previously offered users a way to see which of their Twitter and Facebook friends were also using the service, in addition to contacts stored in their phone.

A request to search for Facebook friends on Vine now yields a pop-up message indicating that the app is not authorized to make the Facebook request. The dialog box was first spotted by a Verge reader.

A Twitter spokesperson told Mashable the company didn’t have anything to share beyond that notification. We've reached out to Facebook for comment.

We're also currently unable to share videos from Vine on Facebook. While we did not receive an error message to this effect, videos shared from the app have still not appeared on our timeline.

Vine has been experiencing considerable delays posting to social networks — including Twitter — so its possible that videos are just severely delayed rather than disabled.

In July, Twitter did a similar thing to Facebook's Instagram, blocking the service from using its API to find friends on the service. In December, Instagram retaliated, removing support for Twitter cards.

Is this another sign of war between Twitter and Facebook? Give us your take in the comments.

Source : mashable

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New Web App Recommends Books Based on Your Tweets

Reading a book is a significant investment of time. That's why it's common to ask friends for recommendations when looking for interesting literature. If you haven't said it yourself, you've probably heard someone say the common refrain: "Read any good books lately?"

That method has worked fairly well thus far, but an innovative new web app sources recommendations from the person who knows you best — you.

Simply insert your Twitter handle into BookRx, and seconds later the app produces a list of categories and specific books you might enjoy. The app, which was launched yesterday, is a product of Northwestern University's Knight Lab. Shawn O'Banion, a third-year PhD student, worked with his professor, Larry Birnbaum, to create BookRx.

“Twitter is really unique because it’s a stream of consciousness for the user," O'Banion tells Mashable. "Typically you’re projecting an image of yourself on Twitter with the things that you say; while that might not be your true self, it’s actually who you want to represent on social media.”

It works by comparing the words, hashtags and mentions in your tweets to those of a sample user with pre-determined reading preferences. The app's creators used a secret data gathering technique to assess the sample and a machine learning algorithm to link tweeted words to specific book recommendations.

O'Banion recently used a similar method to create an app called TweetCast, which aimed to use tweets to predict votes in the U.S. presidential election.

For some, there is something innately unsettling about AI predictions. It is even more disturbing when the computer is accurate. Unlike sites like Amazon and Google, however, BookRx shows you the exact words you tweeted that led to its various recommendations.

“Typically when you see recommendations online, you’re not given any explanation or reason for the recommendation," O'Banion says. "It’s sort of like a black box, and I think that’s why people get kind of creeped out by it, actually — because it’s not transparent.”

BookRx is a fun tool to try, whether or not you're in the market for a new book to read. It's interesting to see how accurately your tweets correlate to your reading preferences. Give it a try here, and be sure to let us know what you think in the comment section.

Source : mashable

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Twitter Appoints New COO and CFO

Twitter has shaken up its executive ranks, appointing a new chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

The microblogging site named Ali Rowghani its COO, a new role he quietly announced by changing his Twitter profile. Rowghani's LinkedIn profile, however, still lists him as the company's CFO. Before joining Twitter in 2010, he worked at Pixar (including a stint as CFO) for eight years.

Twitter also brought in Mike Gupta to fill Rowghani's former role as CFO. Previously the treasurer and senior vice-president of finance at Zynga, Gupta left after spending one-and-a-half years with the embattled game maker. He also spent eight years as chief treasury officer and senior vice-president of corporate development and finance at Yahoo, according to his LinkedIn profile.

CEO Dick Costolo confirmed Rowghani and Gupta's new roles in a congratulatory tweet on Wednesday.

While Rowghani has a solid Twitter presence, with more than 11,000 followers and nearly 1,800 tweets, Gupta seems to have just joined the site. Twitter's new CFO, who currently clocks in at 62 followers, has only tweeted three times, so far. He published his first tweet on Tuesday.

What do you think of Twitter's executive-leadership changes? Tell us in the comments below.

Source : mashable

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Twitter to Add Photo Filters, Compete With Instagram [REPORT]

Twitter, which once tried to buy Instagram, is set to launch a service that competes with it, according to one report.

The company is preparing a range of photo filters users can add to pictures uploaded to Twitter, several sources within the company told the New York Times. The update would be launched in the coming months, according to the sources. (There was no comment from Twitter’s official channels.)

Whether such a move would succeed — or blunt Instagram’s phenomenal growth (100 million users and counting) — is an open question. Instagram is a stream of photos and comments, with the emphasis placed on the pictures. Twitter is, in effect, the reverse: commentary with occasional pictures.

On Twitter, you have to click to get to the photos, and many of those are Instagrams to begin with. Another advantage Instagram has: you can post pictures to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

One area where Twitter could see an advantage, however, is if it adds the photo-filtering service to its website. Instagram still only allows uploads via its iPhone or Android apps, although one report back in July suggested that may be about to change.

Facebook was working on its own photo filtering app before the Instagram purchase, one which ultimately got poor marks from reviewers. Evidently, Instagram’s secret sauce — a combination of the right filters, easy sharing and fast loading — isn’t all that easy to replicate.

Would you use photo filters on Twitter if it offered them? Let us know in the comments.

Source: mashable.com

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ShadowMe App Lets You Pretend to Be Someone Else on Twitter

Ever wonder how your friends keep posted on the coolest viral videos and articles? Ever wonder how your favorite reporters and pundits stay in the know?

Well, now — as the saying goes — there’s an app for just that.

It’s called ShadowMe [App Store link], and is now available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users, but only if you’ve already upgraded to iOS 6.

And what does ShadowMe do, you ask? Essentially, it lets you lurk Twitter as if you’re someone else. You’re able to see exactly what another user sees in his or her Twitter feed, receiving updates and news from all their favorite follows. It works equally well for a big-name celebrity — pro athletes who seem to only follow teammates and scantily clad women, for example — or simply a close friend.

“While ShadowMe is especially useful for people who need an introduction or education on Twitter, the app also enhances the Twitter experience for even the most active users by enabling them to shadow avid Twitter users, depending on interests or events,” Keith Savitz, co-founder of the app’s parent company, Tendy Apps, said in a press release. “Twitter newbies get quality content, not overwhelming quantity, and all users get the engaging, informative, entertaining social TV/second screen experience.”

While we haven’t yet gotten a chance to test out ShadowMe and can’t vouch for its functionality or ease of use, the idea does strike us as a very, very cool. It has the potential to be a powerful tool for content discovery, as well as insight into how your favorite follows use Twitter.

Is ShadowMe cool or creepy?

Source : mashable

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