twitter

'Tailored tweets' make their debut on iOS, Android apps

Twitter has tweaked its iOS and Android apps to show tweets tailored just for you, much the way its Web site has done since September.

A tap on the Discover page in the apps now displays a few select stories at the top, all considered relevant to you but not ones that you're necessarily already following. Tapping on the "View all stories" link brings up even more tweets that Twitter believes will interest you.

Each story offers a brief description, photo, and link, so you can quickly browse through the list and just tap on the ones … Read more

Hollywood bigwig Peter Chernin joins Twitter's board

Welcome, @peterchernin, to Twitter's board.

— Twitter (@twitter) November 16, 2012

Twitter said this afternoon that former News Corp. executive Peter Chernin has become the newest member of its board of directors.

Well known in Hollywood, Chernin helped launch Hulu and is on Pandora's board. The move was expected, with All Things D reporting earlier in the day that Twitter was "poised" to name Chernin.

Rumors about who would be the newest Twitter director have been flying for months, with Chernin's name prominently mentioned.

Twitter's current board members are CEO Dick Costolo, co-founder Evan Williams, … Read more

Twitter takes new steps to be even more like Instagram

With a flurry of new features unveiled this afternoon, Twitter appears to be aiming more than ever at mimicking some of the most visual elements of Instagram and Facebook.

The most interesting new feature is one that adds a palette of "top" photos and videos to search results. So, for example, if you search for "sunrise," you see a group of photos above the resulting column of tweets, as well as a row of video thumbnails off to the side.

Clearly, the idea here is that Twitter wants users to see more information than ever before, … Read more

Twitter finally adds ability to e-mail tweets

Twitter is finally adding the ability to e-mail tweets directly from the Twitter stream, a feature that's already well-established in third-party Twitter apps.

The new sharing feature is rolling out to all users in the coming weeks, Twitter announced in a blog post today.

To e-mail a tweet to someone, go to the details of the tweet and click on the "More" icon next to the reply, retweet and favorite buttons. A little box will pop up to let you add a message and your recipient's e-mail. Then hit send. (This eliminates having to cut and … Read more

Report: Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin set to join Twitter's board

As Twitter becomes more and more mainstream, it may also be trying to become more Hollywood.

According to AllThingsD, Twitter plans to name Peter Chernin, a well-known Hollywood executive, to its board of directors. Chernin would take the spot on the board vacated by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue.

Rumors have been flying for months that Chernin, who has held top slots at News Corp., and who helped start Hulu and is on Pandora's board, would become a Twitter director.

Twitter's current board members are CEO Dick Costolo, co-founder Evan Williams, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, co-founder and … Read more

Jack Dorsey: Twitter was built in two weeks

Rome may not have been built in a day, but Twitter was built in just two weeks.

During an onstage interview at a Twitter off-site meeting today, co-founder Jack Dorsey (who is also the founder of the mobile payments company, Square) recalled how long it took him to build the first version of the microblogging service: two weeks, according to a tweet from Guy Yalif, a member of Twitter's product marketing team who was present at the event.

.@jack: The first version of @twitter was built in two weeks and was SMS only #MakingHistory twitter.com/gyalif/status/...

— Guy … Read more

TweetDeck tweaked to handle 'high-velocity' tweets

If you happened to have set up a TweetDeck column to filter tweets with the "#Debate" hashtag during any of the recent presidential or vice-presidential debates, you may well have had the same experience I did: the application crashing under the weight of thousands and thousands of posts per second.

With Twitter becoming a bigger and bigger part of mainstream culture, there are an increasing number of big events that generate huge numbers of tweets, and today the microblogging company announced it is attempting to address the dynamic of TweetDeck buckling when those events generate incredible amounts of … Read more

Facebook gets more Twitter-like with mobile 'share' button

Facebook is becoming a little more Twitter-like with one of its newest features: A "share" button for mobile that's a lot like a retweet.

The social networking giant has started rolling out the button on its mobile site, a spokesperson said, and it plans to add the feature to iOS and Android.

The company didn't provide any other information about the share button or its reasoning behind the move. We'll update if we get any more details.

The mobile feature, like the Web browser version, allows users to repost a friend's photos and links. … Read more

Israel, Hamas using Twitter to report on Gaza skirmishes

Update: 1:42 PM PT The Israel Defense Force has been using Twitter to offer updates on the latest round of fighting along with border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

But Hamas is fighting back with its own volley in the information war. The organization's military wing is also using Twitter today as the pace of cross-border violence picked up. The sides have been locked in low-level violence for several days. The fighting intensified today following the assassination of Ahmed Jabri, a senior military leader accused by Israel of being responsible for several terror attacks.

A cyber sampler of … Read more