• Discovering Who To Follow

    Friday, July 30, 2010

    With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests. The trouble is finding all of them. Today we're beginning to roll out a simple, but powerful new feature to help address that -- "Suggestions for You". The algorithms in this feature, built by our user relevance team, suggest people you don’t currently follow that you may find interesting. The suggestions are based on several factors, including people you follow and the people they follow. You'll see these suggestions on Twitter.com and the Find People section. If you like a suggestion, click "follow"; if you don't, click "hide," and we’ll try not to suggest that user again.



    In addition, you will begin to see recommendations for similar users when you view another account’s profile. If you’re interested in a particular user, you might be interested in these other accounts as well.

    All these features will be available for developers, too. We will be launching an API so third parties can provide these suggestion features in your favorite desktop, mobile, and web applications, too.

    Now, go find somebody new to follow. You never know what you might discover...
  • Reliability

    Wednesday, July 21, 2010

    When you can’t update your profile photo, send a Tweet, or even sign on to Twitter, it’s frustrating. We know that, and we’ve had too many of these issues recently.

    As we said last month, we are working on long-term solutions to make Twitter a more reliable and stable platform. It’s our number one priority. The bulk of our engineering efforts are currently focused on this issue, and we have moved resources from other projects to focus on it.

    For much more background, J.P. Cozzatti from our engineering team discusses our efforts and recent issues today in a post on the Twitter Engineering blog. In a separate, but closely related post on the Engineering blog, we discuss something we’ve been working toward for some time: We’re moving into our own dedicated data center this fall. This will be a big step forward.
  • The 2010 World Cup: a Global Conversation

    Thursday, July 15, 2010


    2010 World Cup: a Twitter timeline
    [image created by @miguelrios]

    During the 2010 World Cup, the world watched together -- and they shared their experiences in a real-time, global conversation on the Internet.

    To illustrate that point, here are statistics and infographics that illustrate the global nature of the games and how fans’ interest & enthusiasm built over the course of the tournament on Twitter.
    • The World Cup final represented the largest period of sustained activity for an event in Twitter’s history.
    • Throughout the match, Tweets-per-second (TPS) were much higher than average; during the game’s final 15 minutes, this jumped to more than 2,000 TPS. (Spain’s winning goal in the final scored a 3,051 TPS.)
    • During the final, people from 172 countries tweeted in 27 different languages.
    • At the moment of the winning goal, people from 81 countries tweeted in 23 different languages. This moment is represented on this Wordle infographic.

    To highlight how much Twitter has been pulsing with World Cup activity over the past month, our analytics and relevance teams put together the infographic above, charting fans’ use of hashflags (like #esp or #usa) during the tournament with a background of TPS over the same period.
    • When you look at this graphic, think of it like a soundwave -- the louder and more consistent the “sound,” the bigger the impact in all directions.
    • Countries’ flags represent use of their hashflag. The size of the flag “waves” fluctuate with the frequency & consistency of tweets containing each country’s hashflag.
  • @earlybird: Ready to Fly

    Wednesday, July 14, 2010

    Businesses already use Twitter as a great way to connect people with special promotions. People already use Twitter to find and share deals on their favorite products & services.

    Last week, we unveiled @earlybird, a new account that brings those worlds together by giving people an easy one-stop destination to find out about some of the best deals on Twitter. This unveiling attracted great interest; within days, tens of thousands of Twitter users were following @earlybird.

    Today, we’re excited to launch the first @earlybird Exclusive Offer, in partnership with The Walt Disney Studios. For a limited time, @earlybird followers in the U.S. can get a special deal on tickets for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a new feature film from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films that opens in theaters today.

    We’re just getting started-- we’ve got an amazing lineup of deals to share in the coming days and weeks with people following @earlybird. Several times a week, @earlybird will help consumers discover Twitter-exclusive deals in entertainment, fashion, technology, beauty, travel and more. These deals will come directly from our advertising partners and from other companies (including Groupon and Gilt Groupe) that already deliver valuable deals to consumers via Twitter. Follow @earlybird so you don’t miss out.

    Got questions about @earlybird? Check out our FAQ. And, be sure to let @earlybird know what types of products you'd like to see featured.