Twitter Confirms Changes to What Users See in Their Timelines

Twitter just took another step to become more like Facebook.


Several days ago, we noticed that Twitter rolled out
an experiment to some users that began showing actions — like favorited
tweets — on the main Twitter timeline. (Earlier this month, it
experimented with showing tweets
from accounts users didn't follow.) At the time, it appeared this
feature was just a test, since it hadn't been universally deployed to
all users.

See also: How to Tame Twitter's Annoying Mobile Notifications

Now, Twitter has updated some key language on its help page that indicates a permanent change, as Quartz pointed out.


Twitter has updated the definition of "What's a Twitter timeline?" with a new bullet point:

Additionally, when we identify a Tweet, an account to
follow, or other content that's popular or relevant, we may add it to
your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts
you don't follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals,
including how popular it is and how people in your network are
interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more
relevant and interesting.

A version of the help page stored in Google Cache reads:

Note: You may see content from accounts
you do not follow, such as promoted Tweets, Retweets from accounts you
follow, or content that may be relevant to you. Read more about promoted
Tweets here, and Retweets here.

The key phrasing in the old text is "content that may be relevant to
you." The new paragraph is a more explicit explanation of something
Twitter previously displayed; the company is now more clearly defining
what that "relevant content" is.


Even if the change is mostly in explanation, it's yet another sign
that Twitter, as a company, is doing more of what it can to increase
user engagement and become more similar to Facebook.


It still isn't clear how or when Twitter will implement these kinds
of changes, and it makes sense that the company is still experimenting
with how it will show additional tweets to users and determine what
works.


Still, it's hard to argue that this isn't a fundamental change to the core Twitter service.

Until now, Twitter has always been a place where you could rely on seeing only what you wanted to see

Until now, Twitter has always been a place where you could
rely on seeing only what you wanted to see, retweets and sponsored
tweets aside.
Moving to a model where the timeline becomes more encumbered with
"relevant content" makes the service a lot more like Facebook and its
News Feed.


The open question is whether or not Twitter, a service which exists
with much more immediacy and ephemerality than Facebook, will work with
those additional signals in place.


While showcasing relevant, breaking news and timely tweets to users
in the appropriate context could be a smart move, that doesn't
immediately mitigate concerns users may have over what they do and don't
want to see in their timelines.


As Facebook has proven time and again, backlash against a major
change doesn't typically result in a loss of users. Most eventually just
get used to it.


Still, Twitter needs to think carefully about how it rolls out these changes. Unlike Facebook, having a Twitter account isn't a de facto
social network requirement. In general, leaving Facebook — or choosing
to use it less — is making much more of a social statement than leaving
Twitter.


In its rush to add users and ramp up engagement, it's crucial that
Twitter not change too much too quickly, or else its users might decide
to spend time elsewhere.


Representatives for Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

7 Examples of What Happens When Your Twitter Account is Hacked

It’s always a worry that you’ll tweet from the company account and realise you’ve spelt something wrong or left a word out.

But what happens to those unfortunate businesses who have their entire account hijacked – often with disastrous consequences.

It might be funny for us bystanders, but for the company who’s just announced something they shouldn’t have – it’s less of a laughing matter.

This is sometimes due to an unhappy ex-employee or you have annoyed a customer and they are out for revenge.

So what are the consequences when your Twitter account is hacked or hijacked?

Here are 7 examples both humorous and serious.

#1. HMV

HMV’s demise at the hands of iTunes and music piracy was a sore point among many devout music-shop lovers, and even more so within its staff. When the company went into administration, the closure of many shops around the UK followed, which naturally included a wave of redundancies.

In a passive-aggressive display against this, HMV’s Twitter feed filled up with the #hmvXFactorFiring – a blow by blow account of the firings going on at their head office.

Higher echelons of the company swiftly resumed control, and the rebellious tweets were deleted – but not before they got the last word (and the last few tweets): “Under usual circumstances, we’d never do such a thing as this. However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined, and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make HMV great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice.”

After the mysterious tweeter was dispatched, HMV tweeted an attempt at damage control, clarifying that there had been redundancies – just not in the stores, and adopted both the revolt’s hashtag, #hmvXFactorFiring, as well as their own, #savehmv.

#2. PayPal

One of the world’s largest online payment merchants came under attack from an unhappy customer, who used the business’ Twitter account to complain about its service. Considering that PayPal holds over 100 million credit card accounts, the company were quick to announce that it was only Twitter that got hacked, and nothing with personal details.

The hacker angrily tweeted about PayPal freezing their account, and linked out to paypalsucks.com, an anti-PayPal site that seeks to expose the “nightmare of doing business ‘the PayPal way’.”

While the offending tweeter is still unknown, the company had a large amount of cover-up to do when they resumed control over the account.

#3. Burger King

The fast-food giants were hacked by someone with less of a grudge and more of a sense of humour. Their Twitter icon was switched to McDonalds’ golden arches, and it was ‘revealed’ that the company had been bought out by their rivals.

Burger King’s Twitter feed became inundated with tweets referring to drugs, American rappers, and McDonalds. The social media team managed to gain control fairly quickly, and the following day revelled in the attention they got: “Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we’re back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!”

Luckily for the burger giants, the disaster turned into a social media success, and gained them over 60,000 followers.

#4. Jeep

The iconic car manufacturers were hit in a similar way by hackers. With a theme like Burger King’s attack, the Twitter account announced that “We got sold to @Cadillac because we caught our employees doing these in the bathroom”, accompanied by a picture of a bottle of painkillers.

Following the takeover tweet was various links to hip-hop sites and rappers. The social media team were quick to delete the offending tweets, and put the issue to bed. They handled the entire incident with a great attitude – evidently highlighted by their tweet to Burger King, “.@BurgerKing Thanks BK. Let us know if you want to grab a burger and swap stories – we’ll drive.”

#5. Fox News

To the delight of many around the world, biased American news channel Fox, had their Twitter account hacked. Rumoured to be behind the tweets was the hacker collective, Anonymous.

The Fox News Politics accounts tweeted that President Obama had been shot in the head and killed, and Vice-president Joe Biden had taken over in his place.

In an interview with Think Magazine, a member of a similar group, Scriptkiddies, said that “Fox News was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting.”

#6. The Guardian

In a prolonged attack on media organisations, the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Guardian’s various Twitter accounts, including Guardian Stage, Guardian Film, Guardian Books, and Guardian Music.

The Guardian wasn’t the only major account to be hacked: the Financial Times, CBS News, BBC News and Associated Press took a hit as well.

The SEA are a group supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war.

Despite having the skills to hack into huge global institution’s accounts, their wit is slightly lacking, leaving the original, well thought out message, “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here”.

#7. Associated Press

While the Guardian got away lightly in their encounter with the Syrian Electronic Army, Associated Press weren’t as lucky: following the tweets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1% in several seconds, as investors panicked.

The SEA posted several tweets, announcing the bombing of the White House and the subsequent injuries to President Obama.

American news station CBS were also hacked, tweeting “Terror is striking the #USA and #Obama is Shamelessly in Bed with Al-Qaeda”.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/07/12/7-examples-of-what-happens-when-your-twitter-account-is-hacked/#MaG4DU3mcq3Urvyq.99 

What Happens to Social Media After a Twitter Revolution?

via mashable.com

Two years after the Arab Spring, questions still remain as to how much social media actually helped fuel and drive the uprisings that arose in Tunisia and swept across the region. But regardless of what happened during those Twitter-fueled revolutions, what's happened afterward?

That's what social media analytics firm Crimson Hexagon and Sanitas International wanted to find out when it decided to analyze tweets coming out of Egypt, Libya and even Syria, where there still is a war going on. The results of its 3-month study, which will be discussed in a panel at SXSW on Sunday, underscore the changes these countries are undergoing.

"Nobody has really talked about what happens when people put their flags away and go home," Christopher Harvin, co-founder and partner at Sanitas International, told Mashable.

Crimson Hexagon turned to Twitter and crafted specific keywords to analyze the tweets. That's how the authors of the study were able to have an idea about what the population of these countries we're talking about online, according to Elizabeth Breese, an analyst at Crimson Hexagon.

The main discovery of the study is that after the uprisings brought down decades-old regimes, "citizens in Egypt and Libya use social media to talk about revolution and state-building in two distinct registers: instrumental and interpretative," the study's abstract says.

In Egypt, that means that citizens are both expressing their opinions and views of the current political atmosphere and talking about the new institutions and how to build a new government. Spanning from February 2011 to June 2012, the study analyzed around 12 million tweets in Arabic and more than one million in English. The results underline how the population shifted its focus from looking back and reflecting on the revolution, to looking forward and focusing on new state institutions and the elections.

Before the election period, from February 2011 until November of the same year, 54% of the tweets analyzed were "reflections on the revolution." After that, and until mid-January 2012, only 26% of tweets were about the uprising, and the rest were about the elections and state institutions. From February until June, tweets about revolutionary activities dropped to 10%, according to the study abstract.

The picture in Libya is significantly different, according to the data. After the death of Gaddafi, in October 2011 and until December of the same year, depending on the language of the tweets, the people were talking about different things. In English more tweets were about military clashes, while in Arabic most of the conversations were about state-building.

Most interestingly, Libyan people seemed to struggle to move on more than Egyptians. Even months after Gaddafi's death, more than one-third of of conversation in both languages were about "the punishment and fate of Gaddafi's family," and "the crimes of the Gaddafi era," according to the abstract.

Sanitas and Crimson Hexagon decided to analyze tweets from Syria too, even though the country is still at war. Unsurprisingly, most tweets (more than 60% in both Arabic and English) in Syria are about war clashes, violence and coping with death. Perhaps unexpectedly, only 7% of tweets in English and 4% in Arabic criticize the U.N. and call for international intervention.

Obama Has 13 Million Fake Twitter Followers

 

 

President Obama has nearly 19 million Twitter followers, but 70%, or approximately 13 million of them, are fake, according to a new analysis.

Mitt Romney’s Twitter account, meanwhile, has less than 900,000 followers, but only 15% of them, or about 135,000, are fakes.

The numbers come from Fake Follower Check, a tool from social media firm StatusPeople that analyzes any Twitter account’s followers and checks for telltale signs of fake followers.

“Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers,” Rob Waller, founder of StatusPeople, told the New York Times in a story about buying and selling Twitter followers. “We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake.”

Analysis of other popular Twitter accounts done using StatusPeople’s tools seems to indicate that the more popular a Twitter account is, the more likely it is that the account will have fake followers — possibly thanks to the work of Internet spammers.

 

SEE ALSO: Facebook Has 44% Fake Followers; Twitter Has 33%

 

Fake Twitter followers can be purchased on dozens of websites offering the service for as little as $0.01 per follower. They are sometimes bought by Twitter account managers to give the illusion that a particular brand has more social reach than it actually does.

A sudden spike in Romney’s follower count last month caused speculation that someone was buying fake followers for the account. Both the Romney campaign and the Obama campaign have denied buying Twitter followers. Twitter could not be reached for comment on the matter.

Are you surprised that Obama might have so many fake followers?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, EdStock

via mashable.com