twitter

Pope on Twitter: 187,000 followers (so far), not one tweet

When the pope speaks in public, it's a major event. That's why tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people are sure to gather in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican in the hours before the pontiff appears there.

So it should come as no surprise that with the announcement today that Pope Benedict XVI has officially joined Twitter -- and will be live-tweeting responses to questions during an event on December 12 -- more than 187,000 people have already followed his account (@pontifex).

Consider it the digital version of massive crowds waiting patiently for His … Read more

Holy tweet! The pope comes to Twitter with @pontifex

Pope Benedict XVI will make his way to Twitter on December 12, the Vatican announced today.

The pope will start tweeting on December 12 under the username, "@pontifex," the Vatican has confirmed. Speaking to Reuters in an interview posted today, Greg Burke, senior media advisor to the Vatican, said that the name means "pope," as well as "bridge builder."

When the Pope takes over his account next week, it won't be the very, very first time he'll have shared his thoughts in 140 characters. Last year, when the Vatican portal launched, the … Read more

NFL players tweet prayers, perspective after murder-suicide

NFL players and teams have turned to Twitter to express their sorrow after learning that Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend to death before turning the gun on himself.

The 25-year-old linebacker shot Kasandra Perkins, 22, with whom he had an infant daughter, this morning before driving to Arrowhead Stadium, where he shot himself to death in front of Chiefs staff, the Kansas City Police Department said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Chiefs and the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy," the NFL said in a … Read more

How to retweet without needing a lawyer

Ah, the retweet.

In the realm of communications, there are few things that one can do that can convey so much meaning, yet require so little effort. Add a simple "RT" to a tweet, or hit the little retweet button in any Twitter client, and you elevate 140 characters that might otherwise slip by unnoticed to another level, a level that, at the very least, you're saying is worth your followers' attention.

Retweeting is so easy that many people hardly think about what it means, and barely recognize that what they're doing, quite literally, is republishing … Read more

PeopleBrowsr wins temporary injunction against Twitter

PeopleBrowsr, the social media analytics service behind Kred, has won a temporary restraining order against Twitter that allows it continued access to the microblogging site's firehose of data.

PeopleBrowsr sued Twitter in San Francisco Superior Court today, alleging that Twitter was restricting its access to the tweets and data that is key to providing real-time statistical analysis sought by its clients. The court scheduled a hearing to discuss the injunction for January 8, 2013.

In its complaint (see below), PeopleBrowsr said that it had paid Twitter $1 million a year for the past four years for access to the … Read more

Obama tax plan hashtag hijacked by conservative think tank

A hashtag launched today by President Obama to push his tax cuts plan was quickly appropriated by a conservative think tank.

In the face of the approaching "fiscal cliff," Obama began promoting the hashtag #My2K on Twitter today as a way of encouraging discussion about his plan to preserve tax cuts for the middle class while letting expire those tax cuts on Americans households earning more than $250,000. The hashtag reflects the extra $2,000 the average middle class family of four could expect to pay if the tax cuts are allowed to expire.

The president used … Read more

Weatherman's fiancee stages naked coup of his Twitter feed

There are some people to whom things just happen.

It may well be that John Bolaris is one of those people.

Last year, he was suspended from his job at WTXF-TV in Philadelphia (he was subsequently fired) after Playboy wrote that he had been the alleged victim of "bottle girls" in a Miami club.

These women, it seems, had the bottle to wring $43,000 from his credit card.

Now, more woman trouble.

As the New York Daily News reports, Bolaris appears to have been asleep when his girlfriend wrestled her way onto his Twitter account and began … Read more

Google's Horowitz: Facebook is social network of the past

NEW YORK--Facebook is the social network of the past, and the way it implements advertising doesn't really work, a Google executive overseeing the search giant's social-networking product said today.

Bradley Horowitz, the Google vice president of product for Google+, said Facebook isn't set up in a way that's compatible with the real world. People should be able to have a conversation with a certain group of friends without involving others. And they should be able to have real conversations, he said, not 140-character blurbs like Twitter.

"In designing Google+, we keep thinking about the real … Read more

Proud parents name child 'Hashtag'?

The sad conventions of society demand that the world is populated by Peters, Pauls, and Marys.

This is nothing more than lamb-like conformism. Better to be one of the crowd than one endowed with a name like "Bannister."

So I find myself doffing my cap and lowering my quiff on hearing that a pair of proud parents have allegedly refused to bow to convention. They appear to have named their child after something that creates a new convention: Hashtag. … Read more