X (formerly Twitter) News & Updates

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Facebook, Twitter Hit Back at Google for New Search Feature

Google's new "Search Plus Your World" feature is supposed to integrate social network data into search results, but at the moment it only pulls data from Google+ and Picasa.
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However, a group of anonymous Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace engineers--in partnership with several unnamed social networks, has released a tool to integrate other networks into "Search Plus Your World." In an ironic nod to Google's unofficial motto, the tool is called "Don't Be Evil."

To install Don't Be Evil, visit FocusOnTheUser.org and click on the button that says "Try a More Relevant Google." Then, drag the "don't be evil" button into the browser bar of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

The tool works best when searching for a general interest topic, such as music, cooking, or technology. With these types of searches, you'll often see a column of "People and Pages From Google+" along the right side of the screen. After clicking the "Don't Be Evil" button, however, these results become "People and Pages from the Social Web," with results that may include people from Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. Clicking the button also modifies the Google logo to read "What Google Should Be."

Don't Be Evil may also modify standard search results. For instance, a search for AT&T features the carrier's Twitter page near the top of results when using the tool, instead of its Google+ page. Finally, the tool can affect suggested search results in Google's drop down box when searching for a specific person.

Don't Be Evil uses Google's own algorithms to decide which networks get top billing in the "People and Pages from the Social Web" column. So for instance, if a person's Google+ page appears higher up than other networks in organic search results, Google+ will be featured under that person's name. But if the person's Twitter page has a higher Google ranking, Twitter will be featured instead. The tool also lists other networks that a person belongs to, such as LinkedIn or Quora, as long as they appear in the first 10 pages of organic search results for that person.

"When Google focuses purely on delivering the most relevant answer to users, it does find the most relevant social result," the narrator of Don't Be Evil's explanation video says.

Google has suggested that it's open to including other social networks in Search Plus Your World, but only if those other networks make a search deal with Google. Don't Be Evil attempts to demonstrate that no such deal is necessary, because even publicly available search data is enough to figure which network should get top billing for a given person. The tool doesn't use any APIs or special permissions to deliver results.

The engineers behind Don't Be Evil are releasing the tool as open source code, and as they say in their explanation video, "we invite Google to use it." Not likely.

source : pc world
 
Twitter Acquires Social Media Feed Condenser Summify

Twitter has acquired Summify, a startup that summarizes content in people's Google, Facebook and Twitter social media feeds and delivers a daily digest via email, on a website or to a user's iPhone.
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"Our long-term vision at Summify has always been to connect people with the most relevant news for them, in the most time efficient manner. As hundreds of millions of people worldwide are signing up and consuming Twitter, we realized it's the best platform to execute our vision at a truly global scale," Summify said in a blog post.

As a result of the Twitter acquisition, Summify has stopped accepting new account sign-ups and eliminated several features. It will eventually shut down its service completely.

The blog post doesn't say how Twitter plans to integrate Summify into its microblogging service, but the disproportional "noise-to-signal ratio" is a well-known and common problem for Twitter users, who struggle to manage their feeds so that interesting tweets don't get lost among the irrelevant ones.

Thus, it's very likely that Twitter will use the Summify technology to provide functionality that helps users with this issue, perhaps by receiving summary digests of their feeds that focus on valuable content while filtering out the rest.


source : pc world
 
Recovering Yuvraj Singh posts bald pic on Twitter

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Undergoing chemotherapy for a malignant lung tumour, Yuvraj Singh has gone bald and the Indian cricketer has posted his latest picture showing the after-effects of the treatment on social networking site Twitter.

"Finally the hair has gone ! But #livstrong #yuvstrong," Yuvraj posted alongside a link to a picture of him without hair on the site.

The 30-year-old left-hander has been in the US since last month and is currently undergoing chemotherapy in the Cancer Research Institute in Boston.

"I will fight and come back as a stronger man cause I have the prayers of my nation ! Thank you to the media for their support and respecting my privacy," Yuvraj had written earlier.

"and of course everyday I look forward to come back and wear my India jersey my India cap and represent my country again jai hind," he had stated.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/top-stories/Recovering-Yuvraj-Singh-posts-bald-pic-on-Twitter/articleshow/11833810.cms
 
Twitter set to touch 500 m users

LONDON: Popular micro blogging site Twitter is likely to hit 500 million registered users later today, a report has said.

Twopcharts, a third party Twitter analysis company claimed that the website, which processes more than a billion tweets a week, is set to hit the milestone figure soon.

The figure, however, relates to the total number of registered accounts and does not reveal how many are active, The Telegraph reports.

At present, there are 100 million active Twitter accounts, a figure which was announced by the company's executives last September.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on third party figures and said that the company only tracks how many active users are using the site.

Meanwhile, Facebook recently announced that it had over 800 million active users and is well on track to hit the one billion member mark imminently.

Google+, the search giant's rival social network, which launched last year, announced that it had reach 90 million users last month.

However, Google has not revealed what percentage of the 90 million accounts are active.

_http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Twitter-set-to-touch-500-m-users/articleshow/12002505.cms
 
RE: Twitter set to touch 500 m users

hmm but i like facebook more than twitter :)
Twitter's server very slow here :-/
 
RE: Twitter set to touch 500 m users

me also like facebook, twitter is also good.
 
Govt to set up agency to scan Twitter, mails

The government is setting up an internet scanning agency which will seek to monitor all web traffic passing through internet service providers in the country.

NEW DELHI/BARCELONA: The government is setting up an internet scanning agency which will seek to monitor all web traffic passing through internet service providers in the country. The scanning agency to be called National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC), will issue 'actionable alerts' to government departments in cases of perceived security threats.

The move comes as the government has been unable to prevent many terror attacks, in the absence of a credible internet scanning system.

According to the minutes of ameeting held on February 3, 2012, at the National Security Council Secretariat under the PMO, the National Cyber Coordination Centre will 'scan whole cyber traffic flowing at the point of entry and exit at India's international internet gateways'. The web scanning centre will provide 'actionable alerts for proactive actions' to be taken by government departments.

All government departments will now talk to the Internet Service Providers such as Bharti Airtel, RCOM, BSNL, MTNL and Tata Communications through NCCC for real time information and data on threats.

According to sources, government is planning to invest about .`800 crore in the setup. "The coordination centre will be the first layer of threat monitoring in the country. It would always be in virtual contact with the control room of the Internet Service Providers," the Deputy National Security Advisor Vijay Latha Reddy said, as per minutes of the meeting.

The government is collating manpower requirements for the centre currently. "At present, the monitoring of web traffic is done by Centre for Development of Telematics ( C-DoT) which has installed its equipments at the premises of ISPs and gateways," informs Rajesh Chharia, president at Association of Internet Service Providers.

All tweets, messages, emails, status updates and even email drafts will now pass through the new scanning centre. The centre may probe further into any email or social media account if it finds a perceived threat.

India's National Security Council Secretariat (NCSC) has asked various departments to assess their needs for officials, who will coordinate with the scanning agency. The National Security Council handles the political, nuclear, energy and strategic security concerns of the country.

As per the minutes seen by ET, Defence Research and Development Organisation officials were of the view that there is no perfect system.

TOI
 
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