• #OnlyOnTwitter: Photos across space and time

    Friday, April 20, 2012

    One of the best things about Twitter is sharing pictures in real-time. Pictures from behind the scenes, pictures from abroad, pictures from the past. This week we have a number of Twitter moments of people sharing experiences and sharing photos in a way that could happen #OnlyOnTwitter. We have DC residents pointing the cameraphones at the sky to snap pictures of a space shuttle’s last flight. We have José Andrés finding Anthony Bourdain’s favorite restaurant in Singapore and posing with the chef. And we have a Twitter account dedicated entirely to plumbing the depths of the Sports Illustrated photo archives.

    All of that and more, happening every day #OnlyOnTwitter.

    #spottheshuttle takes over DC
    Washington, D.C. residents left their offices in droves this Tuesday to watch the space shuttle Discovery, piggy-backed on a Boeing 747, circled the city three times before landing at Dulles Airport. Thanks to Twitter, even the folks who couldn't leave their desks were able to see the shuttle from just about every angle in the city.

    From the vaults of Sports Illustrated
    Andy Gray at Sports Illustrated may have the coolest job in the sports world: he gets to dig through the archives of the magazine's photos and share them on Twitter! His is a great feed to follow for any sports fan and a great example of how a publication can creatively use its archives on Twitter.

    José Andrés goes to Singapore
    Chef José Andrés took a trip to Singapore and received some travel recommendations from everybody’s favorite culinary tourist Anthony Bourdain.

    NASCAR goes to the White House
    The President invited 12 of the top Sprint Cup drivers to the White House. They put on their suits and ties and then shared pictures of the whole event.

    Three Stooges answer dozens of questions
    In anticipation of opening weekend for #TheThreeStooges @theseanhayes, @DiamantopoulosC and @WillSasso answered questions for fans who want to know Moe.

    The lonesome cry of the Canadian penny
    When the Canadian government decided to eliminate the Canadian penny, Steve St. Pierre began a Twitter account to tell the other side of the story— from the penny’s perspective. What began as a joke became a movement to donate pennies to charities.

    Jim Gaffigan hosts a comedic Q&A
    Comedian Jim Gaffigan released a new comedy special called “Mr. Universe” and released it online, directly to his fans. As a part of the promotion for Mr. Universe, he invited questions from his fans on Twitter.

    @TwitterMusic interviews artist @KatGraham
    Twitter Music conducted an interview with questions tweeted by fans for "Put Your Graffiti On Me" singer Kat Graham.

    Posted by @ at 10:37 AM

  • Introducing the Innovator's Patent Agreement

    Tuesday, April 17, 2012

    Cross-posted on the Twitter Engineering blog.

    One of the great things about Twitter is working with so many talented folks who dream up and build incredible products day in and day out. Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of these inventions. However, we also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future; we sometimes worry that they may be used to impede the innovation of others. For that reason, we are publishing a draft of the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, which we informally call the “IPA”.

    The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.

    This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry. Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee’s work. The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others who can also use them however they want. With the IPA, employees can be assured that their patents will be used only as a shield rather than as a weapon.

    We will implement the IPA later this year, and it will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, both past and present. We are still in early stages, and have just started to reach out to other companies to discuss the IPA and whether it might make sense for them too. In the meantime, we’ve posted the IPA on GitHub with the hope that you will take a look, share your feedback and discuss with your companies. And, of course, you can #jointheflock and have the IPA apply to you.

    Today is the second day of our quarterly Hack Week, which means employees – engineers, designers, and folks all across the company – are working on projects and tools outside their regular day-to-day work. The goal of this week is to give rise to the most audacious and creative ideas. These ideas will have the greatest impact in a world that fosters innovation, rather than dampening it, and we hope the IPA will play an important part in making that vision a reality.

    - Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering (@adam_messinger)

    Posted by @ at 10:00 AM

  • Sunday night TV on Twitter

    Monday, April 16, 2012

    By now it’s clear that Twitter serves as the roar of the crowd during live events like the Super Bowl and award shows. Twitter is also a great place to watch your favorite comedies and dramas arm-in-arm with the rest of the world--and even the show’s stars themselves.

    Sunday night has long been a great time to make a date with your TV, and last night was a particularly fun one to keep your eyes on Twitter as well as the screen.

    During the premiere of HBO’s highly anticipated new show @GirlsHBO, television fans were tweeting in full force. Right along with them were the stars and producers of the show: The show even has some famous fans who took to Twitter to share their reviews: Fans, reviewers, and stars of other shows took to Twitter last night too: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Celebrity Apprentice and The Good Wife each inspired active conversations last night. No matter what your must-watch shows are, the viewing party happens on Twitter every day of the week.

    Posted by @ at 5:00 PM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: A Betty White Prank

    Thursday, April 12, 2012

    Every week we capture and share the incredible moments that could happen #OnlyOnTwitter. This week was all about new people joining: country music legend Merle Haggard sent his first Tweet, Mitt Romney’s wife Ann joined to refute a detractor, and everyone’s favorite Golden Girl Betty White joined and then pranked a co-star. But that’s not all! Twitter saved a kidnapped man, transported us to Grateful Dead concerts in 1972 and gave us hints of how to find Easter eggs from Ryan Gosling*! So many great moments on Twitter this week.

    * — We promise we won’t do another Ryan Gosling story next week. Maybe. If you see another good one, share it using the hashtag #OnlyOnTwitter!

    Betty White joins Twitter...maybe
    Betty White said she'd never join Twitter and "Hot in Cleveland" co-star Valerie Bertinelli believed her...a little too much.

    Twitter saves kidnapped South African man from his trunk
    When robbers carjacked a man and put him in his trunk in Johannesburg, they forgot to check for his mobile phone. He used it to text his girlfriend about his predicament. She immediately asked Twitter to help track him down. (h/t Ars Technica)

    Ann Romney joins Twitter
    After CNN Commentator Hilary Rosen criticized Ann Romney on Twitter, the presidential candidate's wife joined Twitter to rebut her.

    Bubba Watson wins the Masters
    In the final round of the 2012 Masters, Bubba Watson found himself in a playoff with Louis Oosthuizen. With an incredible shot from deep in the woods, Watson earned the fabled green jacket and took to Twitter to share his inspiration.
    After winning the Masters, Watson's followers grew by more than a third in just one day.

    Merle Haggard sends his first Tweet
    The country music legend sent his first Tweet this week and quickly followed it up with offering to give fellow musicians Miranda Lambert and Jake Owen a few “lessons”.

    A very Gosling Easter in New York
    A Twitter account called @GoslingEaster spent Easter Sunday tweeting hints to find special plastic eggs purported to be from Ryan Gosling himself. Whether they were or not, they included his picture and a sweet Easter note!

    The Dead in ‘72
    WMFU DJ Jesse Jarnow is tweeting highlights of every Grateful Dead show from 4/69 through 8/75. He started three years ago.

    Rick Santorum drops out of the race
    Despite winning a handful of state Republican primaries, the GOP candidate ended his run for the presidency.

    Posted by @ at 11:19 AM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: With a cameo appearance by Ryan Gosling

    Friday, April 06, 2012

    Welcome to another edition of our on-going effort to capture and showcase the incredible array of moments that happen #OnlyOnTwitter. This week we bring you a conversation with Madonna, a Q&A with the Vice President, and a chance encounter with Ryan Gosling.

    Madonna chats with her fans
    To celebrate the first week’s success of her new album, pop icon Madonna chatted with fans via Twitter, including quite a few famous ones.

    A British journalist was saved from a NYC taxi by movie star/Internet heartthrob Ryan Gosling. She shared the news via Twitter, of course, and found herself unwittingly at the center of a new viral sensation.

    #OpeningDay for Major League Baseball
    Team accounts and @MLB and many teams rung in a new season on Twitter, rallying fans with Tweets and photos.

    Tornadoes strike Dallas
    Violent tornadoes raged through the Dallas metro area and the Weather Channel, NBC News and the Washington Post collected Tweets into Storifys. This is one of the remarkable Tweets they highlighted.

    #AskVP: College Affordability
    Vice President Joe Biden took questions on Twitter about the costs of college in America.

    Tim Gunn joins Twitter
    Project Runway host and self-described “Fashion Therapist” Tim Gunn joined Twitter and was warmly welcomed.

    Posted by @ at 1:29 PM

  • Tweet me out to the ballgame

    With the remaining teams taking the field today, the Major League Baseball season is officially underway. This season, Twitter can be your all-access pass to everything happening during games, off the field, and at the front office.

    We’ve put together a lineup of great baseball-related accounts. Whether you’re part of The Brew Crew or you bleed Dodger blue, you’ll find your team on Twitter; every major league team is now tweeting. You’ll also find the accounts of players, general managers, sportswriters, and fellow fans. Check out some of the All Stars who have recently joined:

    San Francisco Giants ace pitcher Tim Lincecum readies himself to take the mound to open their season today:

    Even though he’s starting the season on the DL, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard can’t wait to cheer on his team:

    You now have the chance to connect with players like never before. Imagine if tweeting could get you a trip to hang out with your favorite player at a spring training game — that’s exactly what Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips did for two lucky fans. Or you could help Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp with a vital part of his in-game strategy.

    Twitter can also offer you a glimpse into team life off the field. Jason Motte, relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, lets us know what the players really talk about off the field:

    Even though baseball is often called “the national pastime”, it does have a wide international audience, and Twitter helps connect fans all over the world to the game. For example, New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, originally from the Dominican Republic, is one of several players who hosts Twitter Q&As with fans in both English and Spanish:

    You’ll also find several General Managers from each league on Twitter, giving you insights into how their team is shaping up and what happens in the front office throughout the season. Sandy Alderson from the New York Mets let fans know which prospects might soon have a future in the big leagues, while Jeff Luhnow, General Manager of the Houston Astros, shared a scouting report in photo form:

    Twitter has also become an instrumental tool in the press box, where baseball reporters post about everything from trade rumors to last-minute roster moves to real-time in-game analysis. Elsewhere in the stadium, Twitter is even making its way onto the Jumbotron: if you head to Target Field for a Minnesota Twins game, check out the “Tweet Board”, which displays Tweets from fans during the game.

    To make sure you don’t miss any of these moments, check out our MLB Twitter list, and follow @TwitterSports. Be one of the first to enjoy Twitter as it takes you out to the ballgame.

    Posted by @ at 9:37 AM

  • Shutting down spammers

    Thursday, April 05, 2012

    Twitter continues to grow at a record pace -- we now have 140 million active users and more than 340 million Tweets each day. As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers. While spam is a small fraction of the incredible content you can find on Twitter, we know just how distracting it can be.

    We have previously discussed the ways we deal with spam on Twitter. Our engineers continue to combat spammers’ efforts to circumvent our safeguards, and today we’re adding another weapon to our arsenal: the law.

    One challenge in battling spam is bad actors who build tools designed to distribute spam on Twitter (and the web) by making it easier for other spammers to engage in this annoying and potentially malicious activity.

    This morning, we filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. With this suit, we’re going straight to the source. By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.

    While this is an important step, our efforts to combat spam don’t stop here. Our engineering team continues to implement robust technical solutions that help us proactively reduce spam. For example, earlier this week, our engineers launched new anti-spam measures within Twitter to more aggressively suspend a new type of @ mention spam. Additionally, we now use our link shortener (t.co) to analyze whether a tweeted link leads to malware or malicious content. This helps us prevent users from visiting malicious links and helps us shut down hundreds of thousands of abusive accounts. You can help out, too, by reporting and blocking spammers you encounter on Twitter.

    We are committed to fighting spam on all fronts, by continuing to grow our anti-spam team and using every tool at our disposal to shut down spammers. Today marks an important step forward.

    Posted by @ at 10:05 AM

  • Twitter recap: March Madness

    Tuesday, April 03, 2012

    It’s been a March of “Madness” on Twitter as NCAA fans shared brackets, cheered for their teams and taunted the competition. We’ve been watching closely to pull together a picture of the Twitter conversation around the NCAA post-season.

    In the end, it came down to Kansas versus Kentucky at the New Orleans Superdome. Despite a Kansas rally in the last four minutes, Kentucky commanded the game from the start. The big story on Twitter was freshman Anthony Davis’ ability to dominate the game while scoring just six points:

    Just as at the Superdome, Kentucky controlled the conversation on Twitter, sustaining a higher Tweets-per-minute (TPM) rate than Kansas throughout the game. The conversation peaked at the end, when Tweets about the Championship exceeded 30,000 TPM.


    Before the final game, the tournament buzz peaked on March 25th, when Kansas and the University of Kentucky advanced to the Final Four and helped inspire more than a million Tweets in the process:


    Last month, the conversation started, as it always does, with the brackets. And what better place to share your completed bracket than Twitter? Across sports, stars shared their brackets with an account called @TheLockerRoom

    Of course, March Madness went viral far beyond the sports arena: members of Congress got in on the predictions as well.

    As the tournament progressed, the turning point for one favored team came when UNC’s Kendall Murphy broke his wrist. Fans across the country showed their support by marking their own wrists with the number 5.

    From the first upset to the final free throw, some of the best moments of March Madness happened on Twitter. Follow @TwitterSports and your favorite athletes, coaches, teams and reporters to find out what’s happening in any sport.

    Posted by @ at 10:49 AM

  • Better connected: Twitter for BlackBerry

    Monday, April 02, 2012

    A new version of Twitter for BlackBerry introduces new features that make it easier to connect to the people and things you care about.

    Twitter for BlackBerry makes it easier to share links to web pages directly from the browser. When you tweet a link it will automatically be shortened so it takes up fewer characters. And, you can upload photos to Twitter (pic.twitter.com) right from your device’s camera or when writing your Tweets.

    Now you can connect your Twitter account with BlackBerry Messenger. This makes it possible to share your latest Tweet as your BBM Personal Message. You can also access your contacts' Twitter accounts right from their BBM profiles.

    You can download this version of Twitter for BlackBerry now from BlackBerry App World.

    Posted by @ at 10:58 AM

  • #OnlyOnTwitter: From the sea floor to the high court

    Thursday, March 29, 2012

    Last week we kicked off a new blog series showcasing the amazing array of moments that occur #OnlyOnTwitter. We’re back again with highlights from this past week, which take Twitter to the deepest part of the ocean and a racecar driver’s seat in the sky.

    James Cameron tweets from the seafloor
    The director of Titanic took a very special trip—his was the second-ever dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. And that’s how he became the first person to send a Tweet from 35,755 feet below sea level.

    From the steps of the Supreme Court
    Tweeting isn’t allowed in the High Court, but plenty of reporters tweeted their impressions from the health care reform hearings as soon as they left the building, fueling a good deal of Twitter tea-leaf-reading.

    Jimmie Johnson’s high-flying fan chat
    The NASCAR driver took advantage of his in-flight wi-fi to answer fan questions and chat about his race strategy in the Fontana Auto Club 400.

    Senator Menendez’s energy town hall
    Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey hosted a live Twitter Town Hall with his followers to talk about energy policy. Here's one of the topics he covered:

    Bollywood’s Preity Zinta chats with her fans
    One Sunday morning, Preity Zinta asked her followers to choose a topic they could all discuss. The winner: What would you do if you were Prime Minister of India?

    Director Jon Hurwitz makes a correction
    When a joke about remaking Back to the Future was taken out of context, director Jon Hurwitz took to Twitter to correct the record.

    Posted by @ at 4:51 PM