If this latest report is to be believed, Twitter is expected to introduce its revamped version next week and bring in a newsfeed very similar to Facebook’s timeline. It would combine data and tweets in a way that would no longer follow a chronological order.
This new algorithm would order tweets based on what it thinks people would want to see more as opposed to adhering to a strict chronology. It is unclear at this point if this would be a change forced on all users or if it would simply be an option to choose or ignore.
Rumours about this redesigning have been milling around for a couple of weeks now. As Twitter struggled to stay on its feet the last couple of days, this revamping seemed like one of company’s desperate measures to stay afloat.
No official comments have been made by the company on the topic. Jack Dorsey did say recently, however, that they would “continue to question our reverse chronological timeline”.
China’s very own social media network, Sina Weibo, which can be at best described as a cross between Twitter, and Facebook, today revealed its plans to remove the 140-character limit that it has had from the time of its inception.
According to a report from Xinhua, a Chinese news agency of repute, the company’s CEO confirmed the plans for this change, told the agency what will follow. The new format will see Weibo allowing posts up to 2,000 characters in length. This new feature will initially roll out to “senior users” on January 28th, and will be live on all other accounts in exactly a month’s time.
In a letter to developers sent from the desk of Weibo’s CEO, Wang Gaofei, the social networking company explained how exactly the change be like. Wang informed that users will still only see 140 characters per message in their feeds, but in added functionality, they’ll also be able to click a link to the whole post if it exceeds the 140 character limit.
Funny enough, this change comes amid rumours that Twitter has future plans to drop the character limit on its own platform. The company has already dropped the limit for direct messages but it’s still not clear as to how it will implement taking this cap off tweets.
The last fiscal year saw Twitter face increasing pressure from investors because of its falling share prices. The company is said to be in dire need for new users, and as such, this step from Weibo of removing the cap on character limit could well push Twitter into serious contemplation mode over its strategy going ahead.
A woman in the US has sued Twitter for allowing official ISIS accounts to run on its platform, sparking off yet another debate about the exchange of content on social media.
This lawsuit follows an attack by an ISIS member on November 9th when he shot down five people to death in Jordan. Two of them happened to be Americans. The husband of the plaintiff was one of the two American victims. The lawsuit demands unspecified damages from Twitter.
The fact that ISIS is immensely tech-savvy and uses various social media platforms to assert its presence has been a topic of debate for a while now. The extremist group has a team of social media experts to take care of the content it puts up on different networking websites. But all of these networking portals defend themselves by stating that they are simply the channels of content-exchange, with no participation in the creation of this content whatsoever.
Websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It means that these websites are exempt from laws that would otherwise make them responsible for the content that users put up on their platform.
However, the lawsuit claims, “for years, Twitter has knowingly permitted the terrorist group ISIS to use its social network as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits. This material support has been instrumental to the rise of ISIS and has enabled it to carry out numerous terrorist attacks.”
Twitter defended itself in an official statement where it claimed, “While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family’s terrible loss. Like people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups and their ripple effects on the Internet. Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear.”
Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that will make tweets appear randomly, as compared to in a chronological order. This change was noticed when some users started tweeting amidst confusion. Meanwhile, a Twitter spokesperson said:
“We’re continuing to explore ways to surface the best content for people using Twitter.”
However, this is not the first time that Twitter is experimenting with such a feature, and this time they’re not being too subtle about it. This new feature is unlike the “while you were away” feature, that still allowed you to preserve the original order of tweets. The latest change will put them in any random order. Some reports have compared this action to Facebook’s timeline where posts are shown in accordance with how popular they are instead of when they were put up.
PLEASE don't do this, @twitter. Literally everyone hates that Facebook does it. STOP TURNING INTO FACEBOOK. https://t.co/xyBzjMkHGU
CEO Jack Dorsey had earlier mentioned that the company would “continue to question our reverse chronological timeline”; so keeping in tune with that, this move should have been expected. Like most things, people will get used to this too.
Twitter is trying to trademark the word ‘subtweet’ which means a tweet directed at someone without mentioning their Twitter handle typically as a form of mockery or criticism. To put it in pre-social media terms, it would mean to talk about someone behind their back. The trademark was filed on October 30 and was up for opposition on November 19.
The trademark is a commercial mark in that Twitter’s control of the word would exclusively be in commercial settings. So when Twitter gets the word trademarked, no one else can name their new product “Subtweet” or sell things that say “Subtweet” on them.
“When you need to protect your namespace from people who would misuse it. #keepingit,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
What being passive-aggressive on Twitter is like
Words like ‘tweet’, ‘subtweet’ and ‘tweetstorm’ have actually been coined by users referring to a specific Twitter activity. Twitter has tried to trademark a few them in the past but have not always been successful. In fact, Twitter could not trademark ‘tweet’ since the term has been in use for a long time, though now the word has become almost synonymous to Twitter.
If left unopposed, Twitter will gain the right of the word ‘subtweet’ within a few months.
Chennai has been battling its worst rains in a century with 188 people confirmed dead and thousands having to evacuate their homes due to the flooding. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalitha said that –
“State police, fire and rescue services, state and national disaster response forces and coast guard are ready to rescue people using boats, and adequate precautionary measures are being taken to protect people.”
But, in our country we have grown used to not relying on the government and taking things into our hands during dire times. So, ordinary citizens have come together on social media to send or seek help. This instance reminds us of the time when a similar online effort was made in March 2015 when Jammu & Kashmir was hit by massive floods and people who wanted to help used #KashmirFloods to connect on Twitter and Facebook.
Likewise for the Chennai floods we have #ChennaiRainsHelp and #ChennaiFloods among the most used hashtags on Twitter and Facebook. These hashtags are beings used to offer shelter, food, transport and even mobile recharges. Meanwhile Facebook has also put out its safety check feature where you can mark yourself safe if you are in Chennai.
All the online efforts put together have more often than not been successful in meting out necessary help during times of need. Maybe governments should really start prioritizing people instead of shunning them and letting them fend for themselves.
In todays digital age, if you want to know when a person has made it big, see his/her followers. Social networking sites like Twitter don’t just serve to send out tweets, but also discreetly lets people know just how popular you are. if you wanted to know he most popular politician in the world, head to Twitter and see who’s got the most followers. Currently U.S President Barack Obama is the most popular politician on Twitter with 66.1 million followers. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now second in the list of most followed politicians with 16.1 million followers.
Since PM Modi was sworn into office on May 26, 2014, his followers have grown by 11.9 million. While PM Modi is the second most popular politician in the world, he is the third most followed Indian behind Amitabh Bachan (17.8 million) and Shah Rukh Khan (16.2 million).
One of the reasons that factor into the Prime Minister’s Twitter rise is his Make in India initiative that has received strong support. Indeed, PM Modi’s upward trend reinforces his vision to build a Digital India, and he’s leading from the front, being called India’s first and most digital-savvy leader. His ambitions like #MakeInIndia #SwachBharat #MannKiBaat and #SelfieWithDaughter have trended on Twitter on many occasions.
In fact, #MakeInIndia was so big that it became the first non-US brand to launch its own Twitter emoji to a worldwide audience.
Ladies and gentlemen, Twitter launches the Emoji version of India’s favourite lion from their global head quarters #MakeInIndia
Twitter recently announced that they would replace their users’ ability to mark “favorites” with an option to “like” Tweets instead. Along with this, they have also decided to ditch the star icon for favorites with a heart icon for likes.
The social media networking company made a statement regarding this change, saying that because “the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers”, they will now use a more “universal symbol” like the heart “that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones.”
According to user tests, these changes have been said to do well and will soon be introduced on Vine too. However, as it happens with all new changes, this one, too, has had mixed reactions, since the “favourites” option was used to indicate various things and was even used as a bookmark or reminder.
I work at @twitter but even I can’t believe how we replaced a completely value-neutral term like “favorite” with something so loaded.
Social media is getting more emotive, and its users are becoming more and more aware of small things such as “like” buttons and its correct usages. Facebook is working on ways to let users express a lot more than simple “likes”, whereas Twitter seems to be going back a step by providing its users a basic “like” option. With all the revamping and the firing of employees, let us hope that Twitter can manage to stay afloat and save their dwindling fan base. What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section below.
Hashtags are the necessary evil of social media, the quicksands you try to resist with all your might even though you know you are going to be pulled deeper the more you struggle. You continue to struggle anyway, until you give in. Almost every social media denizen goes through the same process of hating hashtags with a passion, and eventually willingly incorporating them in their internet-lingo.
Hashtag on chalkboard
Origin of Hashtags:
Twitter is assumed to be the genesis of this little virtual entity, though no one can pin-point to a specific person, time or day when hashtags came into being. Now they are used to search for topics of interests on social media platforms like Twitter and WordPress, draw traffic to your blogs and annoy everyone in your friend-list with a score of hashtags for a picture of your breakfast.
The Most Popular Hashtags on Instagram:
Believe it or not, #boyfriend happens to be one of the top 50 hashtags on Instagram. And no #cat is not part of this list. Here’s a list of the top ten hashtag on Instagram.
#fashion
#friends
#smile
#like4like
#instamood
#family
#nofilter
#amazing
#style
#sun
News and Updates Via Hashtags:
Hashtags allow users to stay abreast of all that’s happening in the world. Specific interests in sports or films can be taken care of with the help of hashtags like #cannes2015 or #worldcup2014. Cuing in these hashtags on a platform like Instagram would take you to hundreds and thousands of images on the topic.
Voicing Opinions:
In terms of social change, hashtags have played a big role. Even celebrities have taken to the internet, using hashtags to draw attention to important issues like gender equality, or to speak out against anti-social activities.
Actors David Tennant and Tom Hiddleston took to the internet to talk about feminism and gender issues in the pictures above. Emma Watson is another actor who used hashtags to raise awareness about the abduction of about 200 hundred girls by Boko Haram.
Both of the above hashtags, #heforshe and #bringbackourgirls have gone insanely viral on social media in the past with people all over posting pictures with the tag. Similarly, 2014 saw the usage of #illridewithyou to show support for Australian Muslims using public transport.
Acceptance of These Little Devils in Our Lives:
Following suit with the word ‘selfie’, hashtag was added in the Oxford English Dictionary in June last year. Also, a collaboration of Twitter with American Express allows individuals to purchase goods online on discounted prices. These are just some of the examples of how hashtags are part of our lives now and they are here to stay.
Who is to say the pictures of your pet, the last meal you had or that new haircut selfie would have been the same without a dozen hashtags? Here’s to hashtags and all that they’ve done for our virtual selves.
Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist group in the United States of America and Anonymous is a self-proclaimed “hacktivist” group. How are the two even connected? Well, recent reports tell us that Anonymous hacked into KKK’s Twitter account and have furthermore vowed to release the names of about one thousand Ku Klux Klan members.
This is not the first time that Anonymous has taken upon itself the responsibility to reveal the names of members of a secret group or society. Earlier in May 2015, they had named around nine thousand two hundred members of the ISIS terrorist group, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo case.
This time, they will reveal the KKK names on the day of Operation KKK’s one-year anniversary. The act is seen as a declaration of cyber-war against the Klan following the grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer Darren Wilson for the death of a black-american boy named Michael Brown in Missouri, USA.
To give you a background, back in November 2014, the KKK had distributed fliers threatening violence against the hacktivists, warning them that they had “awakened a sleeping giant”. This was followed by Anonymous taking over the KKK’s Twitter account in response to the threat. The account remains under Anonymous’ control till date and they have further sent all Klan affiliated sites with DDoS, that is, distributed denial of service attacks. Anonymous is calling this anti-Klux movement Operation KKK and has even changed the logo of the society’s Twitter account to their own.
The transparency of the web obviously has its positives and negatives, however, the web can also be a very dark place to be in. Hacktivists like Anonymous are using the transparency of this ‘cyber age’ and is using it to bring to the fore various social and political issues. As of now, it seems like a good move, but how long do you think it will be until both parties start facing repercussions?
With the festive season just around the corner, and companies all over are offering all sorts of Diwali offers, Xiaomi too has taken to social media to tease a sale. The company put up Twitter updates on its Indian handle which read as follows:
The hashtags and the numbers all hint at a Diwali sale between 3rd to 5th November. The sale could include discounts and attractive offers across e-commerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart as well as on mi.com itself. Discounts and free gifts were already available on Xiaomi devices, along with exchange offers, last month.
The company has been hinting at sales and exciting offers for two days now. It is only natural for us to speculate about these social media updates. Diwali this year might indeed turn out to be brighter than always.
If you think you’re whiling your life away on social media instead of working on those childhood plans of taking over the world -here’s some comforting news for you -the current leaders of the world are actually doing pretty much the same thing. They have just made it a means to an end -taking to social media platforms in a bid to connect to their supporters. Here’s a quick list at what politicians all over the world have been up to.
1. David Cameron:
David Cameron is by far the most interesting name in terms of the recent bloopers made by politicians online. The British Prime Minister keeps his followers entertained as well as the world of internet stocked with memes thanks to his poorly judged selfie timing and interesting typos.
It's unacceptable there's a loophole allowing paedophile "training manuals", that's why I want to protect children by making them illegal.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is how children were banned and made illegal in England last year. And you thought beef was the issue.
2. Xi Jinping:
You know something is just not right when a country bans Facebook (along with Google and Twitter), yet the president chooses to join the social media platform to share posts from his meeting with the American President, Barack Obama. This is precisely what happened in China last month. President Jinping posted updates from his meeting with Obama on his Facebook page.
This was later followed by updates about a meeting with, ironically enough, Mark Zuckerberg. However, disappointingly enough, the page doesn’t have any selfies of the Chinese president.
3. Angela Merkel:
German Chancellor has already made attempts to tackle racist posts on Facebook, by raising her voice against them through her Facebook page. Merkel also maintains an Instagram blog called Bundeskanzlerin
Angela Merkel with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Once again, however, the blog has no images of selfies or German sunsets. The blog is an impersonal account of Merkel’s professional travels and projects. No wonder Merkel hasn’t been as entertaining as the British Prime Minister with her social media updates. Yet.
4. Barack Obama:
Barack Obama is one of the most widely followed political leaders on social media. With 64.9 million Twitter followers,44.9 million supporters on Facebook and millions of views on his YouTube channel, Obama has successfully managed incorporate social media in his political campaigns and strategies. Right from the beginning of his campaign, Obama always outdid his opponents like John McCain and Michel Romney in terms of popularity on social media.
Even though his sites are run by his campaign staff, personal Tweets are signed “bo” by him. After all, which other political leader mentions details like the Godfather movies as favourites or enjoying spending time with family on their Facebook page? Obama has definitely managed to make his followers feel like they are all participants in the same conversation.
5. Narendra Modi:
“This is the first election where social media has assumed an important role and the importance of this medium will only increase in the years to come. It became a direct means of information and gave us the much-needed local pulse.”
Narendra Modi had made the statement in a blog post right before the election results. As he became the Indian Prime Minister, his victory message became one of the most retweeted posts on social media in the country.
The Indian Prime Minister is quite popular on social media, similar to his American counterpart, Barack Obama. Modi currently has over 30 million Facebook followers and about 15.5 million followers on Twitter.
If leaders like Churchill and Wilson from the previous century were still around, they would definitely have interesting things to say about contemporary political trends. As more and more politicians struggle to become tech savvy, it is fun, often hilarious, to watch them grapple with selfie sticks and front cameras.
Just when you thought it was all about austere dressing and MPs falling asleep in the Parliament, social media happened to change the face of national and international politics forever -but for better or worse? Perhaps only time will tell.
After having recorded lowest rate of progress in the number of new users since its inception in 2013, Twitter is looking at re-structuring itself and work on new growth-oriented strategies. One of these involve firing a whole bunch of engineers from the company this week.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter
The new CEO and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey is laying off people throughout the company. New York times speculates that this decision can be put into action as early as 13th October to improve a “bloated” engineering team. Though multiple sources have mentioned these imminent layoffs, Twitter has refused to comment on it.
Over the last couple of months, the number of people appointed to Twitter and the new users to the social media platform has presented a skewed ratio, emphasising the need of a different modus operandi. This news comes in the wake of rumours suggesting that the expansion of San Francisco headquarters of the company are already being curbed and frozen in an attempt to cut costs.
In the past, Twitter has shied away from revealing the total number of its users, but that in no way means it’s not in the same league as platforms like Facebook and Instagram. At the same time, the company also has millions of ‘dark pool’ users -people who signed up for Twitter but now their accounts are inactive for various reasons.
Only time will tell if this new alleged strategy will help the social media website increase its influence in the virtual world.
Twitter is finally moving past the 140-character limit that has long been the company’s trademark. Twitter recently announced that it is working on a product that will allow users to share long tweets that exceed 140 characters.
Over the past few months, the company has been loosening its 140-character rule. In April, Twitter added a ‘retweet with comment’ option to give more room to comment on tweets they share. The company also did away with the 140-character rule back in June.
As of now it is unclear what this new product will look like or how it will work. There are existing apps such as OneShot that allows you to post images of texts, or TwitLonger, which directs users to a website to read a full tweet. But it looks like Twitter is working on one that will solve the problem within the app itself.
Twitter is also looking at ways to remove links and user handles from the count so that frees up more characters.
In addition to the long-form product, execs have been openly discussing the idea of tweaking how Twitter measures its 140-character limit by removing things like links and user handles from the count, multiple sources say. In the past, Twitter has tinkered with the limit in other ways. Twitter Cards are still beholden to the 140-character limit but are intended to help people (and advertisers) share lots of information, and Twitter added a “retweet with comment” option in April to give people more room to comment on tweets they share.
Users have, for a long time, criticized Twitter on character restriction. And for many years Twitter has paid no heed to the hate, but it finally looks like the company is ready to make some sacrifices for the greater good.
Facebook-owned Instagram hit the 400 million mark today. The photo-sharing sharing app posted a celebratory picture and stated that the 400 million strong user base has about 75 percent living outside the US.
“Among the last 100 million to join, more than half live in Europe and Asia. The countries that added the most Instagrammers include Brazil, Japan and Indonesia”
The new 100 million users helped Instagram race ahead of twitter, which is currently at 316 million active monthly users. Facebook is surely reaping from the benefits from buying Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 now that Instagram has also taken to advertising. Research firm eMarketer estimated that Instagram’s ad revenue will reach about $1.5 billion in 2016 and $2.8 billion in 2017. Instagram has credited Facebook for the rise in users.
The recent option that allows for portrait and landscape photos along with your standard square pictures has received positive response from existing users and has surely played an integral part to rope in more people. Instagram also made changes to its Direct messages page last month which now allows threaded messages. Pictures can be sent privately without having to start a new thread every time.
Instagram poses as a strong competitor to Twitter. Both social media platforms are slowly delving into territories that are blurring the differences between them. Twitter had announced recently that it plans to hand-curate live event coverage in a project called Lightning. However, Instagram already launched new live events features in its Explore page back in June. While Twitter is turning more visual, Instagram is focusing more on events.
Despite some major improvements, Instagram is far from perfect. The main feed has not seen any improvement for a long time now. The main feed show pictures that are too big to navigate properly. An overview of popular pictures that you missed would be ideal. None of these constraints, however, have come in the way of Instagram reaching 400 million followers.
