Erictric

Twitter to Organize Search Results Based on Popularity

According to a post on the Twitter API Announcements Google Group by Twitter Developer Taylor Singletary, Twitter Search team is currently testing a new project that will organized tweets in search results based on popularity. The most popular tweets will be displayed after a query instead of the most recent. Singletary points out that the project is still in beta stage. The fact that the announcement was made on the API group suggests that even third-party applications will include this feature.

At this point, it’s not certain how the popularity of tweets will be measured. Additionally, it’s not entirely clear how this will affect the real-time results, given that new tweets will not even be displayed after a search considering that they are not popular from the moment they are posted.

While kudos go to Twitter for trying to improve its service, we believe this might not be a fair thing for users with only a handful of followers. Although, we still have much more to learn about this new project. We will come back and update once we learn new information.

Twitter Introduces New @Anywhere Platform

Twitter CEO Evan Williams introduced yesterday in keynote at SXSW [South by Southwest] in Austin, Texas a new platform called “@anywhere,” which will allow various websites across the Internet to better integrate the Twitter experience into their sites. Unlike most Twitter applications, which use the service’s API, @Anywhere will allow website owners to just enter a few lines of Javascript.

While details are still a bit cloudy at this moment, the new service is in essence similar to Facebook Connect. @anywhere will allow users visiting participating websites to follow new people, tweet, and even discover new Twitter accounts without leaving the page they are viewing. More »

Twitter Down For Some and Plagued By Performance Issues

Another day, another outage. If you’re noticing that you’re unable to access the Twitter website, or noting that performance on the website is extremely flaky — you’re most certainly not the only one.

Twitter users across the globe are receiving a message noting that “Something is technically wrong.” Right — as if Twitter-addicts didn’t already know this.

A quick glance at the Twitter status page only makes mention to the fact that some users of the micro-blogging service are having issues with “frozen timelines.”

We should note that the issues are only affected the Twitter website. Third-party services using the Twitter API are not affected, so far as we can tell.

Tell us — are you having issues with Twitter this fine Sunday? Jump past the break and leave a comment!

[ image via TechCrunch ]

Google Introduces New Extension Gallery for Google Wave

Google has started rolling out a new Extension Gallery specifically for Google Wave. The announcement was made this morning on the official Google Wave Developer Blog. This is great news for devoted Google Wave users, who will now have the chance to install new useful extensions to their account created by developers using the Google Wave API. The new Extension Gallery can be found in the Navigation panel on Google Wave.

There’s already around 15 different Extensions that users can take advantage of now, including:

• Wave Sudoku - Users can play this game in real-time with their contacts.
• Yellow Highlighter - Allows you to highlight text.
• Napkin Gadget - A blank canvas for collaborative doodling.
• Trippy  – Allows users to plan trips. More »

Facebook Launching Location-Sharing Feature Next Month

According to a report this morning by The New York Times, anonymous sources say that Facebook is expected to roll out a new location-sharing feature as soon as next month at its annual f8 developer conference. Rumors of such addition have been running around for a quite a while now, but it’s until the past few months that they have taken off.

The tipsters say that the service will be divided in two different features. The first will allow Facebook users to share their location with their friends using the website itself. The second will provide Facebook’s API to third-party developers, like Foursquare and Gowalla. This will allow developers to offer their location services to Facebook users.

One of the clues that Facebook might be introducing a new location-sharing feature is the fact that the social networking site amended its Privacy Policy last year in November to include the following bit: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.” More »

Twitter Grants Startups Full Access to Data Feed of All Public Tweets

Twitter announced today on its official blog that it is granting a handful of new search startups partners full access to all its data feed of public tweets — something they call “the firehose.” Up until now, only big renowned search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have been able to take advantage to the fullest of Twitter’s Firehose of data. The other 50,000 application already utilizing Twitter’s Streaming API have been set different limits as to how much they can take.

Now, smaller search startups including Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye, and Chainn Search, which is yet to launch, have all gained full access to Twitter’s Firehose. It’s not really clear though, if these startups will have to pay like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to make use of said data. More »

Microsoft Releases Silverlight 4 in Beta for Developers

Microsoft recently released Silverlight 4 in beta at the Professional Developers Conference [PDC] in Los Angeles, California. The beta is currently available for developers only.

Microsoft Silverlight 4 will be full of new features, including:

• More fluid animations
• Webcam, microphone, and printing support
• Start times up to 200% faster than Silverlight 3
• Deep zoom and multi-touch support
• Google Chrome support [Yes, finally!]

Microsoft has put Silverlight 4 in direct competition with Adobe AIR 2.0 with its ability to take rich-media applications that fully support HTML and web integration outside the browser. Silverlight 4 will also support notifications. More »

YouTube Upload Promotes Citizen Journalism With YouTube Direct

Traditionally, when users have some sort of citizen journalist report to share with the world, or with the news agency of their preference — they turn to YouTube. YouTube however requires that users go to YouTube.com, upload, specify the video description, and embed.

Today — YouTube announces YouTube Direct. YouTube direct will essentially allow news agencies (as an example) to unleash the upload functionality of YouTube directly on their own website. According to YouTube, this will allow said news agencies to “request, review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videos with ease.”

Visual learners — here’s the video:

More »

Twitter: Finally, Deleted Tweets Are Gone For Good

Up until now, when a tweet was deleted on Twitter, it would not be gone forever. Deleted Tweets could still be found by searching for someone’s username on Twitter search, as those tweets would still be saved in Twitter’s Search Index. This was a major inconvenience for anyone who erroneously published something and wanted to get rid of it for good.

Fortunately, when you delete a tweet now, it will be immediately removed from Twitter’s Index and its search API. The latter meaning that not even third-party applications will be able to save those deleted tweets. Great news if you were looking for a little more privacy. Unfortunately, nothing on the Internet is ever 100% private and really gone forever, so you still have to be careful what you write.

Some assume Twitter finally corrected this issue because of the recent deals it struck with Microsoft’s Bing and Google to include tweets in their search results. As nobody would like to see one of their compromising “deleted” tweets atop of one of these search engines’ results page.

[ TechCrunch ]