Twitter passwords are just too easy to crack. But according to Wired, the platform is finally getting its act together and working on a sorely-needed two-step authentication system.
We’ve even taken an inside look at the flourishing black market for hacked Twitter accounts, and it’s clear that much of this activity is being controlled by inexperienced hackers who are willing to compromise and takeover an account for less than $100, in most cases.
From renowned blogs and magazines to the seasoned professionals and rising stars, Twitter plays host to a multitude of web industry related accounts. So many in fact that at times it can be difficult to figure out where to get started. This is why we’ve put together a list of 30 must-follow Twitter accounts for web designers.
Following these accounts will be sure to keep you up to date with the latest industry news and resources as well as linking you with a group of super talented individuals who openly share their knowledge, thoughts, and ideas on a daily basis.
Twitter put months of speculation to rest this morning when it launched its own music-focused service for iOS and the Web. Twitter #Music is a standalone app for discovering, following and listening to artists that draws its intelligence from Twitter's own user activity data. At first glance, it's a win for artists, but the value it adds for fans remains to be seen.
First and foremost, Twitter #Music is undoubtedly good for Twitter. The app takes something that is hugely popular among consumers — music — and intimately ties it to its own service. It also integrates with Spotify and Rdio so tracks can be streamed in their entirety from within Twitter #Music. That feature, the company is betting, will keep listeners glued to the app, where much of what they do is tied to Twitter's core functionality: tweeting songs and following artists.
Is Twitter moving on to bigger and better things? Maybe louder, more musical ventures? That's what it sounds like as the seven-year-old San Francisco micro blogging site confirmed Thursday that sometime last year it had acquired We Are Hunted, a music discovery service.
Twitter acquired the music discovery service We Are Hunted last year and is using its technology to build a standalone music app, CNET has learned.
The app, to be called Twitter Music, could be released on iOS by the end of this month, according to a person familiar with the matter. Twitter Music suggests artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and is personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud.
Twitter Music, which is set to arrive in the wake of key competitor Facebook overhauling the music section of its News Feed, shows Twitter taking new steps into becoming a full-fledged media company. The app acknowledges the key role music has played in drawing new users to the service -- particularly younger, mainstream users. Pop stars have some of Twitter's most popular accounts, with followings in the tens of millions. The TwitterMusic account has 2.3 million followers -- not a bad perch from which to launch an eponymous app...
Late last week, AllThingsD reported hearing that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was close to launching a new mobile startup called Jelly. Stone confirmed Monday that he is working full time on the startup, but says that it won't be launching anytime soon.
"News of Jelly emerged unexpectedly early so I’ll wait a bit to share more about the team," Stone said in a blog post on the Jelly website. "In the meantime, I’ll say this. Jelly will be for everybody, it will be developed first and foremost for mobile devices, and it will be free. But, it won’t be ready for a while."
Twitter has posted a video to commemorate seven years since Jack Dorsey made the first ever tweet. The video features several crucial moments in the history of the service like the first use of retweets and hashtags, the first tweet from space, and a shout-out to new video service Vine.
Other moments include events that shook the world both on Twitter and beyond, such as the Japanese tsunami, the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt, and President Obama getting the most retweets ever upon his re-election. In a blog post to accompany the video, Twitter notes the recent milestone of reaching 200 million active users — an increase of 60 million over the past year — and says that more than 400 million tweets are sent every day.
Facebook is reportedly working on incorporating the hashtag into the social network.
A Twitter staple, the Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook has plans to bring the hashtag to its service, offering users the ability to index conversations around a particular topic, just as they currently do on Twitter. Sources ”familiar with the matter” told the Journal that while Facebook is working on the feature, it wouldn’t necessarily be released anytime soon.
It seems like everybody just cannot get enough of Twitter Bootstrap. The popular open source framework is developed around HTML5 and CSS3 techniques for constructing websites. You may include a series of alternate JavaScript files for advanced widgets like accordions, dropdown navigations, fixed content, and many others. But where should you start designing?
I have put together a large showcase of 40 different websites built on the Twitter Bootstrap framework. Some of the sites are only using the CSS resets, while others have included the full JS library. This will be a good place to start if you are looking for Bootstrap design inspiration.
Twitter has announced that it will be discontinuing several TweetDeck apps in favor of the web client. The Android, iPhone, and Air-based desktop clients will all be affected; the apps will be removed from their stores in early May, and stop functioning soon after. Facebook integration will also be removed.
The apps rely on version 1.0 of Twitter's API, which has just been superseded by 1.1, and as such the company warns that performance may be sporadic until it finally stops offering the products altogether. No mention is made of the newer desktop clients — while development will focus on web apps, there hasn't yet been an API 1.1 update.
In a blog post, the TweetDeck team says that in order to "offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we're going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck."
Twitter is a is a treasure trove of knowledge with jewels spilling out at the seams. Even universities and colleges are getting in on the act.
The only problem is, mixed amid the genuine pearls are plenty of fakes. On top of that, one person’s rock is another’s diamond. What’s useful to me may be useless for you.
As a freelancer, you can use Twitter to discover the needs of potential clients, spark up new ideas for a dusty old project, see what others are saying about you and your work, and train yourself in new skills. (You can also use it to find clients and job opportunities. I explain how here).
But unless you know where to find what’s relevant to you, Twitter can seem like a big waste of time.
In this article, I show you how to use Twitter as a powerful research tool to give you the edge you need as a freelancer.
Following technology news via Twitter can get dry and boring pretty easily.
Thankfully there's a cadre of people working to mix it up with funny tweets about tech (or something else entirely).
Our hats are off to these hilarious folks deriving comedy from the weird world of technology.
You can follow them all at once by following this Twitter list here...
Twitter has already gone through a few of revisions on its web interface, no doubt about it, each of the version is more robust and effective in term of usability and user friendliness. However, not everyone like it, most of us would adapt to its new interface, some would go to extra miles to actually draft out and made his own design hopefully, yes hopefully Twitter would listen.
Followed by our previous post on revamping facebook new interface design, now we have an extremely detailed Twitter redesign mockup. Designed by Zsolt Hutvagner, a web and UI designer from Budapest. Instead of Twitter tradisional one column view, Zsolt uses the famous pinterest dynamic grid with a touch of Microsoft Metro flat design.
Twitter is expected to file for an initial public offering in late 2013 or early 2014. That much is widely known. Less attention has been paid to whether Twitter will make a normal IPO filing or if, as new rules allow, the company will try to go public in secret.
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed into US law last year, lets firms with less than $1 billion in annual revenue keep their IPO filings confidential up until three weeks before they start marketing shares to investors in a “road show.” It was largely proposed and pushed by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, who said it would stem a decline in US IPOs by reducing the burdens of going public felt by smaller firms. Ordinarily, a company has to make public a lengthy discussion of its financials, strategy, and risks months before an IPO, giving investors—and competitors—more of a chance to evaluate the stock.
In the first nine months since the JOBS Act went into effect, 59% of eligible companies availed themselves of the option to keep their IPO filings secret, according to an Ernst & Young study reported today by the Wall Street Journal. Twitter is likely to be eligible: It made $350 million in revenue last year, and it’s not expected to hit $1 billion until 2014.
t's 2013. Social media is no longer new. It's a mature medium, one that has been woven into the fabric of consumer life online. So why are brands still determined to act like naive tourists, blundering around a foreign land and upsetting the natives? It's time to take back control.
Brands have been lectured for the last few years on the need to let go of the vice-like grip on their brand, to hand over control to their customers in social media. And it's true that social media has ushered in a new age of transparency, where customers want a far greater stake in any brand they interact with.
But this doesn't mean you can shrug your shoulders and simply launch your brand unguided onto a social network. In fact, it's your responsibility to guide your customers' social experience. And that means welcoming them back to your home online.
Now that you’ve set up your Twitter account, it’s time you got some followers.
Followers are great for two reasons:
Followers provide social proof. The more followers you have, the more people will assume you’re good at what you do. Every follower is like a micro-testimonial. Think about it: if you were hiring a freelancer, would you first check out the freelancer with 10,000 Twitter followers or 10 followers? The more followers you have, the quicker you gain the trust of potential clients.
Followers help to spread your message. When you want to use Twitter to promote your blog, business or services, the more followers you have, the bigger your reach.
In previous articles, I’ve covered the basics of what it takes to grow your Twitter following. First, you must complete your Twitter profile. This includes a biography targeted at your ideal followers, and a smiling picture of your face. In your biography, give people a reason to follow you. Make sure you mention what you’ll be tweeting about. Second, write top quality tweets that are valuable and relevant to your audience.
Before taking a look at some more advanced tactics for growing your following, let’s consider what your mindset needs to be to become a Twitter authority with a tribe of loyal followers.
Twitter has been hacked. If you have a Twitter account (and who doesn't these days), it's probably a good idea to make sure everything is in order and/or reset your password with something strong. Twitter says that approximately 250,000 users may have been affected by the hack, with the hackers gaining access to usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted version of passwords. Not good.
Twitter discovered "unusual access patterns" this past week that led it to identify unauthorized access attempts to Twitter accounts. They shut one live attack down but discovered that around 250,000 users may have been compromised. Twitter says...
Opinions, experiences, current geographic location and ability to find hilarious links are what set one tweeter apart from the next. The platform itself evolved from a simple ‘status update’ tool to a flourishing ecosystem of people interacting, sharing and discovering.
As with any ecosystem there are those on top and those at the bottom. The higher you are the more active followers and influence you’ll have. This is a fairly useless observation for those who use Twitter to find news and check up on friends. But for people who use Twitter to interact with a community, market their product or service or research a segment of people, analyzing a Twitter account is a top priority.
Vine, in case you missed it, is a standalone iOS app from Twitter that lets users create short, 6-second videos that run on a loop.
Users record by holding their thumb against the screen, and stop by releasing. The short clips can then be threaded together and shared on Vine itself, Twitter or even Facebook.
Here’s how a silly video-sharing app (which has been done before, by the way) makes Twitter a stronger social network.
