twitter

When we heard that pop singer Britney Spears was reinventing herself, we didn't know it involved a Twitter account.

But it's true--go to the newly revamped BritneySpears.com, and check it out. You can "Friend Britney" not only on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Britney's own "VIP" social network, but also Twitter. For obvious reasons, it's not actually Spears doing the Twittering. But you can still get updates like "OMG!! 7 hours until Womanizer premieres!!!!!!!" ("Womanizer" is Spears' latest hit single) and "Hey paparazzi...Rolling Stone cover rumors? … Read more

A new service, called Qwitter, has debuted today, allowing users to find out when others stop following them on Twitter. From time to time, you are going to lose followers, whether it be because you have said something that your followers don't agree with, or because they no longer find your tweets relevant or interesting. Services like Facebook and Twitter intentionally don't expose the data for when someone de-friends or un-follows you because it can potentially be a sensitive issue. Qwitter is trying to tap into the "too curious for their own good" market.

After signing … Read more

Anything that nerdy had to come from Tom. And it did. Rafe Needleman joins the cast today to discuss waiting for Windows 7 (Steve Ballmer says it's OK), the fury over FireWire being omitted from the MacBooks reaches a fever pitch--so much so that Steve Jobs himself sends an e-mail in response. His response? A fairly typical, "Sorry, suckers. Upgrade."

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Ballmer: It’s OK to wait for Windows 7 http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10067641-92.html

Microsoft Considers “Instant On” Windows http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/16/1710207… Read more

Updated: One question and answer added to the end.

I took the announcement of the CEO job swap at Twitter as a reminder that I need to bug the company about its future and its business model. As I wrote in 11 troubled Web companies, I love Twitter and want it to succeed. But I'm not sure it's on the right track to do so.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone answered questions from me over e-mail. But I'm still not sure where the revenue will come from.

Q: Do you envision Twitter as something that everyone will eventually … Read more

Twitter executives Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams are switching places.

According to a post on the microblogging service's official blog, co-founder Williams will resume the helm of CEO from Dorsey, who will take over Williams' position as chairman of the board.

"We're entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times," Williams wrote in the blog post. "As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for … Read more

Twitter is stepping up its actions to fight spam, which has been plaguing the site since earlier this year and appears to be spiking this week.

The company is looking to hire a spam engineer, preferably one who has worked at a big search or e-mail company, according to a tweet by founder Evan Williams.

That person would likely work closely with the "spam marshal" that was hired in August.

The hiring move was praised by the Twitter community.

The latest job posting "is another sign that Twitter is maturing as a business and is using its … Read more

We've assumed that Twitter would be integrating Twitter Search (formerly Summize) into the main site for a while now. It seems that Twitter has accidentally confirmed this integration. A topic on Get Satisfaction, talking about new behavior for nudges, shows a screenshot of a newer version of the site, featuring Twitter Search. According to this shot, Twitter will implement keyword search via a box on the right side of the page. There is no word yet on when this update will go live.

Update Biz Stone, from Twitter, tells us that the screenshot comes from an admin account where … Read more

A 14-year-old girl named McKenzie Church has gone missing, and Twitter is being used to spread the word of her disappearance and hopefully find someone who knows where she is.

If you've been on Twitter Tuesday, you've probably seen a tweet similar to "retweet: @genochurch's 14 yr old daughter is missing" followed by a link to Genochurch's blog post asking for help in finding his missing daughter. At first glance, it seems like a simple "retweet" seen almost daily on Twitter. But after some digging, you'll quickly find that it's … Read more

Tech journalist Steve Gillmor noted that a recent Twitter status post says the company isn't bringing instant-message posting back anytime soon.

Before we all start with the "who cares," I've found myself liking Twitter more and more, as I'm distracted by other things and can't write long blog posts. IM was my preferred way to use Twitter, which bums me out personally, but it also limits the ability for the service to become the "communication utility" the founders want it to be:

To summarize, we want to bring IM back. We intend … Read more