Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
Twitter’s Mysterious 10 Billionth Tweet
Twitter hit a major milestone late Thursday – when someone hit the “update” button on the networking site’s 10 billionth tweet.
The question Friday morning? Who was it and what did they say?
Unfortunately for the curious masses, it appears that the landmark tweet was posted by someone who has set their feed to be private by default.
A search for tweet No. 10 billion – individual posts on the site are identified by a number – yields a message saying that page is unavailable.
It was unclear whether Twitter was pursuing the user to see if they’d like to go public. The site’s spokespeople were notably quiet – with no mention of the milestone on their official Twitter feed and no new posts on their blog.
The two nearest misses, however, were public and show the range of ways the micro-blogging site is used.
Tweet number 9,999,999,999 was by a user with the handle @lelamarques, who posted a link to a gallery of “urban decay” photographs – a genre that celebrates the hidden beauty of abandoned buildings.
The user lists her address as Sao Luis, Brazil, and most of her posts are in Portugese – a nod to Twitter’s increasing international popularity.
Twitter has been lauded as a game-changing tool during such internationally notable events as the Iranian election protests and post-earthquake fundraising in Haiti.
But tweet Number 10,000,000,001 likely won’t impress those who consider it a hotbed of meaningless chatter.
In a feed from a woman who says she lives in Bronx, New York, the tweet read simply, “$Pretty N Paid$.”
Her feed is filled with profanity and misspelled words, often written in all caps – considered poor form by many Internet users. [NOTE: Since Friday morning, that user has switched her feed to private].
Interest in the milestone was high on the micro-blogging site, which has seen astronomical growth since it started in 2007. Thursday evening, the site for GigaTweet, an app that tracks the number of Twitter posts in real time, was down – presumably from overuse.
While the total number of Twitter users appeared to flatline several months ago, the sites activity levels has continued to spiral upward.
Twitter saw its 1 billionth tweet about a year ago and hit 5 billion tweets about four months ago.
According to a Wednesday night e-mail from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the number of Twitter accounts has grown 1,500 percent in the past year.
The company’s low-key response to the much-anticipated tweet, at least in the first several hours that followed, is in stark contrast to how Apple greeted a similar milestone recently.
When the company’s online store sold its 10 billionth download, the lucky customer got a $10,000 Apple gift card and a personal phone call from Steve Jobs.
Should Microsoft Buy Twitter?
A number of Web pundits have suggested during the past year-plus that Microsoft should buy Twitter. (An equal number have advocated for Google to buy the company and save it from Microsoft’s clutches.)
Would a Microsoft buy — if Twitter’s founders ever entertained such an idea — make sense for the Redmondians? CEO Steve Ballmer said this week that he’s not convinced such a move would make sense for Microsoft. But he didn’t say Microsoft hadn’t considered such a move or that it might not in the future.
Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan had a chance to quiz Ballmer about all things search-related during a March 2 Search and Marketing Expo West (SMX) keynote.
Here’s the pair’s exchange about Twitter (from the transcript):
DANNY SULLIVAN: You mentioned Twitter. Buy them, should you be buying them? Should you get them out there, they’ve got that great data, shouldn’t you just own the whole company and have it out there?
STEVE BALLMER: Not clear. I mean, we have a great relationship and partnership with Twitter. Not clear to me. I mean, I would hate to not have that partnership. Whether we need to own the company or not I think is far less clear. In some senses, as an independent, they have a lot of value and a lot of credibility, I think, with their user community. Would they have that same credibility with the user community if they were captive? Not clear. And they want to be an independent company, which means we want to have a great partnership with them, and do a good job.
If Ballmer had no interest in Twitter, he’d say so, I’d think, given he’s not a guy afraid to speak his mind. But the way he phrased his answer (”not clear to me”) made me think Microsoft may have sniffed around and may still be sniffing….
The bigger question for Microsoft watchers is what would Microsoft do with Twitter if Ballmer ever had a chance to buy the company? Would Twitter become the “real time search” division within Microsoft’s Online Systems Business? Would Microsoft use the Twitter technology to create yet another SharePoint tentacle? Would Microsoft put some of the Twitter brains into its FUSE Lab, which is charged with incorporating social-computing technologies into Microsoft products? Or would Microsoft keep Twitter at arm’s length, and let it run as is as a quasi-independent subsidiary?
A year ago, before I had joined Twitter, I wrote a post entitled “Microsoft shouldn’t buy Twitter,” which got me lots of hate mail from Twitter backers and the Web 2.0 crowd in general. Would I say the same today? I’m on the fence. Twitter still has yet to launch ads or any other money-making scheme, but it’s still around and still relevant to many techie and non-techie users.
It’s all speculation at this point, of course, especially given Ballmer’s acknowledgement that Twitter “want(s) to be an independent company.” But do you see reasons Microsoft could and should try to buy Twitter?
Meanwhile, speaking of speculation, how about Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s claim that if she had been running Yahoo when Microsoft first approached the company to acquire it, she’d have gone through with the deal? Whew… I bet Ballmer’s glad Bartz joined the company after talks had fizzled… especially given the fact that Microsoft’s acquired a lot of Yahoos in the past or two, and is going to be supplying Yahoo’s Web search results for the next ten years — all without having to shell out $50 billion.
Priyanka Chopra Visits Twitter Headquarters
Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, who is set to cross the 200,000 mark in Twitter followers, visited the headquarter of the micro-blogging website in San Francisco after being especially invited there.
Priyanka tweeted about her visit to the headquarter where she met Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder.
“My day was really interesting because I was invited to Twitter headquarter in San Francisco! Had a great time. Thanks Biz and team for the wonderful hospitality,” she posted.
The 27-year-old, who has been shooting in US for Sajid Nadiadwala’s “Anjaana Anjaani”, is going to cross the 200,000 mark as far as her followers on Twitter are concerned. At present, she leads the Bollywood bandwagon on the site with 196,903 followers and has left stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, Shahid Kapoor far behind.
“Priyanka was in the US for her movie shoot. She had to drop by at a studio for the NDTV Indian of the Year programme and there she met the Twitter team. She was invited to the headquarter office in San Francisco since she is so popular among the Bollywood celebs on Twitter,” a source close to the actress told IANS.
NASA Invites Questions For Astronauts on Twitter
NASA seems to have come to terms with the power of the Twitterverse and is inviting the public to send questions for astronauts during space shuttle Endeavour’s upcoming mission to the International Space Station, via Twitter and have them answered live from space.
Astronaut Mike Massimino will be accepting questions for the crew from the public via his Twitter account until Thursday, Feb. 11. Massimino will be a shuttle Capcom, or spacecraft communicator, at NASA’s Mission Control in Houston during Endeavour’s flight, scheduled for launch Feb. 7.
At 2:24 a.m. CST on Feb. 11, Massimino will host an interactive event with the crew from his console in Mission Control. He will ask the astronauts as many submitted and live questions as practical during the 20-minute event. The shuttle will be docked to the station during the live question and answer session. The event with Endeavour’s crew will be broadcast live on the Web and NASA Television.
The public is invited to start tweeting questions for Endeavour’s crew today to Massimino’s Twitter account, @astro_Mike, or add the hashtag #askastro to their tweets.
Endeavour’s 13-day STS-130 mission will include three spacewalks and the delivery of the Tranquility node, the final module of the U.S. portion of the station. Tranquility will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station’s life support and environmental control systems.
Attached to Tranquility is a cupola, which houses a robotic control station and has seven windows. The windows will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. After the node and cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be approximately 90 percent complete.
The time and day of the Twitter session are subject to change due to mission priorities. Updates to the NASA TV event schedule are available online here: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttletv
Twitter Tweaks Home Page for Newbies
Twitter is hoping to lure in more newbies by making its home page more dynamic and user friendly.
Following some tweaks last year, the popular social network has revamped its home page once again. The new home page design, which rolled out Tuesday, now features a slowly scrolling list of randomly selected top tweets that change every few seconds. A rolling marquee near the top of the page displays a feed of hot trending topics. Hovering over any one topic reveals the latest tweet on that subject.
A “See who’s here” window also displays thumbnail photos that link you to the tweets from favorite celebrities, top businesses, and other popular tweeters. And to persuade the uninitiated to sign up, the home page now displays a “New to Twitter” promo on the right touting the benefits of the service and inviting people to “join the conversation.”
Twitter’s official blog on Tuesday said the new design is a test to show up front more of the information that comes from the many tweets on the site. The new home page can be useful for current tweeters but seems especially geared toward those who haven’t yet signed up for the service.
The home page revamp is part of Twitter’s efforts to show people that the site isn’t just for quick status updates, according to the blog, but is now a way of grabbing and sharing information at a fast pace. The company believes the new home page may better convey the value of Twitter to people who haven’t yet sampled the service.
Twitter said it will monitor feedback on the new home page design and test the waters with other ideas to help people learn what the site is all about. Those of you who already have a Twitter account should be able to check out the new home page by logging out and refreshing your browser.