• Watch the GRAMMYs unfold on Twitter

    Friday, February 10, 2012

    This Sunday night the 54th annual GRAMMYs will air on CBS. As with so many other live events on TV, one of the best ways to experience the show is to follow the conversation on Twitter. When the show starts, use #GRAMMYs to see what the world is saying about the performances, the nominees and winners, who’s wearing what and lots more.

    We’ve teamed up with over 25 artists across several genres including pop, electronic and indie rock to bring you GRAMMY commentary you won’t see anywhere else. These “couch commentators” will be tweeting what they think about the show as we’re all watching. Check out the list and follow your favorites:

    @afinefrenzy, @greysonchance, @steveaoki, @st_vincent, @thewantedmusic, @michellebranch, @mrchrisrene, @piatoscano, @teganandsara, @haleyreinhart, @skylargrey, @karminmusic, @preciousweapons, @erichutchinson, @neontrees, @ChevelleInc, @theglitchmob, @jfkmstrkrft, @crystalmethod, @tranquilmammoth, @graffiti6, @tanlines, @sebby_g, @jasonderulo, @neonhitch, @EricTurner

    Finally, our own @TwitterMusic will be on the ground, live tweeting. Coldplay (@Coldplay), Katy Perry (@KatyPerry) and David Guetta (@DavidGuetta) will all be performing and tweeting from the event and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will also be live-tweeting from the theatre as well; he’s @rhcpchad.
  • Twitter SMS: Now available for satellite providers

    Thursday, February 09, 2012

    Twitter began as an SMS service. Today, we continue to build out SMS capability because we recognize the importance and value of making our service available to every person on the planet. No matter what device people use — from the most advanced smartphone to the simplest feature phone — people around the world should be able to send and read Tweets.

    Of course, there may be times when people cannot access SMS. We’ve been working on some solutions when that occurs:

    Satellite operators
    We’ve partnered with the two largest satellite operators, Iridium and Thuraya, to give their subscribers access to Twitter SMS. Now, even if phone lines and the Internet are inaccessible — for example, in a war zone or after a natural disaster — people will be able to share news and stay informed via Twitter.

    Long codes
    We work with as many carriers as we can to support SMS around the world. If your carrier does not currently support Twitter SMS, you can still Tweet. Just use one of our long codes.

    Here’s a full list of mobile carriers and satellite providers that support Twitter SMS, and as always, you can follow @twittermobile to find out when even more carriers offer it.
  • Post-Bowl Twitter analysis

    Monday, February 06, 2012

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    The results are in: People love to share the experience of watching the Super Bowl with millions of other viewers from around the world. Whether it’s cheering for your team, commenting on the halftime show or discussing the ads, it seems you have a lot to say about this annual tradition—and you’re using Twitter to say it.

    Here’s a fun fact: in 2008, Twitter’s largest spike in Tweets per second (TPS) during the Super Bowl was just 27. Three years later, fans sent 4,064 TPS, which was the highest TPS for any sporting event at that time.

    This year, the TPS peak was 12,233 Tweets. The spike took place in the final three minutes of the game, during which fans sent an average of 10,000 TPS. Madonna’s performance during halftime was a big hit, too—there was an average of 8,000 TPS sustained during her performance, with a peak of 10,245 Tweets.

    In the image above, you can see a few more data points from last night, including how some of the hashtags performed that were displayed on-air in the ads. If you missed any of those ads, head to adscrimmage.twitter.com to check them out and vote for your favorite via Tweet.
  • Roar of the crowd: Super Bowl on Twitter

    Thursday, February 02, 2012

    From @TimTebow leading the Denver Broncos to a shocking overtime win (and a new record for sports-related Tweets per second: 9,420) to San Diego Chargers receiver @ericweddle1’s sideline Tweets from the Pro Bowl—we watched all of the NFL post-season’s most memorable moments come alive on Twitter.

    And while the @Giants and @Patriots’ rematch and halftime show play out on TV, the national conversation is happening well beyond your den: it also happens on Twitter. Follow your favorite NFL players, coaches and commentators during the game, or just search for #SuperBowl to see how everyone is reacting to the action on the field.

    Here's what @Giants & @Patriots'll be fighting 4 Sunday: Lombardi trophy, on-set 4 Super Bowl LIVE. #nfltotalaccess twitter.com/nflnetwork/sta…

    — NFL Network (@nflnetwork) January 30, 2012

    To discover new accounts related to the Giants or the Patriots, follow @GiantsTweets and @NEPatriotTweets. These accounts automatically select and retweet the top Tweets from official team accounts, coaches, players, owners and local media.

    Of course, it wouldn’t be the Super Bowl without the creative ads, and this year we’re introducing a Twitter twist. Immediately after the game, you can replay all of the ads that aired during the game and Tweet votes for your favorites on adscrimmage.twitter.com. We’ll announce which ad dominated the post-game Twitter conversation on Feb. 12, a week from Sunday. Learn more about the program here.

    Twitter is the best place to see and share your take on everything Super Bowl—and for sports-related Tweets all year long, follow @Twittersports.
  • Tweets still must flow

    Thursday, January 26, 2012

    See below for an update.

    One year ago, we posted "The Tweets Must Flow," in which we said,

    “The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact … almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits.”

    As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

    Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

    We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld. As part of that transparency, we’ve expanded our partnership with Chilling Effects to share this new page, chillingeffects.org/twitter, which makes it easier to find notices related to Twitter.

    There’s more information in our Help pages, both on our Policy and about Your Account Settings.

    One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user’s voice. We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't. The Tweets must continue to flow.

    Update - Jan 27, 2:20pm.
    Since yesterday’s post, we’ve gotten a number of questions that we’d like to broadly address with this update.

    In short, we believe the new, more granular approach to withheld content is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency, accountability— and for our users. Besides allowing us to keep Tweets available in more places, it also allows users to see whether we are living up to our freedom of expression ideal.

    Q: Do you filter out certain Tweets before they appear on Twitter?
    A: No. Our users now send a billion Tweets every four days—filtering is neither desirable nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.

    As we do today, we will evaluate each request before taking any action. Any content we do withhold in response to such a request is clearly identified to users in that country as being withheld. And we are now able to make that content available to users in the rest of the world.

    Q: What will people see if content is withheld?
    A: If people are located in a country where a Tweet or account has been withheld and they try to view it, they will see a alert box that says “Tweet withheld” or “@Username withheld” in place of the affected Tweet or account.
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    Q: Why did you take this approach, and why now?
    A: There’s no magic to the timing of this feature. We’ve been working to reduce the scope of withholding, while increasing transparency, for a while. We have users all over the world and wanted to find a way to deal with requests in the least restrictive way.
  • Hack Week @ Twitter

    Wednesday, January 25, 2012

    Hack Week is one of the ways we actively promote innovation through experimentation around the company. This week, a wide range of folks here are taking time away from their day-to-day work to collaborate and develop ideas that they are passionate about.

    Get comfortable with uncertainty; it leaves room for inspiration. #hackweek

    — benji shine (@bshine) January 24, 2012


    Employees across the company have formed nearly 100 teams to work on a variety of projects. Some are developing ways that could make Twitter even easier to use; others are testing out a new feature or tool that people might want to see in the service. Some projects are technical, and strategic; some are fun, giving people a chance to stretch their creative muscles.

    We don’t know what exactly will result, but we can’t wait to find out. One thing we do know: we’ll have a bunch of awesome new products, features, and ideas. Some may launch quickly, and others will earn more time and attention to further develop. And of course, some of what happens in Hack Week will stay in Hack Week.

    Stay tuned for updates about our first Hack Week of 2012.

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  • Twitter Translation Center adds Right-to-Left Languages

    Beginning today, right-to-left languages are now available for volunteers to translate in the Twitter Translation Center, starting with Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. The Twitter Translation Center takes a crowd-sourced approach to translating and localizing Twitter for people around the world. More than 425,000 volunteers contribute to the Translation Center, and to date have helped make Twitter available in 22 languages. With their help, these will be the next four.

    As we prepare to add Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu to Twitter, we’ve developed new ways to ensure that Tweets and hashtags will work properly in right-to-left languages. We’ve also made changes behind the scenes to give right-to-left language speakers a localized user experience. As soon as our volunteers have completed their translation work, we’ll make Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu available for everyone on Twitter.com later this spring.
  • Follow the State of the Union on Twitter

    Tuesday, January 24, 2012

    “He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
    –The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 3

    Every year, the President of the United States delivers a kind of “status update” and his proposals for new initiatives to a joint session of Congress. In the early days, it was a private communique between two branches of government; today it’s very much a public event to which millions of Americans, as well as people around the world, tune in.

    Want a peek behind the scenes of the #SOTU? Here's the story of how it comes together youtube.com/watch?v=FxwcJx…

    — The White House (@whitehouse) January 24, 2012

    Tonight at 9pm ET/6pm PT, President @BarackObama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address. Whether you watch it on TV or hear it on the radio, you’ll get a richer, 360-degree experience of what he says and reactions to it when you follow along live on Twitter. Here’s how:

    Get your timeline ready: Look for more from the president by following @WHLive and @whitehouse and follow the reaction from Republican presidential candidates. More than 450 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have Twitter accounts; we expect that many will be tweeting their thoughts from the chamber. And if you watch on C-SPAN2, you’ll be able to see their Tweets on screen in real time as well.

    Make your voice heard: Join the conversation by adding the hashtag #SOTU to your Tweets. Immediately after the debate, a team of senior White House officials will be ready to answer your questions when you add the hashtags #WHchat and #SOTU to your Tweets. And if you have something to say about specific parts of the speech or topics, you can include one of the following official hashtags from the White House:

    #jobs
    #manufacturing
    #energy
    #education
    #fairness

    Republican leaders will be taking questions using #SOTUGOP. For more on #SOTU-related Q&As this week, visit wh.gov/sotu and gop.gov/sotu.

    Get real-time analysis as the speech unfolds: Log in to Twitter and search for the hashtag #SOTU to see comments and ideas from many perspectives about the speech. (Last year, more than 80% of Tweets about the State of the Union used the #SOTU hashtag.)

    Updated:

    And the results are in. Below is a visual of the Twitter activity from President Obama's entrance into the House chamber up through Mitch Daniels' response for the Republican Party. There were three-quarters of a million Tweets that specifically mentioned the State of the Union. And the moment that we saw the highest Tweets-per-minute was following the President's "spilled milk" joke (14,131 TPM).

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    (click to enlarge)

    For other views of how the speech played out on Twitter, check out Rick Santorum's and Gov. Buddy Roemer's accounts who live-tweeted the event.

    Finally, the Vice President took to Twitter this evening to announce his first Twitter chat later this week.

    POTUS is right, we need an America built to last. Join me to discuss #SOTU in my 1st @Twitter chat 1/26, 1:30pm ET. Use #WHChat to ask Qs-VP

    — Office of VP Biden (@VP) January 25, 2012

  • Discover: Sundance

    Thursday, January 19, 2012

    Every year at this time, film buffs from around the world converge on Park City, Utah to see more than 200 documentaries, dramas and short films at the Sundance Film Festival (@sundancefest). To discover the next great films, directors and stars before they make it big, just follow along on Twitter. Here’s a list of all the filmmakers at this year’s festival; you can join the conversation by sharing your opinions and comments using the hashtag #Sundance.

    Throughout the festival, keep track of guest Tweeters like screenwriter and director @MichaelMohan (“Save The Date”), hip-hop artist and actor @Common (“LUV”) and comedian-turned-screenwriter/director @Birbigs (Mike Birbiglia, “Sleepwalk With Me”). From A-list directors like @SpikeLee (“Red Hook Summer”) to New York Times film critic @aoscott, you can tune into any perspective about what’s happening.

    You can even go behind the scenes as Sundance directors talk about their films. Watch @aliklay describe her documentary about Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and visit the @sundancefest profile page for more filmmaker videos.

    Alison Klayman on the life of Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei (@aiww) and an ever-changing documentary: youtu.be/ElrMCedVTtE

    — SundanceFilmFestival (@sundancefest) January 6, 2012
  • The #answer and #dodge results for the Fox debate

    Monday, January 16, 2012

    Tonight, the remaining field of Republican candidates took to the stage in South Carolina to make their case to voters. Throughout the debate, Fox News encouraged viewers to rate each candidate’s responses in real time by tweeting #answer or #dodge plus the candidate’s name.

    From Juan Williams referencing Tweets from his timeline in pressing Newt Gingrich to clarify an answer, to host Bret Baier asking candidates questions from Twitter users, you were part of the debate conversation—online and on TV.

    We partnered with Mass Relevance to track the #answer and #dodge data. The tweeting was immediate, providing a rich real-time picture of audience reaction to each candidate’s answer within 15 to 30 seconds. Here are a few of the debate highlights:

    Newt Gingrich
    After a slow start and a net #dodge rating for an answer on his recent attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, Gingrich elicited strong #answer ratings for much of the remainder of the debate. His highest #answer peaks came during his comments on unemployment and his reply to Juan Williams about characterizing President Obama as a “food stamp President.”

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    Mitt Romney
    While generating the highest total volume of Tweets among the candidates, Romney spent most of the debate with net Twitter user reaction firmly in #dodge territory. The former Massachusetts governor’s explanation for not releasing his tax records generated the most significant #dodge reaction, but Romney scored #answer ratings for his replies on Medicare and Social Security reform and his refusal to negotiate with the Taliban.

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    Responses to the other candidates:

    Rick Perry’s biggest Twitter reaction came right at the end of the debate, as Twitter users rewarded him by noting #answer for his response to a question on immigration.

    Users tweeted that Rick Santorum’s biggest #dodge of the night was in his answers to questions on gun control, but they applauded his answers on employment.

    Ron Paul saw his most significant number of #dodge votes in answers around foreign policy.
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