TwitsMag Canada

WASHINGTON — Twitter wants to help you build your network.

The micro-blogging service began rolling out a new feature Friday called “Suggestions for You” which directs users to other Twitter accounts they may find interesting.

“With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests,” Twitter said on its official blog.

“The trouble is finding all of them,” it said. “Today we’re beginning to roll out a simple, but powerful new feature to help address that.”

Twitter said the “Suggestions for You” algorithms find other accounts of potential interest using various factors, including “people you follow and the people they follow.”

A Twitter user who clicks on the “Who to Follow” link on the Twitter homepage sees a list of suggested accounts to follow.

Twitter, which combines the strengths of blogs and instant messaging services, enables users to send and receive short messages of up to 140 characters on personal computers and mobile devices.

Twitter said it planned to make the suggestions feature available to developers of desktop and mobile applications for Twitter.

Social network Facebook already offers a similar feature called “People You May Know” which suggests possible new friends to members.

Article Source: AFP

Article Source: AFP

The year has not yet ended but Microsoft says “Twitter” was among the top searches of 2009 on its new search engine Bing and a company which monitors language has crowned it the top word of the year.

Microsoft, in a blog post late Sunday, said “Michael Jackson,” “Twitter and “Swine Flu” were the top three search topics of the year on Bing.

Others making the list of top 10 Bing searches were “Stock Market,” “Farrah Fawcett,” the actress who died in June, “Patrick Swayze,” the actor who died in September, and “Jaycee Dugard,” the California girl kidnapped at the age of 11 who turned up alive 18 years later.

Microsoft said it had analyzed billions of search queries to come up with the list.

Global Language Monitor (GLM), a Texas-based company which analyzes and tracks language trends, said meanwhile that “Twitter” was the “Top Word of 2009.”

“In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the after effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words,” said GLM president Paul Payack.

Other top words on the GLM list included “Obama,” “Stimulus,” “Vampire” and “Deficit.”

GLM said it uses a “proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet” to compile its rankings.

It said words are tracked in relation to “frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets, factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum and velocity.”

by AFP         Source: Goole Hosted News

WASHINGTON — A self-described anarchist who used Twitter to help protestors evade police during the G20 summit is facing charges in a case that has drawn the attention of online freedom and civil liberties groups.

Elliot Madison, 41, was arrested in a Pittsburgh motel room on September 24 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a follow-up raid on his New York apartment on Thursday.

According to the police complaint obtained by the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation and posted online on Tuesday, Madison and another man were in the motel room when police arrived.

“Both were observed seated in front of personal computers and telecommunications equipment, wearing headphones and microphones, with various maps, contact numbers and police and (emergency) scanners,” the complaint said.

“It was further observed that they had been in communication with various protestors, and protest groups, both by use of cellular communications equipment and Internet-based communications, more commonly known as ‘Twitter,’” it said.

“The observed ‘Twitter’ communications were noted to be relevant to the direction of the movement of protestors, and protest groups, in order to avoid apprehension,” the complaint said.

Madison was hit with three charges including helping protestors “avoid apprehension after a lawful order to disperse.”

Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, condemned the arrest.

“I guess if you have 5,000 police officers and a quarter-million dollars in fancy equipment, you have to do something with it,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Might as well go after some amateur ham radio operators in a motel room.

“If the police want to communicate privately, there are certainly ways to do that, and police radios are not one of those,” Walczak said. “How can it be a crime? It’s not a secure communication.”

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.