The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘while-twitter’

Twitter’s U.S. traffic rose by a little over 100,000 visitors, to 19.37 million unique visitors from 19.24 million unique visitors in October. It’s no surprise that Twitter’s U.S. growth is stalling as the numbers have indicated this pattern for some time. At least the microblogging network didn’t drop in visitors, as it did in October, declining by 8 percent in U.S. traffic.

While Twitter’s international growth also flattened in October, the microblogging network is still seeing considerable growth when it comes to year over year numbers. Twitter has grown over 1200% since November of 2008, when the microblogging network had only 1.5 million unique visitors.

But it’s important to note that these numbers don’t mean that Twitter as a service is becoming less popular. While the number of uniques to Twitter’s site isn’t growing, third part Twitter clients like Seesmic and Tweetdeck are growing like crazy. In October, CEO Evan Williams admitted to the stall in growth in the U.S. saying that many of the new features of the site could jumpstart growth in traffic, including the Retweet button, Lists, and Geolocation features.

But from the early numbers, it looks like these features haven’t really done much for Twitter’s traffic. And many of these features have been added to the third-party Twitter clients, which easily account for half of all Twitter usage. But the distance between Twitter and rival Facebook keeps growing, and if this trend continues, it looks like Twitter could be out of Facebook’s rear-view mirror completely, especially with the new Facebook feature to publish status updates to Twitter rolling out in the next week. On the other hand, maybe Facebook will help it reach a whole new audience segment.

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Google’s new realtime search wouldn’t be complete without Facebook updates. At the tail-end of today’s Google search event Marissa Mayer announced that Google will start to include realtime results from Facebook as well as MySpace. While Twitter and MySpace is making available everybody’s updates (or at least the public ones), Google right now will only show updates from public Facebook pages, which are generally fan pages.

“Facebook will be providing us with a feed of updates from public profile pages, also known as Facebook pages,” says Mayer. Facebook is still holding back publicly-designated updates from individuals (those visible to “everyone”). These individual updates make up the widest and most valuable part of Facebook’s stream.

Mayer would not discuss the financial terms of the deals with Facebook (or with Twitter or MySpace). But it is likely that Google is paying a hefty fee for this data. The amount it is paying probably depends on whether it is just ingesting the data or providing its realtime index of these status updates back to the underlying services. Facebook however is already indexing all Facebook status updates on its own, so it is not clear that it would want or need Google’s indexed data, and may be holding out for a more lucrative offer for the full fed of public updates. So today’s announcement may be just a first step for Facebook, with that more valuable set of updates open to future negotiations.

For Google, mastering realtime search is critical because it is one of the few areas where it is playing catch-up, and thus there is an opportunity for another search engine to steal the realtime show. In order to become the most comprehensive realtime search engine, Google must be able to index and display the most important sources of realtime data. Being able to dive deeper into Facebook’s stream will be necessary in order to do that.

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The evolution of Twitter clients have been speeding along. While Twitter is the fundamental platform that formed a base for many applications, such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, PeopleBrowsr and Sobees, these platforms soon looked to other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed for additional integration. And many have conquered all mediums, with desktop, web and mobile apps. In fact, the Twitter client race has gradually become a competition to be the first to launch useful and powerful apps that are chock full of features. Sobees, which has flown relatively under the radar, is one of the first clients to launch LinkedIn integration after the professional social network just released its API.

Sobees, which has a Windows native desktop app built in .NET and a web application built off of Microsoft Silverlight, integrates Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed and now LinkedIn. Sobees will pull in a full feed from LinkedIn including connections updates, status updates, applications updates, jobs posted, groups joined, recommendations and profiles changes. You can also post status updates from the client, maintain connections, search your LinkedIn stream, and view profiles of connections.

In addition to LinkedIn, Sobees previously added a Facebook full feed, with the inclusion of profiles, friends, events, two-way status updates and your Inbox; and MySpace activities, including status, top friends and comments, with the possibility to update your status. And Sobees supports multiple Twitter accounts, replies, retweets, spam reporting, blocking users, replies to all, updates to status, posting pictures, shortening urls, and spell check.

Sobees desktop offers Twitter lists but the web client does not include list functionality yet. And geolocation will be added to both versions of the clients soon. You can also search Twitter and Friendfeed and enable the client in English, French, German, Italian and soon Spanish.

And in its first venture in the mobile space, Sobees is launching a native Android Twitter client which has support for multiple Twitter accounts, Twitter search and most of the basic Twitter functionality. While the app doesn’t yet have geolocation or lists, Sobees will be adding these features in the near future. Sobees says that an iPhone app is in the pipeline as well.

The Twitter client space is crowded, but it seems that Sobees could make its mark with its various clients. Its Windows client is particularly compelling and will face competition from Seesmic’s recently launched Windows app. But Sobees’ clients, both web and desktops, already feature MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter functionality, making it the most all-inclusive offering on the market. Seesmic and TweetDeck both have mobile offerings which are more expansive but Sobees hopes to boost its Android app soon. So why have we not heard more about Sobees? deskNet, the startup that develops Sobees, is bootstrapped and the company’s founder, Francois Bochatay, says that it simply has not been doing an PR or marketing outreach.

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So, I’m a late riser most days (I like to go to bed late, real late). And today when I awoke, I thought it was a Vanilla Sky dream situation — but rather than Tom Cruise being the last person on Earth, I thought I was. You see, like most mornings, the first thing I check is Twitter. The problem this morning is that the most recent tweet was from 3 hours ago.

And that’s still the case. Twitter’s timeline has been frozen for hours sending users no new tweets. Most of its APIs are frozen, meaning apps like Tweetie aren’t working. Twitter is looking into it, but still seems to have no idea what is going on. But some smart users have figured out a workaround, sort of.

While Twitter may be frozen, you can still send tweets and the service receives them. And while no one can see them in the main stream, Twitter search is still working. So, if you happen to use a service like Brizzly with groups (which use the Search API), you can see your followers most recent tweets.

While Brizzly isn’t completely open to the public yet, plenty of users still have invites to give out so ask around.

Or if you don’t feel like going out of your way for a work around. As always, we recommend the list of 15 alternative things to do.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that situations like this has happened before, and back then it also backed up the service for several hours. But the difference now is that Twitter is several times the size of what it was back then in terms of both manpower and funding.

Update: It looks like FriendFeed is receiving a steady stream of updates as well. There are much less tweets than normal coming in, but that’s probably because everyone assumes Twitter is totally down.

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Earlier today, Valleywag ran a story about the U.S. government having access to Twitter’s “firehose” of data. The news apparently came from a source who presumably overheard a Twitter employee talking about it at lunch. To categorize that as “flimsy” would be an understatement. And so it should come as a shock to no one that Twitter is denying the allegations.

“Your characterization of this as bullshit is perfect. You could also go with laughable, libelous, and absolutely untrue,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote to us in an email this evening. I had asked if the news was “BS” and if Stone cared to comment about it on the record. Obviously, he did.

And obviously, he’s pissed off. And he should be if there’s no truth to this whatsoever. Valleywag has since updated the post with a quote from Twitter denying the allegations.

Here’s the core of what Valleywag wrote:

Whoever is seeding the restaurant gossip is being fairly specific. A source tells us that a loose-lipped Twitter staffer recently dished at a lunch that the company has allowed a federal agency to set up a tap to monitor a “firehose” of its data, including private details on users, presumably including private “direct messages,” IP addresses and account information. The Feds — the NSA would seem the most logical agency —then analyze the data to mine for information they deem of interest.

It is worth noting that Twitter did apparently talk to the U.S. government during the Iranian protests because the service was scheduled to have downtime that would have stopped the flow of communications. While Twitter did not deny talking with the government at that time, it was quick to note that it plays no role in its decision-making for the company. As Twitter is a fast growing communication platform being used around the world, obviously, that’s important.

[photo: Thewolfweb]

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Google Voice, previously called Grand Central, is rolling out the first mobile apps for the service this evening. The main function of the apps is to make it easier to use your Google Voice phone number by automatically routing outbound calls through Google and to the recipient. We first mentioned they were coming last month when we broke the news that Google would start letting users port their phone numbers over to the Voice product sometime this year.

Google Voice users get a phone number that should be the only number you give out to people. You route calls to mobile, home and other phones based on who’s calling and when. But there’s always been a nagging problem with the service - when you call out from your phones, people don’t see your Google Voice number on caller ID. They just see whatever phone number you are calling from. That means your friends have to store another phone number for you, or they don’t know who’s calling.

Google had the same issue with text messaging, but fixed that problem earlier this year by playing middle-man to those messages. Now they are doing something similar with voice calls via mobile apps. The applications make outbound calls to Google Voice, and those calls are then routed to the recipient, who sees the Google Voice number as the caller.

Two apps are being released tomorrow morning, for Blackberry and Android phones. The Android app is the most complete and takes over the native dialer, address book and call log. Users won’t be bothered with accidentally dialing numbers through the device phone number. The Blackberry app is less integrated, accessing only the native address book, and uses its own dialer. Users can’t simply go into the call log and return missed calls. They need to go back to the address book and select Google Voice to make the call. Still, it solves a big problem.

The apps also allow users to access the core features of Google Voice. Listen to/read voicemails and text messages (all voicemails are automatically transcribed as well), access call history, send SMS messages and place international calls at low rates.

Google Voice cofounder Craig Walker gave me a demo this afternoon of both apps, and told me that an iPhone version is in the works, too.

The apps can be downloaded at m.google.com/voice starting tomorrow (Wednesday).

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Xobni, a startup that looks to make your inbox a little less chaotic, is well known for walking away from an acquisition offer from Microsoft last year, not long after being publically complimented by Bill Gates. Since then the service has continued to grow, with over 2 million downloads in the last year and an avid user base. But until now, there’s been one big piece of the puzzle missing: a source of revenue. Tonight, Xobni is finally turning the cash-flow spigot to “On” with the release of a new upgrade to Xobni called Xobni Plus, which introduces a number of enhanced search features sure to be welcomed by Xobni faithful.

Xobni Plus has a heavy emphasis on improving search, which is one of the key components the service has always been based around. Users will now be able to craft more advanced search queries, using either a GUI-based ‘query builder’ or Xobni’s own markup language, which lets you manually specify attributes like “attachment=yes” or “from=Jason” (Gmail offers similar search features, and they are very handy once you’ve gotten a hang of them). Other improvements include Xobni’s autosuggest feature, which can use linked Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to pair Email address with full names, as well as the ability to search within your Xobni ‘feeds’ in the sidebar.

Xobni may be calling this a ‘Plus’ version, but pretty much anyone who uses the service with any frequency is probably going to want to upgrade (I’d be surprised if the company puts much effort into adding new features to the free version after this). Xobni is expecting fairly broad uptake by its users, so it’s pricing the upgrade at a modest one-time fee of $29.95. However, the company also has more task-specific “Pro” features in the works that will likely appeal to different segments of their userbase, and it sounds like these will be more expensive (a mobile-only premium product is also in the works, with plans to release it later this summer).

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Twitter has faced harsh criticism from celebrities, including Kanye West, about impersonators creating unauthorized accounts on their behalf. Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball franchise is suing Twitter claiming that someone is pretending to be him on the site.

Today, Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone responded to the lawsuit, adamantly stating that Twitter will not settle with La Russa, calling the lawsuit an “unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous.” Twitter, as it has done with other similar situations, suspended the account in question.

But in response to the problem of impersonators of brands and famous people, Twitter is giving us a sneak peak of an experimental feature they call “verified accounts.” Twitter says it will start rolling out the beta of this feature this summer for a small set of public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other celebs who run the risk of impersonation. Businesses will not be included in the initial beta testing of the verification seal. As you can see from the image, the account holder’s page will have a “verified account” official seal in its profile box.

Impersonation is a problem on the web in general. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler recently tried to sue a group of anonymous bloggers for pretending to be him, which proved to be futile. Facebook, like Twitter, is another platform where impersonators can create unauthorized pages on behalf of celebs and public figures.

Of course some Twitter impersonations can result in amicable situations. During the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN race to a million followers, it was revealed that CNN didn’t own the CNNbrk Twitter account. CNN ended up taking control of the CNNbrk account, under the agreement that the original account holder, James Cox, would act as a “social media consultant” to the network. While Twitter’s verification seal is still in an experimental phase, it seems like a step in the right direction.

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While Twitter is busy removing features, or half removing them, or whatever — FriendFeed continues its relentless pace at adding new ones. The latest one today is small, but potentially very, very useful. Basically, you can now get emails/IMs/pop-up notifications from any group or individual user on FriendFeed.

While it may not be so obvious at first, this is useful because you can custom tailor FriendFeed to use even when you’re not on the site. The way I’ve been using it for several months now is to create groups for people/things I’m particularly interested in. But that would still require that I go to FriendFeed to check those groups. Now I can just get pinged over IM every time something I’m looking for comes up.

My colleague Steve Gillmor should love this, because this allows you to basically track something without being actively engaged in the service. It doesn’t yet work for saved searches on FriendFeed — which would allow you to track any keyword, but you can imagine that will come soon as well. Track is a feature that Twitter used to have to ping people when a keyword was said. It had to discontinue the service when Twitter kept crashing last year as it grew it size. It’s still supposedly coming back one day, but it would seem FriendFeed, once again, may beat them to it.

And while tracking keywords is interesting, I’m actually more interested in people track — which is what this is. And since FriendFeed of course imports Twitter messages, this basically is a track of people on Twitter too. And if you really want to get fancy, you can just track when a user likes something on FriendFeed and have it ping you, or a number of other options.

And this doesn’t have to just be over IM. You can get these notifications over email or using FriendFeed’s AIR-based popup notifier. Slick.

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Looking at Twitter’s visitor growth charts every month is like watching a rocket go to the moon. ComScore released its U.S. numbers for April, 2009 today and it shows Twitter reaching 17 million unique visitors in the U.S. during the month, an 83 percent increase from March when Twitter had 9.3 million domestic visitors. While Twitter nearly doubled its audience in April, its monthly growth rate did temper down from the 131 percent growth in March.

Given Twitter’s rocket-like trajectory, it is appropriate that just about two hours ago we saw the first tweet from space. But it still has plenty of places to grow here at home. As it spreads into the mainstream, it is getting a boost from celebrities and TV. For instance, now Nightline is developing a new “Twittercast” show called NightTline which will incorporate viewer feedback via Twitter. If Twitter is experiencing a 60 percent abandonment rate every month, as Nielsen recently suggested, those people sure are being replaced at an awfully fast clip. Meanwhile, everyone and their mother is trying to get into real-time search, an area Twitter seems to have a lock on for now.

Visitors are spending on average 7.9 minutes a day on Twitter, which is twice as much as in December. Domestic pageviews are estimated at 428 million, up from 219 million last month. All of these numbers are just for visitors to Twitter’s Web site, and do not include mobile or desktop clients. They also include people who visit Twitter but don’t necessarily have an account (treat it as a proxy).

Global numbers haven’t come out yet from comScore, but in March it estimated Twitter’s global visitors at 19 million, which was about double the domestic number. So is Twitter worldwide now past 30 million? It could very well be.

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