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.
One of the main things we do around TweetReports is listen. After all, we’re a brand monitoring service so if there’s one thing we should be able to do, it’s use our ears. And one of the biggest features we’ve heard Twitter users request is the ability to search within their followers and people they’re following.
We’ve not only heard you, but incorporated that Twitter search feature into TweetReports.
Now, with just a few clicks you can search and follow updates posted by your followers, people you’re following, or both. So watch the video to see how our In-Network (search within) feature works.
The “forced follow” bug discovered on Twitter earlier this week gives us yet another way to gauge which Tweeters are the most popular.
For those who didn’t see the exploit, the bug allowed a user to force another Twitterer to follow his or her account, just by tweeting “accept [username]” (i.e. “accept HuffPostTech”).
Word of the glitch spread quickly over Twitter, and users rapidly began exploiting the bug to force others to follow them (although Twitter later undid any of the forced follows).
Data from the auto-follow glitch reveals whom users were most eager to have follow them and offers another way to measure who are the most popular people on Twitter.
Rowfeeder has compiled data to create a graphic showing which Twitter users received the most “accept” requests (see the chart here).
Check out the top 20 Tweeters who received the most “forced follows” in the list below.
Interestingly, @BarackObama got just a quarter of the requests @Oprah garnered, and was out-ranked by @JustinBieber, @LadyGaGa, and @PerezHilton, among others
Twitter users had a big shock on Monday when they checked into the micro-blogging service. Their follower and following numbers were at 0, meaning they were suddenly very unpopular or something was seriously wrong with the site.
It was the latter, of course. To kill a bug that allowed a user to force other users to follow him or her, Twitter temporarily reset all follower/following counts to zero, according to the Twitter Status blog. Everything was back to normal by 11 a.m. Pacific.
“We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to “force” other users to follow them. We’re now working to rollback all abuse of the bug that took place,” the company said.
The glitch didn’t cause protected (private) updates to become public, according to Twitter, which did not report the number of users impacted by the bug.
According to tech blog Gizmodo, the security hole allowed users to get any fellow Tweeter–even famous folk with “Verified Accounts”–to follow them.
Using Twitter’s web interface, you could have tweeted “accept conanobrien” (that’s Gizmodo’s example, but any username would have worked), waited a few moments, and then checked your list of followers.
Voilà! Another fan of your clever 140-character observations. Well, that is, until Twitter killed the bug.
Are you having hundreds and thousands of followers and you don’t know how many of them follow you back? Here is the solution: Sign in with your credentials and let the application do the rest. Enjoy!
For the first time ever, Season Nine of American Idol allowed each of the Top 24 semifinalists to run his or her own Twitter and Facebook page. But on Wednesday, that all came to an end. On each singer’s Twitter account is a message, posted March 3, that reads: “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official AI9 Twitter Page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants.” Likewise, each contestant’s Facebook account will soon be consolidated into one AI9 Contestants fan page. A spokesperson for Fox confirmed to EW that each singer’s individual account would be disappearing in the near future.
So what happened? According to a source close to the show, the switch to group accounts was made because it was impossible to disable the feature on Facebook and Twitter that showed how many “fans” or “followers” each contestant had. And in case you were wondering, Andrew Garcia was way out in front when it came to Twitter “followers.” At last count, he had 12,511 people following his tweets. Only time will tell whether that statistic means anything.
TORONTO – The Ontario Provincial Police force is the latest police agency to join the social media movement by opening a Twitter account.
Police forces in several Canadian cities, including Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, along with the RCMP, have Twitter accounts. The Ontario force says its account (at www.twitter.com/OPP-News) will include news releases and other messages.
Some Canadian police forces have already used social network sites to help catch suspects.
Many have used YouTube to show crime scene surveillance tapes or to broadcast appeals to suspects to turn themselves in.
Last summer, Toronto police reportedly used Twitter to monitor chatter from Tamil protesters who shut down a major highway.
A U.S. social media consultant visited Canada last year to teach police how to make better use of social networking sites to fight crime, including setting up fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter to track sexual predators and gang members.
Lauri Stevens told the CBC during her visit that police “make connections that way (and) get inside that world, and go from there.”
Microsoft founder and philanthropist-at-large Bill Gates has joined Twitter (@billgates) and is rapidly gaining followers. And after ditching Facebook because “it was way too much trouble”, Gates is back on Facebook with a new page. Microsoft
Gates’ first Twitter update used the classic programmers opener “Hello world” before he tweeted a series of tweets on the crisis in Haiti. He then praised American TV host Ryan Seacrest and responded to Twitter obsessive Ashton Kutcher.
Doubt that it’s really Bill Gates tapping out tweets? Twitter has verified the account and Twitter employee Caroline Mizumoto (@caroline) has also confirmed that it’s really the Microsoft man. Oddly, Gates is currently using the web interface.
Gates’ return to Facebook has also been confirmed as the real deal. So far he’s shared links to his charitable foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and rather tediously, Microsoft.com. His shared photos include albums from trips to Africa and India.
You can follow Bill Gates on Twitter now and sign up to his Facebook page, just don’t expect him to send you an @reply or be interested in playing Mafia Wars…
This list was archived from mfinch.ca and it was last updated on April the 3rd 2009, for sure the followers and the updates have increased significantly but, it’s a good idea to check the top 60 Canadian twitter users
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters[verification needed] in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and feedalizr. The service is free to use over the web, but using SMS may incur phone services provider fees.
Microsoft
