Twitter

Twitter Revitalizes URL Shortener Market

URL shorteners used to be a very minor thing regarding the internet but Twitter has changed that. With URLs often longer than the allowed message length these previously niche type services gained a new importance. So much so that Google have thrown their hat in the ring. After all they have a hat in every other ring so why should this one be any different.

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Twitter $25m for Live Search

Apparently Twitter made $25 million dollars from it’s live search deals with Microsoft and Google, $10m and $15 respectively. It is not known whether these are one off or ongoing payments. If they are one offs, Twitter could probably use some better negotiators.

More here but would recommend against taking to much notice of the headline, Twitter is Already Profitable. I think that there is no doubt that Twitter will be profitable but at this exact moment in time, probably not.

According to Bloomberg, the microblogging service will make a small profit this year off of $25 million in revenue, thanks to the search deals it completed with Google and Microsoft, which were reportedly worth $15 and $10 million, respectively. Those deals pay Twitter for access to tweets that are in turn included in real-time search results on each property.

Free Twitter button graphics

An excellent source of free Twitter graphics

Twitter Integrated with Google Friend Connect

Google Friend Connect hooking up with Twitter

Twitter users can now sign in to web sites that have Google Friend Connect using their Twitter IDs.

I must admit I am not 100% sold on the Google Friend idea, not sure what it adds to a site other than the ever ubiquitous Google name but I may well be missing the point. Anyway it can now be accessed with a Twitter account.

New Version of Tweetdeck Released

Tweetdeck is simply the best Twitter client their is, well it just got better:

Double avatars for RTs, a worthy attempt to mitigate the Twitter stupidity of changing the workings of the retweet by building it into the app.

Incorporation of lists.

Some geo type stuff

and lots more no doubt.

I haven’t downloaded it yet and as soon as I do I will post a review.

Streamreaders just keep getting better and better. A new version of TweetDeck is rolling out today with some major improvements, including support for Lists, Retweets, maps for geo-tagged messages, and LinkedIn streams. TweetDeck has already been downloaded more than 10 million times, and its active user base is in the low millions so this is a significant update.

Techcrunch

Twitter Most Popular Word

Twitter is now the most popular word in the English language. Last years winner was ‘Change’ due to the presidential campaign of one then Senator Obama. Not sure if this is a good trend, from a word associated to probably the most momentous event in US history to ‘got up ate breakfast, Monday sucks’.

The Global Language Monitor, which tracks language trends, has once again compiled and released its yearly list of the most popular words and phrases within the English language. In 2008, the #1 most popular word was “change” (referring to the mantra of the top name of 2008, Barack Obama). However, Obama has been supplanted this year by the 140 character sensation that is Twitter

Mashable

Amazing.

More about Twitter charges

Techcrunch has a piece on the Twitter charging users in Japan story. They argue that it could work for the following reasons:

Japan has a mobile Twitter client and mobile is bigger than fixed in Japan.

Japanese users are used to paying for content.

Japan is used to and has good take up of the pay for a premium service model.

More can be said with fewer characters in Japanese and Chinese than with our own alphabet.

Japanese much more interested in Celebrity. (Hard to imagine but true)

Twitter use is growing in Japan – flattening out elsewhere.

I must admit that this looks more like three reasons than six to me; scale, celebrity and de facto longer tweets.

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Twitter charges in Japan

This from Tech Radar

An announcement this week from one of the investors in Twitter has managed to surprise the usually unflappable Web 2.0 crowd by revealing that the company will begin charging for some services in January next year.

This is happening in Japan initially.
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