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The Concept of Twitter

Dude, the concept is a few thousand years old, but not the site... posting events and inconsequential statements on walls by graffiti. such as, scratching in "I did my laundry" or "I baked a loaf of bread." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krashlia (talk • contribs) 03:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The article doesn't seem to be suggesting it to be some totally original idea. This is what the article says about the origin of Twitter: "While sitting in a park on a children’s slide and eating Mexican food, Jack Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group." SMS wasn't available 1000 years ago. Reach Out to the Truth 06:13, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Asynchronous follow

I expected the concept of Asynchronous follow/Asymmetric follow or Asynchronous follow model to be describe in this article. Is there any reason for this? Webhat (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, I included below text and references in the criticism section. This topic was covered on many other IT news sites too, slashdot and so on.

"In December 2010, several IT related news websites and blogs reported that twitter appeared to engage in censorship activities by impeding wikileaks related tweets from becoming trending topics, despite high numbers of tweets concerning wikileaks due to activities such as the United States diplomatic cables leak. [1] [2] [3]" lalalalalala thanks, Phil 94.216.65.78 (talk) 14:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

added source from washingtonpost.com 94.216.65.78 (talk) 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There's been news coverage about Occupy Wall Street's failure to trend, with the conclusion drawn that Twitter actively censored the hashtag (RT news story). I think this deserves a mention on the main page! Please also let me know if I'm doing something wrong, I'm brand new at editing.Onecallednick (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Twitter denied this in September after reports in the media.[1] Trends are about changes in the number of tweets posted, not the volume of tweets. Twitter says that it removes only "obscene" hashtags.[2] This is an area where the article could be expanded.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ranking

The ranking section cited growth of 1,382% per month, which would amount to 1.1x10^16 percent growth in one year (growth of 1,382% means the next month the figure is 14.82 times as high. 14.82^12 for 12 month growth is 1.1x10^14 times, or 1.1x10^16 as a percent)

This seems like such an obviously absurd number that I took the liberty of correcting it, using the accompanying figures given of growth from 475,000 to 7,000,000, which amounts to 25% growth, as 1.25^12 * 475,000 is just about 7,000,000.

I am not in general a wikipedia editor, so I don't have a login and I'm sure I am not updating this entirely properly. I see it is a protected page anyway so someone will have to look it over before it is published.


--- Oops, I should have just changed the 'monthly growth' to 'annual growth', since the 1,382% figure is then correct and the other figures cited later in the sentence for comparison are also annual figures. I checked the Facebook growth on http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/02/facebook-now-growing-by-over-700000-users-a-day-updated-engagement-stats/, and the 250% is indeed a reasonable annual growth rate for facebook in that period. So I changed the entry to 1,382% annual growth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.96.130 (talk) 08:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Larry Young —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.96.130 (talk) 06:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Make it easier to find Twitter usage article

The daughter article Twitter usage has information that a reader of the main article might well find valuable, but the daughter article isn't very prominent. It's linked once in passing in a sentence buried in the "History" section. Many readers would overlook it.

I'm not sure of the best way to deal with this. The general rule for "See also" listings is that they should not include articles linked in the text. Perhaps add a hatnote? or an additional link in the introductory section? JamesMLane t c 08:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hashtags

I suggest include http://tagdef.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.84.132.44 (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC) 

i suggest you get bent  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.220.73 (talk) 11:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Incorrectly marked?

"Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries per day"

This is marked as clarification needed. Pretty basic stuff - what needs clarifying? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.69.255 (talk) 18:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Change of Technology

Twitter does not use Ruby anymore, but Java (and the netty framework) instead to increase performance by factor 3: http://engineering.twitter.com/2011/04/twitter-search-is-now-3x-faster_1656.html

78.52.142.254 (talk) 09:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Noah Glass

He set up his account before Evan Williams.

Twitter’s Evan Williams Apologizes ... saying "It's true that @Noah never got enough credit for his early role at Twitter. Also, he came up with the name, which was brilliant."

--85.179.195.144 (talk) 10:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Noah Glass

Hi. An editor removed all mention of Noah Glass here on April 21. Evan Williams said Noah came up with the name. So kindly keep his name in this article, or explain why not. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Growth

Hello.

Some confusion in the article. Here's the start of the section on "Growth".

"The company experienced rapid growth. It had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007. This grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008."

The section goes on a bit like this in much the same vein.

But what the section is writing about is not the growth of the company. Rather, it's writing about the growth of the service.

Not the same thing, is it?

By the way, let's stick to plain English for the benefit of the readers. It should be "each quarter", not "per quarter". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.235.4 (talk) 20:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Expansion of the "Reception" Section

As it currently stands, the articles reception section sites a single review from 2006. Twitter has become a massive social media engine, commonly suggested throughout the sources to have up to 200 million users, and the reception section could cite some more critical responses. Either that, or the removal of the uninformative section completely, as it is incredibly lacking in information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.249.48 (talk) 07:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Archives

Are tweets archived forever on the Twitter website? in practice, I could not get past a few dozen pages of any twitter account (the siteseemed to block). Is it the case that there is a URL for any tweet, but it can not be retrived in practice? I think it's an important "feature" of twitter that is worth mentionning, where contrary to fora, you can not (easily) reach the last or first page of a thread. Lerichard (talk) 08:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Twitter and the law

Some people have been talking about Twitter boss Tony Wang's recent comment that Twitter would hand over details of users to the authorities as something new, when it is not. Twitter's terms of service make clear that users accept the jurisdiction of the State of California when they sign up for an account. Twitter is not a legal free-for-all, any more than Wikipedia is, and in the light of current controversies the article could say more on this issue.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Current Status: Down?

What is this supposed to mean? Twitter is not unavailable at the moment. Further, unless I am misunderstanding what this line is about, this doesn't seem to be encyclopedic data to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrazharLn (talk • contribs) 01:28, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed. This part of the infobox should not be filled in for routine technical problems.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 02:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, this is silly. Just because a site is down for a few hours doesn't mean folks have to rush to Wikipedia and edit the infobox of the article. Geez! You'd think people thought it was the end of the world or something. They do the same thing over at Fark when that site goes down, too. WTF? (talk) 02:38, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Recent reversions about the definition of "active" user

There has been a number of reversions regarding the definition of the term "active user" of Twitter. In the citation provided the term "active" is qualified and is used in scare quotes as "active", therefore it does not have the regular meaning of the dictionary definition as opposite of *inactive* or *unused*. Further I quote from the citation provided for the new definition:

But it turns out that Twitter doesn't actually count a user as "active" until they are following many more than 8 accounts.

and

That moment happens when users follow 30 accounts, and when one-third of the people they follow also follow them back.

So, how many such "active" Twitter users are there? Less than 21 million.

Our source's API data shows that there are 21 million accounts on Twitter following 32 or more accounts. Some subset of these accounts are also being followed by 10 accounts.

You will notice that the citation itself uses the adjective "active" in scare quotes. Further there are other such grades of "active" accounts described in the citation according to the number of followers of an account. There is also a graph included in the citation where it is mentioned that only half of Twitter accounts follow two or more people, 15% follow more than fifty etc. This makes the definition of *active* as proposed to be used in the infobox completely confusing and misleading. Therefore we cannot use this citation in the article because it is based on a non-standard definition of the term "active". The number of 200 million users supported by the BBC citation should remain in the infobox because it is better understood and less misleading. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 17:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

And another point: The field "Users" in the infobox is linked to Registered user which means that for the purposes of the infobox only the number of users who registered an account with Twitter is required and not any type of unclearly defined "active user". Dr.K. λogosπraxis 19:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Currently the page shows "500 million active users" which is just wrong. Follow the link from the referenced page and you'll see it's 500 *registered* users, not active. Would fix it myself but the page is protected. Anyone? 09:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.102.226.53 (talk)

I acknowledge the comment above, Twitter has 500 registered users and 140 million 'active' users which has been announced in march (http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter-turns-six.html) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DannyOosterveer (talk • contribs) 16:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Active user count for Twitter is currently at 140 million, as of March 2012, according to Twitter's blog here: http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter-turns-six.html Prufrock4 (talk) 20:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Fail Whale, Jesus...

Why isn't it explained? "Oh yeah, the Fail Whale is a picture of a whale being netted away by birds whenever the system is down...because...THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!!!" Why on God's green Earth would a complacent looking aquatic mammal being abducted from the sea indicate with any degree of appropriateness, the server's bandwidth being maxed out? It is so far beyond absurd it's scary. Legions of unemployed hipster d-bags LOVING the Fail Whale, sticking it on t-shirts, posters, worshipping this thing, and not a single one of them has the first clue what it represents. But they can all rattle off the wiki facts. "Oh Fail Whale is an illustration by Yiying Lu." Like anyone has ever heard of this person. Just drop the name like it's Picasso or Matisse. No dbags, when you mention a name that has absolutely no notability whatsoever, except for the very thing you're describing, you say "Fail Whale is an illustration by Yiying Lu, a graphic design student in Sidney with no prior professional experience." It's not like she'd done ANYTHING before she drew a whale. But more to the point, why to they worship something they can't even explain? Well done lemmings. Cutesy Asian graphical style, absurdism or irony, and ANY association with social media (because, YEAH, that's a GOOD thing!), and that's all it takes. My God I wish I lived in a time where I could actually be proud of my generation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.55.246.132 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive... According to three articles, the artist, Yiying Lu, uploaded the photo to iStockPhoto, a royalty-free art repository, in 2006. It was "found and licensed by Biz Stone" sometime in either 2006 or 2007. The image was originally titled "Lifting a Dreamer" and was created as a gift for the artist's friends overseas. The whale represented a birthday wish, and the birds were its messengers. The Fail Whale's prevalence in fashion may have originated at a Mashable event where Tom Limongello, an early Twitter user, debuted a Fail Whale t-shirt he made himself. Afterward, he made more and sent a box of them to Twitter's offices. I didn't find any information about why this particular image was chosen as an analogy for server failure since the articles mostly focused on the artist and the image's later popularity. The whale may represent the heavy load of the server and the birds could be Twitter trying to keep it afloat. OhSqueezy (talk) 15:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Add Twitter account of the U.S. broadcaster Fox News hacked ...

Add Twitter account of the U.S. broadcaster Fox News hacked, with a series of messages posted. (BBC) (AP via The Sydney Morning Herald) (CNN) 99.181.152.134 (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

There are some WP:NOTNEWS issues here, I'm not sure about adding this at the moment, what do others think? The main issue involved is site security.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:09, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

grammatical error

This page is semi protected so being anonymous I cannot correct the grammatical error in the last paragraph of the features section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.43.52 (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what is wrong?--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I have tweaked the paragraph that I think you are referring to. Barnabypage (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Twitter faster than radio or TV regarding the earthquake prediction

My addition about how Twitter users alerted other Twitter users -- with a reference -- was deleted on the grounds that radio or TV could have alerted people just as quickly. I disagree. They didn't. Radio and TV is as fast a medium as Twitter, possibly faster, in terms of transmission time. But the problem with mass media such as TV and radio is that they do not have tens of thousands of users spread over a diverse geographic area -- which Twitter does have. These people figured out what was going on and spread the message quickly. By the time a radio station figured out that an earthquake was happening, and then broadcast it, the seismic wave would have passed. Twitter beat radio to the punch on this one; users were alerted -- it's documented. This suggests that it is possible for a potential future Twitter application to alert thousands of people rather instantly if a similar earthquake happens (ie land-based, epicenter near to the surface). It could lessen the reaction time (giving people more precious seconds to exit structures e.g.). So what we have here is a well-documented case of earthquake prediction which may lead to an application or technology (IPad? Twitter? etc) which alerts people to more serious quakes, or to other hazards in which public reaction time is critical, and save lives. It's definitely not trivia.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

There is WP:NOTNEWS and WP:RECENTISM here. Any earthquake will pick up live TV and radio coverage very quickly, so comparisons with Twitter are not of major importance. Much of the argument above is WP:OR.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. Obviously Wikipedia is not a newspaper but I believe that this is not a fleeting event which will be forgotten in a year's time as per recentism. Further, the "original research" issue applies to the content we include in an article, not necessarily our reasons for including such information; for example, if the "no original research" rule could be applied to reasons, then I could as easily argue that removal of the content was an instance of "original research". And the content itself is clearly not original research but a valid account from a reliable source. Further, the story -- that Twitter reports of the earthquake before people felt the shaking -- this is a first in the area of earthquake prediction with obvious potential for future applications with life-saving implications. Can you provide any reliable sources which showed that radio or TV coverage reached people before they felt the seismic waves? There are documented reports with reliable sources indicating that Twitter did. This earthquake did little destruction or caused no deaths (as far as I know) but a potential future one in the world could have a huge impact, possibly saving the lives of the most precious creatures on Earth which are in my view are Wikipedians like us. Last, it's my personal policy not to keep reverting reverts, but it is my suggestion that you or others restore the deleted content, that's all.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
(moving the disputed section here for reference purposes:) When a substantial earthquake hit the east coast of the United States in August 2011, Twitter users near the quake's epicenter twitted about the earthquake to fellow users in places like New York, who read the reports of the earthquake before experiencing the shake of the waves themselves a few seconds later.<ref name=twsO27/> The speed of communication was faster than the earthquake's seismic waves.<ref name=twsO27>{{cite news |title= East Coast residents read about the D.C. earthquake before feeling it themselves. |publisher= ''Hollywood Reporter'' |quote= When a 5.9 earthquake hit near Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday, New York residents read about the quake on Twitter when, 30 seconds later, they felt the quake themselves. |date= Aug 23, 2011 |url= http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/earthquake-twitter-users-learned-tremors-226481 |accessdate= 2011-08-15 }}</ref>--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Amount of twitter users

Twitter announced in September that they hit the 100 million user mark. I guess this source is more trustworthy than the BBC interview which talk about 200 Million users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.110.183 (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The source above says "Our 100 million active users" which is a notable qualifier. This may mean that some accounts are inactive, e.g. many Facebook accounts have only a handful of posts. The BBC article is used as a cite in the article and gives a figure of "around 200 million users". If Twitter is taken at its word, this means that around half the accounts are inactive. Maybe the article should point this out.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
The BBC article makes no mention of the 380 Million figure quoted in the article and info box, only 200 Million is mentioned. HardCopy (talk) 12:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
This was adjusted to tally with the figure in the lead section. The figure of 380 million may have been a misunderstanding of the source here, which says: "Scientists at Indiana University collected the conversations of 1.7 million Twitter users over six months, a total of 380 million tweets".--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Criticism section

This article has a criticism section that is just a laundry list of complaints and a dumping ground for other information. In any case, notable praise and coverage of Twitter has been rather sidelined; the 2009 Iran election gets four words, Ryan Giggs two lines, and the Twitter Earthquake not at all. For comparison, Jon Stewart commenting about people tweeting during the SotU gets almost a paragraph. Does this really conform to UNDUE? Sceptre (talk) 14:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems some really important information is being left out of articles on Twitter. I've seen that paragraphs relating to the censorship by twitter of Wikileaks has been removed. I think this information is essential to give people the whole picture of what Twitter is about. Since there is an article about censorship OF twitter, perhaps there needs to be an article about censorship BY twitter, especially since the criticism section has been removed. I think a well-organized criticism section or area specifically dealing with Twitter's detractors is an important piece of the picture.Onecallednick (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Logo History

I think something should be mentioned about the history of the logo, especially the adoption of the blue bird. The original twitter logo was just a stylized "twitter". According to this article from the developers of one of the first twitter desktop clients: http://gedblog.com/2007/05/11/twitter-identity-transference-syndrome-twits/ the blue bird icon was an original concept of theirs which quickly became the standard style for twitter clients. Even the new twitter logo has adopted this. This is surely a great example of something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.53.218.74 (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Twitter and free speech

What Twitter has said is that it will hand over details of user accounts when required to do so by a court of law in California. None of the sourcing talks about other countries having less freedom of speech than the United States. This is personal commentary and analysis. Wikipedia has handed over details of user accounts in response to a court order, see Talk:Façonnable.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

If you actually read the sources, you will see that they have said that they will hand over details of user accounts to authorities, when instructed to do so by courts in less-free countries like Britain. The 'Mr. Monkey' situation was unique in that it involved something that might have been actual libel- rather than failing to pander to near-prehistoric laws set up to stop gentleman shooting each other- and that it was actually handled in California courts. Nevard (talk) 02:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
The Telegraph source and the others say that Twitter would do this when required to do so. Twitter's Terms of Service are clear on this issue: "These Terms and any action related thereto will be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to or application of its conflict of law provisions or your state or country of residence. All claims, legal proceedings or litigation arising in connection with the Services will be brought solely in San Francisco County, California, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum." In other words, Twitter would not hand over a UK user's details without an order made in a US court, which is what happened with Mr Monkey. As the BBC's correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones points out here, there is nothing unusual in US websites handing over data in response to court orders. Twitter's Terms of Service are designed to rule out the forum shopping that sometimes occurs in the London courts. Also, please find the part where any of the sources say that other countries are less free than the United States. This is pure WP:OR.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:01, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Asking for a citation for the fact that the UK lacks any protection for freedom of speech is kind of like asking for a citation that gravity tends to make stuff around the world fall downwards- but the Indy source is perfectly good for that. And I'm quite confused about what you're trying to claim based on the TOS- their compliance with California law does not prevent them from disclosing information to Chinese or UK government officials to aid persecutions, as they have clearly stated they will. Nevard (talk) 17:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Although I am not a lawyer, Twitter's TOS make it clear that only State of California Law is recognized by Twitter in disputes over user accounts (the Service). Twitter is not going to hand over customer account details in a way that would violate its own TOS. While it is disappointing that London has become one of the forum shopper's dream destinations, Twitter is smart enough not to play along with this. I still can't understand where you are getting the idea that Twitter would hand over its private data on the say so of a court in the UK, because "legally required" is based on what is set out in the TOS. Also, soapboxing about the shortcomings of UK law is beyond the scope of the article. The view of legal experts is that Twitter would reject any attempt to impose British privacy law on constitutional grounds.[3]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
How about actually reading the sources you have removed from the article. Twitter has clearly stated that they will comply with court orders from less-free countries like the UK, despite the fact they are not legally required to do so in their home jurisdiction. Nevard (talk) 19:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Gagging orders: Twitter prepared to hand over user data (The Daily Telegraph). This says ""legally required" to do so. Experts had previously assumed that people who breached gagging orders on Twitter were protected from legal reprisals because the website is outside the jurisdiction of British courts." There is nothing new here. This is what happened with Mr Monkey. No reference is made to the UK being less-free, which seems to be something of a personal hobby horse.
  • Twitter chief hints he may have to divulge users' names (The Independent). This refers to "illegal activity". A bomb threat etc is a criminal offence, while libel and privacy are covered by civil law. Tony Wang's statement on this issue was unclear, and the view of legal experts is that it is unlikely that Twitter would accede to requests that overrode First Amendment protected free speech. The Independent source is better suited to the article, but it would need to be balanced by the view of legal experts that the site might violate the US Constitution if it did this for speech that would be protected under US law. Tony Wang seems to have been making policy on the hoof when he said this, and it needs clarification. Quote from Jimmy Wales on this issue: "The US is going to be absolutely inflexible on this point. It is in the constitution," he said, referring to freedom of speech provisions".[4]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Where do your 'legal experts' come from again? I appreciate that you probably have even less idea of what the First Amendment actually protects than most Americans, many of whom seem to think it protects a 'right' to post comments on other people's blog posts, but despite a couple hundred years of its meaning being perverted, it still starts "Congress shall make no law...". It has nothing to do with what private individuals or media companies choose to disclose- apart from giving them some protection from government. Nevard (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Neither of us is in a position to say what Twitter would do. The sourcing says "Despite the public statement by a senior Twitter executive it remains unclear if the social-network forum will hand over the names of people who used it to identify Ryan Giggs for using a super-injunction to prevent the publication of his identity as the footballer alleged to have had an affair with Imogen Thomas, of Big Brother."[5]. The prevailing view of legal experts is summarized by Mark Stephens, who says "‘If you want to sue Twitter, you have to go to San Francisco,” he added, referring to the company’s headquarters in the US. ‘Any attempt to enforce English privacy or libel law will not be accepted in the USA."[6] Twitter would risk violating its own Terms of Service and US law if it handed over private data on the word of a non-US court.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 03:29, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I await the great citations that I'm sure you have for "Twitter would risk violating its own Terms of Service and US law if it handed over private data on the word of a non-US court." Or do you not have anything besides your knowledge as an internet lawyer that indicates that "Tony Wang, head of Twitter operations in Europe, suggested the social network would accede to a UK court order to divulge names" is in any way misrepresentative of what senior Twitter executives have said about their disregard for the privacy of their users in less free countries? Nevard (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I still await the great citations that you have for the statement that the UK is "less free" than the United States. There are clear differences between libel and privacy law in the US and the UK, which was one of the root causes of the Giggs controversy. The wording of the headline in The Independent, "Twitter chief hints he may have to divulge users' names" is accurate, and stops a good way short of saying that Twitter would hand over private data without an order in a US court. The words "hint" and "may" should not be translated into "Twitter will definitely do this".--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:49, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that would be the lack of freedom of speech where Britain used to be, as noted in the BBC article you added as a reference. Nevard (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
"Different libel and privacy laws" would be more accurate. As this BBC article points out, Americans were amazed by the Giggs brouhaha, which would be protected speech in the USA. There are more important parallels with Li Zhi (dissident), who was jailed in China after Yahoo allegedly handed over details of his account.[7] Yahoo was able to do this because it has a subsidiary in Hong Kong. Since Twitter is based in California, there was some surprise when Tony Wang suggested that it would comply with orders from non-US courts. It would be useful to clarify Twitter's position on this issue, but since Wang refused to comment directly on the Giggs case, the current sourcing is as good as it gets.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Are you seriously under the impression that Yahoo 'was able' to hand over information because they have a subsidiary in Hong Kong, rather than that they 'did hand information over', just as they would be free to do in the US, because they would be subject to subject to pressure from the occupational government of China if they did not do so? If so, why do you edit articles that have anything to do with the law? Nevard (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

This is wandering off topic. Li Zhi was jailed after a request made within Chinese jurisdiction. I am not going to speculate on how Twitter or Yahoo would react to an order from a foreign court.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:29, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I should hope not- it's entirely unnecessary, as they have indicated that they would comply with such an order. Nevard (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
The wording of the edit here is cautious and sticks closely to what the sourcing says (almost word for word, in fact). It is designed to avoid giving any sort of legal advice on what Twitter would do if it received an order from a foreign court to identify one of its users. The words "hint", "may" and "suggest" in The Independent cite combine to produce something a good deal less than a firm indicator of what would happen in this scenario. The received wisdom from the Mr Monkey case was that a court order in the US would be needed, but this was significantly altered by Tony Wang's statement. Some of the mainstream media sourcing on this issue is itself unclear. There is nothing altogether new in what Tony Wang said in May 2011, as Twitter's Privacy Policy already says: "Law and Harm: We may preserve or disclose your information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security or technical issues; or to protect Twitter's rights or property." What is harder to say (from the sourcing) is how Twitter would react to a direct order from a foreign court. This remains uncharted waters, unless further cases similar to Mr Monkey emerged and were reliably reported.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Are you seriously suggesting legal advice is involved here? Legal experts agree that Twitter is under no obligation to disclose information based on foreign court orders. Twitter executives have indicated that they would do so regardless. The 'Mr. Monkey' case is irrelevant, as it involved a California court order. Nevard (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Twitter executives have not indicated that they "would do so regardless". The Independent and Twitter's privacy policy both say that they may disclose user account information in response to a legal request. Right from the start here, there has been an attempt to make the sourcing say something that it does not actually say. The wording in the article sticks closely to what the sourcing says on this issue, to avoid any confusion or giving a misleading impression.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

potential United States presidential election, 2012 WSJ resource

It's Bijan Sabet not Binjan Sabet

"...and Binjan Sabet resigned from Twitter's Board of Directors." "...and Bijan Sabet resigned from Twitter's Board of Directors."

http://bijansabet.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.138.147.67 (talk) 07:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

New login page screenshot

Shouldn't we change the screenshot of Twitter to the new login page? Kjinho (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Twitter homepage.png in the infobox seems to be up to date.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm talking about the brand new login pages that came with the "fly Twitter". http://imgur.com/a/geyb9 Kjinho (talk) 18:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
http://fly.twitter.com/ was launched on 8 December 2011.[8] It is described as "the biggest shake-up of the site since its launch". Some more coverage here. At the moment, fly.twitter does not seem to be the default interface, but it is mentioned in the article.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I see, it isn't the default interface. Kjinho (talk) 02:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Although fly.twitter was launched in December 2011, PC users do not see it when they log in via twitter.com. It is unclear whether Twitter plans to make this the default interface for all users at some stage, or when this may happen. The blog post at the launch said "We’ll be rolling out the redesigned Twitter over the next few weeks".--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
That said, Twitter does seem to have changed the system for the login page. There appear to be three new versions (screenshot) and you get a different one each time. If everyone is seeing this, the screenshot in the infobox should be changed.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Subject?

Is this article about the website or the company? It seems to be about both. Why not split it? --69.169.167.47 (talk) 07:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It's about Twitter as an entity. The company and website are connected, so why should it be necessary to split the article? And, if we do, should we do the same for Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.?--Rollins83 (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

About what it is said Twiter is...

In the Wiki article it says that Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service. When you go to the twitter about page at no time does Twitter call itself a social networking service. Twitter says that it is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. That at the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information. Also according to this article http://www.inc.com/tech-blog/is-twitter-a-social-network.html on inc.com Kevin Thau, Twitter's Vice President of business and corporate development made the distinction during a presentation at Nokia World 2010. According to Thau, Twitter is not a social network. It's for news, content and information. The article does say it believes it meets the definition of a social network but Twitter says it is not. So I think for this article to be accurate it should go by what Twitter calls itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pirate497 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Can social media predict elections?

According to this article on page B1 of today’s usa Today, Newt Gingrich is the most followed (1.4 million) of the GOP candiadates on Twitter. Newt Gingrich has been viewed 304,466 times in the last 30 days on Wikipedia See: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Newt_Gingrich (please check my facts for mistakes, TIA) 71.231.62.26 (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

"Forecasting elections based on the Twittershphere is a tweet in progress" according to the article "Tweet study gets election wins half right" in today's USA Today page 2B.71.231.62.26 (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Some minor grammatical updates

Firstly, three changes to this sentence: "Verified accounts can be identified by a white check in a blue background, known as a verification badge". This should read "Verified accounts can be identified by a white tick on a blue background, known as a verified badge".

  • Twitter themselves call it a "verified badge". See About Verified Accounts
  • "Tick" is standard English whereas "check" is specific to North America. See Tick Mark
  • "on" is a more appropriate preposition; a tick can be "on a background" or "in a circle", but not "in a background"

Secondly, the word "less" occurs four times in this article. Three of these instances are incorrect uses of the word. One exists in a quotation therefore should be left as-is. The other two should be changed thus:

  • "Less than half of tweets" -> "Fewer than half of [all] tweets"
  • "Less than thirty-five years old" -> "Under thirty-five years old"

Love and kisses,

The grammar police. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hazymat (talk • contribs) 15:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing these errors out. I've fixed them. After you have made two more edeits, you will be able to edit the article yourself. Graham87 03:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Evolution of Twitter

Can the page be updated to mention the recent evolution of Twitter to Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu? Something like:

In March 2012, Twitter became available in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. The micro-blog services rolled out right-to-left languages versions of its site. About 13 000 volunteers helped with translating the menu options on the site.[4] AKhani84 (talk) 18:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Follow Friday

Currently Follow Friday is a redirect to the Twitter article, but there is nothing in the main article about Follow Friday. As I understand it Follow Friday is a thing whereby people suggest other Twitter users to follow, which is only supposed to happen on Fridays. Can this information be incorporated into the article? If not I would suggest that the redirect be deleted. --Viennese Waltz 10:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The idea behind #FollowFriday is explained here, but it is not particularly notable and as a result is not mentioned in this article. The redirect could probably be deleted to avoid confusion.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. I looked at the procedure for deleting redirects and it was so complicated that I thought don't bother, it's not doing any harm, it can stay there. --Viennese Waltz 12:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Headquarters

Twitter has announced it is moving its International Headquarters to Dublin, Ireland. This should be mentioned in the article. Twitter to set up international HQ in Dublin Barry McGuiness (talk) 12:09, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. The Dublin HQ seems to be in addition to, rather than a replacement of, the main headquarters in San Francisco. Twitter opened an office in Dublin in 2011.[9]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 12:17, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 26 April 2012

Update Use_and_social_impact to include summary of recent additions to Twitter usage#In_robotics involving use of Twitter for robotic machines.

Bgregson (talk) 20:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

To add new material like this, we need a reliable secondary source as a reference. Until then, it should not be added.--Nowa (talk) 21:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Update to include use of Twitter by automated robots

AFTER THE FOLLOWING:

Another use for Twitter may exist as an effective emergency communication system. It wasn’t intended or designed for high performance communication, but the idea that it could be used for emergency communication certainly was not lost on the originators, who knew that the service could have wide-reaching effects early on, when the San-Francisco, California-based company used it to communicate during earthquakes.[176]

INSERT SIMILAR TO THIS:

Similarly, robotic machines are being developed that use Twitter to communicate real-time information with human managers, engineers and/or other interested parties. Potential applications might include inventory control, health monitoring and environmental response.


Bgregson (talk) 20:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks interesting, but we need a reliable secondary reference, like a newspaper or magazine article, to support it. Until then, it should not be added.--Nowa (talk) 21:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

"@ links"

At http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/05/facebook-comment-limitations-are-a-spam-filter-not-censorship/ we find this text: "My comment included three @ links. That probably is what triggered the spam classification system." (This is in reference to a Facebook feature or bug.) I don't use Twitter. What are @ links? As far as I can see they are not mentioned in this article, or in Wikipedia at all (unless "@ links" just refers to the user-id designation in Twitter, and even in that case I don't see them described as links in this article.) -- Thanks -- Jo3sampl (talk) 00:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

@ links are used to mention a user, or to send the user a public message. It is similar in function to the @ in an e-mail address.[10] Recently Twitter has changed it system on spam, and is now likely to filter accounts if they post large numbers of @ links.[11] Some of this could be explained in the article.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 May 2012

Twitter is a great place for businesses to communicate with their customers in real-time and gain valuable insight from them. It's an easy way to be a part of a community and start your own community. It's also a great place to build relationships with customers, partners, and influencers online. [12]

SJL89 (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Not done, this reads like a PR handout rather than encyclopedic content. Many businesses have Twitter feeds, but the sourcing on this should be reliable and secondary, rather than the Twitter website.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Social and cultural uses

Re: this edit Twitter and amazon.com are not reliable sources and do not establish notability. This whole section reads like an irrelevant book plug.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Sources I cited include the Wall Street Journal and important critical journals such as 3:AM Magazine, and HTML Giant. Further sources include the blogs "The Millions" and "Brain Pickings" see a complete list of these sources below. I feel that it is important for the cultural and artistic uses of Twitter to be mentioned and I don't understand the aversion to including this brief mention of two examples.

Sources to establish notability for twitter's use in literature and cultural criticism, and particularly the notability of the two examples I offered:

Notability of Tupitsyn's "LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film": http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/twittering-machine/ http://htmlgiant.com/i-like-__-a-lot/thoughts-on-masha-tupitsyn%E2%80%99s-laconia-cultural-criticism-the-excesses-of-a-text-minimalist-critique-and-living-vicariously-through-film/ http://www.themillions.com/2012/01/fragmentary-writing-in-a-digital-age.html http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/26/laconia-masha-tupitsyn/

Notability of Moody's short story "Some Contemporary Characters": http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/12/01/rick-moodys-twitter-short-story-draws-long-list-of-complaints

--Alexweiser (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

There are serious sourcing issues here. Apart from the Wall Street Journal, virtually all of the sources are blogs or commercial websites. Let's look at the sources one by one:

The only decent source is the WSJ for Rick Moody's book. The rest of the sourcing seems to be dedicated to plugging an obscure book that has received no mainstream media coverage.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Twitter is blocked because of the Prophet Muhammad

Croatian writer Giancarlo Kravar: Pakistan has blocked the social network Twitter on its territory because of the "blasphemous" content. An employee of the National Telecommunications Office explained that this was done because Twitter posted "contest for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad." Islam, otherwise, prohibits any representation of the prophet!78.2.93.66 (talk) 05:24, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The most recent news is that Twitter is back again after a block of around twelve hours.[13] This is probably not notable enough for the article unless the block is ongoing.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Remove Alexa ranking

Since Alexa's traffic rankings are primarily based on usage of the Alexa toolbar and they acknowledge a number of biases. I propose that Alexa's rank be removed from this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dharris (talk • contribs) 19:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

It is standard practice for Wikipedia articles about websites to give the Alexa ranking, and the Template:Infobox dot-com company contains a field for the Alexa ranking. It would be unfair to remove the Alexa ranking for this article without doing it for the others as well.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some people have been uploading the new Twitter logo to Commons and overwriting the existing ones. This is a mistake, because it will foul up the article where the original logo is used as an illustration. Larry the Bird should be a separate upload from the old logo with the word "twitter".--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:23, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Academic research

Re: this edit. Wikipedia is not an academic research journal, and there is insufficient evidence of widespread notability for this research. Additionally, it has been added to Media multitasking [14] and Twitter usage [15] suggesting a possible conflict of interest.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with your edit. The removed material appears to be well sourced to reliable references. Even if the author of those references is the one making the edits to Wikipedia, it does not per se constitute a conflict of interest. I ask that you self revert.--Nowa (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
The material is rather long, and it could benefit some trimming. It is also a matter of concern that virtually the same material has been added to three different articles.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree that it could benefit from some trimming and we should make sure that it is appropriate for each of the articles.--Nowa (talk) 00:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I am new to editing Wikipedia. In my Master's thesis literature review, I researched the topics I wrote about and thought that I had good academic information to share. Do with it what you wish. Clearly, I need to learn more before jumping right in to editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rschnd (talk • contribs) 18:50, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you post a draft here? We can then work on it.--Nowa (talk) 19:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much Nowa that is very kind of you! Here is the original. Maybe I should not talk directly about Drs. Rankin and Junco and instead just place their information in the citation? Since then, my advisor has shared these papers with me that I think should be added: http://www.cblt.soton.ac.uk/multimedia/PDFsMM09/Can%20we%20use%20twitter%20for%20educational%20activities.pdf & http://www.cblt.soton.ac.uk/multimedia/PDFs10/micriblogs%20in%20higher%20education%20process%20orientated%20learning.pdf I also know that there is a lively chat called #edchat on Twitter where educators talk about using new technologies (sometimes Twitter) in their classrooms but I don't think there is a good citation for this. Do you think I should find a reference or definition for the "backchannel" idea?

There is already an article on backchannel in Wikipedia. A simple link is sufficient. Right now I would say that the draft section is too long. Can you cut it by 1/2? For this article, all you really need to say is that twitter is used in education via backchannel. One or two references would suffice. By the way, when you leave a comment on a talk page, you should sign it. The fourth icon from the left on the upper bar is a pencil with a script. That's the icon you use to sign. I've set apart your draft below as italic. Feel free to continue to edit. Can you get it below 80 words?--Nowa (talk) 02:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you and thanks for the signing tip. I have shortened the entry. What do you think? --Rschnd (talk) 16:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent!--Nowa (talk) 19:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thank you so much for your help. This has been a nice introduction to what is expected on Wikipedia. I went from not wanting to contribute anymore to seeing what else I can contribute to and for that I thank you! I have added this section under "Use and Social Impact" --Rschnd (talk) 13:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Twitter has been adopted as a communication and learning tool in educational settings mostly in colleges and universities. [5] [6] It has been used as a backchannel to promote student interactions, especially in large-lecture courses. [7] Research has found that using Twitter in college courses helps students communicate with each other and faculty, promotes informal learning, allows shy students a forum for increased participation, increases student engagement, and improves overall course grades. [8] [9] [10]

Twitter is NOT a social networking site

This is what Twitter VP says: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_is_not_a_social_network_says_twitter_exec.php I suggest to correct the initial phrase of this page to reflect what this company say of themselves... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.136.209.169 (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Fair use candidate from Commons: File:Twitter 2010 logo.svg

The file File:Twitter 2010 logo.svg, used on this page, has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons and re-uploaded at File:Twitter 2010 logo.svg. It should be reviewed to determine if it is compliant with this project's non-free content policy, or else should be deleted and removed from this page. Commons fair use upload bot (talk) 21:46, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Added image of WP's twitter page

I've added an image of WP's Twitter page. It is non-free (the layout is copyright Twitter) but because of the elements used to build up the customized look of the page are owned by WMF, the image is the least "non-free" (most free) we can make it. This is to provide an example of how Twitter looks when you are actually using it (the infobox example is woefully poor), such that for some articles on specific twitter accounts (eg Bieber) we do not have to use a non-free image of that twitter account there that will likely add additional non-free elements above/beyond what Twitter's layout/design elements contribute. --MASEM (t) 06:08, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

June 21, 2012 outage

Some of the media coverage made this look like a bigger outage than it was. For most websites, the incident would have passed largely unnoticed, but even an hour or two of downtime will pick up media coverage for a site as large as Twitter.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:54, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Wrong value in Foundation

Foundation in Infobox contains a "place"

It should contain { { Start date|YYYY|MM|DD } } based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_company — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shayanelhami (talk • contribs) 14:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The article uses Template:Infobox dot-com company. It is not possible to alter the fields without editing the template itself.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Are you sure? Because Template:Infobox dot-com company is just defining the structure and not the values. It seems to me that options of this infobox can be changed without affecting any other article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shayanelhami (talk • contribs) 14:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
YouTube uses the same template, and gives San Bruno as the location_city, and February 14, 2005 as the foundation date. Twitter was launched on July 15, 2006, although the basic idea had been around since March of that year.[16]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
That is exactly what I mean: in youtube's infobox, in front of "foundation" there is a date (which should be) but in twitter in front of "foundation" there is "San Francisco, California, U.S." which is not a date and therefore wrong Shayanelhami (talk) 15:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 Done: The infobox has been edited to be in line with the one in YouTube.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:37, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Twitter has been used to help with employment seeking

I heard on the Radio Four programme You and Yours today (August 30 2012) that some one who was unemployed set up a site on Twitter to help him find employment - and it worked. Does any one know anything about this? If so, it could go in the article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Country-blocked content

Twitter has begun blocking some results by country, starting with a neo-Nazi group in Germany yesterday [17] and anti-Semitic postings in France today.[18] It's getting enough coverage from reliable sources that it probably belongs in the main article (surely more than, say, Rick Moody's short story of Tweets), but I'm not sure where best to fit in the current layout. Any suggestions? Khazar2 (talk) 15:03, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The "Privacy and security" section mentions that the selective blocking feature was introduced on January 26, 2012. It has been back in the news today because of its use to block tweets in Germany and France. These are specific examples which could be added as citations.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Great. I'll add a bit there. Khazar2 (talk) 19:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: reducing clutter through list-defined references

Regarding [19]. Per Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Avoiding_clutter: "Inline references can significantly bloat the wikitext in the edit window and can be extremely difficult and confusing. There are three methods that avoid clutter in the edit window: list-defined references, short citations or parenthetical references. (As with other citation formats, articles should not undergo large scale conversion between formats without consensus to do so.)" I'd like to introduce list-defined references to this article, to make it more friendly to edit (less code -> closer to WYSWIWYG). Per the request of editor who reverted me and WP:CITEVAR recommendation I'd like to ask editors interested in this article for input which style they prefer, and strongly suggest following the "avoid clutter" recommendation. While LDR add a little code to the total size of the article, it amounts to only 10% or so of the total article size, so load time should not be significantly affected (nobody should notice a 10% change; also, section edit load time will shorter anyway...), and editing experience should become much friendlier. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

This is largely about personal preference. I prefer inline references to LDR as they are easier to find and edit, particularly if there are many references, as in this article. Also, the LDR added 19,203 characters of code to what is already a long article. The LDR system is top heavy on resources, and can increase page loading time.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I am not so sure if the non-LDR system makes anything easier. After all the ref name="abc"/ is common enough (I count many dozens in this article), and so already there are many sections here which do not have the full citation in them anyway; adding some more short cites and moving all full references to one place, where they are alphabetically organized, should make it more easy for editors to find the full ref. Currently they have to search for it or look for it, after LDR scheme is implemented, they can expect to find it in an alphabetical list in the bottom of the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 19:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
While I think it's impressive that you've "counted many dozens" in every article you've pasted that same exact wording on (which seems to be at least a dozen different talk pages), there is a difference between using a "ref name" and having that ref name used in an entirely different section. The existence of a ref name is not indicative of it being used in other sections of an article, and if that were the case, that would be the exception, not the rule. I don't think that because some editors might need to look outside of a section for a reference, we need to make it so that all editors have to look outside of a section for a reference. - SudoGhost 20:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Glad you like my counting efforts. This article has 7 or so short cites (all right, I guess I should have said about a dozen here), the discrepancy about where they are used and where the full cites begins in the lead, with the "NYT-Twitter Hacked" ref used there but fully defined only several sections below. I don't have time to waste on counting how many other instances of such a problem occur here, probably not too many in this instance, but it is a fact this article suffers from this problem. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 20:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
You don't want to waste time counting how many instances of something occurs, yet you'll gladly assert that you've counted dozens of them on dozens of articles. LDR is a horrible way to organize references, and you haven't really explained any good reason to format the references in this article this way. - SudoGhost 20:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


Common Twitter Uses and Hashtags

I would like to add a section called common twitter uses under the Use and Social Impact section of this page. The following is what I would like to include.
Aside from using Twitter to communicate with friends and meet people, Twitter can be used for a great deal of other things. The scope of it's use is limited practically by your own imagination. A list of some of the most common uses of Twitter include.

  • Getting advice and feedback
  • Promoting a business
  • Content sharing and discovery
  • Entertainment
  • Source of breaking news
  • Deal notifications
  • Taking notes
  • Marketing research
  • Finding help
  • Finding jobs


I would also like to add a section called Hashtags in the Features section of the Twitter page. The Following is what I would like to include.
Hashtags are one of the most complex features on Twitter for users to understand. A hashtag is basically words or phrases with a hash symbol (#) at the start of the word to identify what it is. Hashtags help spread information throughout Twitter. They are a favorite tool amongst Twitter users. When a Twitter user adds a hashtag to their topic in a tweet, it makes it easier to find that certain topic in a search. The more people that Hashtag a particular topic the more likely that topic with appear in Twitter's Trending Topics. Making use of Hashtags on Twitter is an easy way to track breaking news and current events going on around the world.

Luke L. and Tim W. are proposing these changes for a college class project that we are required to do.
--Llepper4 (talk) 00:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 10 December 2012

Twitter alexa rank 9 December 2012 Shahvr (talk) 06:38, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Done, User:OKBot is supposed to update this every month but nothing has happened since August.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:01, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The Pope is now a user

Should this article not point out that on December 12 2012, the Pope had his first ever use of Twitter? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

This is more on topic at Pope Benedict XVI, where it has been added to the article today.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

340 million tweets per day

Where is the number coming from? It doesn't seem to have a citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emschorsch (talk • contribs) 05:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Twitter said this in a blog post on 21 March 2012.[21] This was added to the article and replaced one of the dead links.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Grand Theft Auto 4

Is it worth mentioning in the article that twitter was parodied in GTA 4? There was a service called Bleeter where characters would refer to sending a 'bleet'. TheBigJagielka (talk) 01:38, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Questions About How it Functions

Hello everybody! Let this section be for questions about the function. My question is "How can we see tweets of a users sorted by date, the oldest being the first?" I tried scrolling down but I could exceed 5 days ago...any idea? I use mobile — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.91.1.234 (talk) 04:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

This page is for discussion of the article about Twitter, not Twitter itself - see the top of the page. Autarch (talk) 04:11, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

500 million Twitter users

Croatian writer Giancarlo Kravar: Twitter will according to The Next Web 23rd February have 500 million users, and there are currently 466,290,293. Impressive figure of 300 million Twitter was reached in May last year, and tripled when Apple introduced Twitter integration into its iOS. If you're interested in how Twitter has registered account information you can check on Twopcharts.93.137.42.210 (talk) 16:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

500M vs 175M active

The current text refers to 500M active users in the info box.

According to a followup to the cited article, the actual estimated active count is only 175M (over a 3 month period).

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/31/twitter-may-have-500m-users-but-only-170m-are-active-75-on-twitters-own-clients/

-- nyenyec ☎ 15:34, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Dalai Lama a bad example?

Under Verified accounts, the Dalai Lama is given as an example of a person who has a identity-verified Twitter account, but who does not tweet. However, that Twitter account seems to have 883 tweets, averaging at least one per week. Can we find a better example of a verified-but-not-used celebrity Twitter account? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avapoet (talk • contribs) 09:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The wording in the article was unclear and unsourced, so the Dalai Lama's name was removed. Without further knowledge, it would be unfair to imply that the Dalai Lama did not write the tweets himself. One of the best known verified accounts is @Pontifex, the official Twitter feed of the Pope, currently showing only one tweet, "HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM".--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 12:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

ITEC 444 changes

Some major changes we have seen over the past few months have been mainly with mobile changes. We have realized that Twitter for iPhones, droids, and other smart phone devices has become more efficient for everyone. For example, the application has recently stated that it is dropping support for TweetDeck mobile apps to focus on the web-based version of TweetDeck instead of Android or iPhone versions. (1) Twitter has released a new update for android devices. This new update makes it easier for users to connect with the content that they would like to read. Also, twitter launched an update for Windows phones completely redesigning the app. The features such as Home, Connect, Discover, and Me tabs are now accessible on the Windows application. Twitter has been updating its apps for many OS systems and now it has announced an app for FireFox OS. (2) Our team has found a few ways to improve the Twitter Wikipedia article. First, we could update the statistics for the most follower counts. Also, there is room for updates on the sections talking about the mobile applications. Team Pink has found many updates with the Windows and Android smart phones. Under the verified section, the Wikipedia page could add more content as to what types of accounts are eligible for verification and how to identify these types of accounts. (2) Under the formatting section, it is stated that tweets are set to 140-character limit, but Twitter announced that if you are posting URL tweets, they are limited to 117-character limits or 118-characters for https sites. Additionally to the proposed changes above, we have decided to propose that the Twitter Wikipedia page update the search section. Twitter added the ability to search for tweets that are older than a week. (4) Altogether we have been please with the Twitter Wikipedia page. We have just found a few things that may need to be updated as we have been watching Twitter over the past couple of months. We hope these suggestions will help anyone looking for information about Twitter.

Sources: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/50223/twitter-dropping-support-tweetdeck (1) http://mashable.com/2013/02/26/twitter-firefox-os/ (2) http://twitter.com (3) http://mashable.com/2013/02/20/twitter-tco-length/ (4)

Bwene (talk) 02:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC) Ktwatkins (talk) 23:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC) Snfelder (talk) 18:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Fail Whale is no longer a thing

I just noticed this today. When Twitter goes down, it shows a robot with a broken hand. 00:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spaxe85 (talk • contribs)

You'll need to cite this before we can make the change.  drewmunn  talk  06:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The robot is not new, and has been around since 2011.[22] It is unclear whether the fail whale has been axed. The whale was a common sight in the early days of Twitter, but system overloads and glitches are less common nowadays.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:06, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I've been thinking...

...and I couldn't come up with a coherent answer for a 10-year-old. And Wikipedia doesn't either, AFAICT. Ok, from the start. We were talking about those guys in space tweeting to people on earth, and out of the blue, she asked "but how does it work. Where do all the tweets go to and where are they stored?" IOW, she was asking how twitter actually works, and I couldn't tell her, because it's never been important to me.

Anyone else agree we need a very short paragraph in the article clearly stating the mechanics of it all. Moriori (talk) 20:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that every website on the planet would need basically the same explanation. I understand that it's a mystery to the uninitiated, so here's an explanation:
A person, connected to the Internet, logs into Twitter. Their computer, iPhone, iPad, or whatever device they're using remembers their username. They then write their tweet in something known as an input box in a form, and hit submit. A command is sent to the Twitter server, a central computer, that looks a bit like this:
Person with username XXX posted a tweet that says ABCDEFG at 19:37 on Friday 21 August 2012
The actual wording is different and uses a language that the computer uses a command. This instructs to computer where to store that information in a database, a massive collection of information which is laid out in tables. It'll be stored in the 'tweets' table, and record the tweet, who sent it, and when. As you can probably imagine, this database is huge. When somebody logs in who is following the original poster, the computer looks for all their tweets, and lays them out in order. This process is the same as Facebook, and all other social networks. If you fill in an order form on a website, it is stored in a database in the same way, but only the company can see what you've written about your order, and then they send you what you want. I use it for contact forms, surveys, and quizzes.
I hope this clears it up a bit. All that information is scattered around Wikipedia, but mostly written in a way that documents the specific procedures called using their technical names, rather than in an easy-to-find, plain English manner. drewmunn  talk  21:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. This talk page now basically explains how twitter works, but the article about twitter doesn't. Moriori (talk) 21:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
That's because we're not meant to be a guide, and the information would be very generic across every article regarding a website that uses database storage.  drewmunn  talk  05:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
But we are supposed to be an encyclopedia. The question was how does it work? -- not, how do I work it? An encyclopedia answers the first question, and a guide answers the second. Moriori (talk) 07:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The technics behind it would be a guide (on how it works, not an instructional one), and it would be seriously difficult to source the full and actual manner in which Twitter works. For something to be included, we need to cite sources, and there will be no sources on the exact steps taken by Twitter. There are authentication layers, and the commands and database structure are kept secret to ensure security. I know the mechanics of how a generic database writing/reading system works, and so I could write an explanation. However, it's far from an encyclopaedic account of how Twitter works.  drewmunn  talk  08:16, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ Twitter Appears to Censor Wikileaks-Related Trends osnews.com on 2010 12 06
  2. ^ Twitter May be Censoring Wikileaks osdir.com on 2010 12 06
  3. ^ Questions About Why Wikileaks Hasn’t Trended On Twitter studentactivism.net on 2010 12 05
  4. ^ BBC News (7 March 2012). "Twitter Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu version launch". BBC News.
  5. ^ Rankin, M. (2010). Some general comments on the “Twitter Experiment”
  6. ^ Grosseck & Holotescu (2008). Can we use Twitter for educational activities? Proceedings of the 4th International Scientific Conference: eLearning and Software forEducation, Bucharest, Romania.
  7. ^ Elavsky, CM, Mislan, C & Elavsky, S (2011). When talking less is more: exploring outcomes of Twitter usage in the large‐lecture hall. Learning, Media and Technology Volume 36, Issue 3.
  8. ^ Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132.
  9. ^ Junco, R., Elavsky, C. M., Heiberger, G. (2012). Putting Twitter to the test: assessing outcomes for student collaboration, engagement, and success. British Journal of Educational Technology. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01284.x
  10. ^ Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer (2010). Microblogs in Higher Education – A chance to facilitate informal and process-oriented learning? Computers & Education, 55, 92-100.
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