Malay the 4 top language share in twitter

Paris-based Semiocast, which helps brands understand and interact with real-time Web services, has performed a semantic and quantitative study of Twitter based on an analysis of 2.8 million tweets.
Turns out roughly half the tweets posted on the micro-sharing service are in English, down 25% from last year, even though the company is based in the U.S. and has more users and momentum in English-speaking countries than anywhere else on the planet. The analysis further showed that the top 5 languages used on Twitter are English, Japanese, Portuguese, Malay and Spanish.

Semiocast says the study was conducted on messages gathered over a period of 48 hours, from February 8 to February 10, with the sole aim of determining which languages were most often used on Twitter. The messages were processed with the company’s own analysis tools, which it says can identify the language used in short messages for some 41 languages, including Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, etc.
English is still the most used language on Twitter, with 50% of messages, although Semiocast says this is a far cry from the two-third share they registered for English in the first half of 2009. Semiocast also forecasts that its share will grow thinner in the future, as Twitter becomes more internationalized (i.e. becomes available in more languages) and its pervasiveness spreads to Asia and Latin-America.

Japanese comes in second with 14% of messages. This isn’t all too surprising; Twitter has been addressing that market for almost two years now. The third most used language is Portuguese with 9% of all messages, mirroring the success of social networks in Brazil.

The rapid adoption of Twitter in Malaysia and Indonesia, where Twitter has partnerships with two mobile telcos in place, shows in the rankings as well. Malay languages, including Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia, now represent the fourth most used language on Twitter, with 6% of messages. Spanish comes in fifth with 4% of all messages.

The ranks six to eight are occupied by major European languages, namely Italian, Dutch and German, each accounting for about 1% to 2% of total messages. French represents a little less than 1% of total messages.
For your reference: Twitter earlier this week claimed that it was seeing about 50 million tweets per day now, so an analysis of less than 3 million messages measured over two days may not be super representative. Nevertheless, it only takes a peek at Twitter’s public timeline to see that there are lots of people using the service in a language other than English.

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Twitter unveils new frontpage

Micro-blogging service Twitter has unveiled a new frontpage featuring a prominent search box in a bid to attract new users. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, in a blog post about the redesign, said it was intended to demonstrate “the power of Twitter as a discovery engine for what is happening right now.”

The search box will allow Web surfers who have not signed up for Twitter to plug in a query and see the latest real-time messages, known as “tweets,” about the subject of their query. Stone said this would hopefully inspire people to then sign up for Twitter, which allows users to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less to other members.

“Twitter has moved from simple social networking into a new kind of communication and a valuable source of timely information,” he said.

“We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis,” Stone acknowledged.

“But repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information,” he said.

The redesign does not affect the Twitter homepage seen by current users of the service, only the introductory page at Twitter.com seen by Internet users who have not yet signed up for the service

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Malaysian Twitter users

It’s 2009. Here’s some possibilities: According to Wefollow, there are 120,586 users tagged under Malaysia. (June 01, 2009). An article by @nikicheong in The Star (Malaysia), says that: ‘Taking into consideration the upward trend of new users worldwide (in the United States, there was a 131% increase between February and March this year, reports ComScore) and that many users do not disclose their location, it is a safe assumption that tens of thousands Malaysians are currently Twittering.

Malaysia is ranked #26 on TwitterScore, in a listing of top countries on Twitter.

There are at least 1000 Twitter users in Malaysia listed on TwitterHolic. As the list cuts off at 1000. To be fair it’s a listing of top users, so they don’t show the ones below.

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Astro_mike tweet from space

Nasa astronaut Mike Massimino is the first human being to tweet from space making history for all Twitterkind. He has updated his twitter profile with 139 character post from the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Source: Via cnn.com

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The Twitter Revolution

Strictly speaking, Twitter is a social networking application that enables users to post short text messages -- called "tweets" -- of no more than 140 characters on their personal feed. These real-time diary entries can then be read by other users, called "followers," who have subscribed to that page.

1. Just how fast Twitter is growing is a company secret, but its traffic appears to be more than doubling every month.
2. The company is hiring like crazy -- it expects to double its size in the next month or two -- and is also adding a senior management, notably new vice-president of global operations Santosh Jayaram, hired away from Google
3. President Barack Obama twittered the words, "We just made history," on the night of his election.
4. "We've never had a company that grew past 15 to 20 people," says Mr. Stone, "We're kind of excited about that." Even faster than Google, Amazon and eBay in their days, the three-year-old Twitter has become deeply embedded in the culture.
5. Under the guise of a fun communications tool, Twitter is building one of the world's most valuable real-time information caches. And as Twitter's profile continues to explode.

For now, Messrs. Williams and Stone are keeping their plans secret. With patient investors who just put in $35 million in third-round funding, the company is in no hurry. Mr. Stone will only say that "we are enamored with the idea of going all the way." Adds Mr. Williams: "We want to have as large an impact as possible."

Resource : TWSJ

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Ashton Kutcher Hits 1 Million Twitter Followers

Have no doubt: Twitter has gone mainstream. And Ashton Kutcher has a million followers.At the time of writing, Kutcher is still live streaming (video below) his successful attempt to reach 1 million Twitter followers before CNN.com, which Kutcher reports has been clamouring for new followers on its live news ticker. On Friday morning he goes on Oprah, who will post her first @oprah Tweet on live TV, reaching millions of US households.

It’s hard to define, exactly, when Twitter entered the public conscience: perhaps the Hudson plane crash, where the first real photo of the event appeared on Twitter before reaching the mainstream outlets. Perhaps it was earlier, in September 2008, when we noted that CNN was actively promoting its Twitter feed on air. Perhaps it was March 2009, when Twitter co-founder Evan Williams was interviewed by Charlie Rose…or perhaps fellow co-founder Biz Stone’s hilarious Stephen Colbert

interview was the moment Twitter tipped. Or maybe all those declarations of a breakthrough were premature: perhaps a starring role on Oprah, hours from now, is the true mark of mainstream success.And yet this assumes that social media needs mainstream media to justify its existence: that without its blessing social media is not confirmed. But mainstream media is increasingly becoming an echo of social media, allowing YouTube’s masses to define what matters (Susan Boyle, the Domino’s Pizza scandal) and mirroring that public sentiment.

For now, Twitter needs mainstream media more than mainstream media needs Twitter. But Ashton has an audience of 1 million at his fingertips: how much longer will the talent need its mainstream middleman?

Resource : Mashable.com

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Twitter Guys Time Top 100 Finalist

Vote The Twitter Guys, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone as one of Time Top 100.

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Mikeyy another Twitter Worm

It’s turning into quite a weekend for Twitter (Twitter reviews): a new exploit has been created carrying the name of the 17 year old who supposedly created yesterday’s StalkDaily worm. We should emphasize that the attack is more of a nuisance than malicious - its only activity is to post unwanted messages.

The “mikeyy” attack posted messages into user’s Twitter streams early Sunday using much the same technique as StalkDaily. At the time of writing, it’s still live and posting messages which contain the name “mikeyy”. The messages include the following:

Mikeyy I am done…
MikeyyMikeyy is done..
Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy
Man, Twitter can’t fix sh*t. Mikeyy owns. :)
Dude, Mikeyy is the sh*t! :)
Twitter should really fix this…

HOW MIKEYY WORK

Mikeyy appears to use the same technique as StalkDaily, suggesting that the issue has not been fully fixed: exactly like yesterday’s exploit, it adds an executable script after #color in the CSS. There are multiple user-editable fields in the Twitter settings, and our best guess is that the exploit is using a different field for input.

It appears to be more of a nuisance than malicious at this point - the attacker is pointing out that Twitter has not fully fixed the issue.


WHAT TO DO

To prevent infection, it’s smart to:

1. Stop visiting Twitter profiles on the web, since these are the source -
2. You might want use a 3rd party app like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop for now
3. Disable javascript in your browser settings, or use a Firefox add-on like no-script, which stops unwanted scripts from running

If you’re affected by Mikeyy, it’s smart to:

1. In your browser settings, clear your cache and cookies
2. Also in your browser settings, turn off javascript
3. Log into Twitter. Go to your Twitter settings and check for anything suspicious, particularly in the URL or location. If there’s anything there, delete it fully and replace with your actual URL and location.
4. Re-enable javascript and check the Design section of your Twitter profile to make sure there are no changes to your profile colors. If there are, delete these too and replace with whatever colors you want.
5. Delete unwanted Tweets containing Mikeyy
6. As an extra precaution, reset your Twitter password.
7. Log out of your account.
8. Since there are claims that Mikeyy may re-activate on login at Twitter.com, you may wish to continue using Twitter via a desktop client like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, rather than on the web.

The blog Twittercism carries much the same guidance, and you can check out their explanation too.
We’re tracking Mikeyy and will keep readers updated here.

Resource : Mashable.com

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Twitter and Facebook Post Huge Growth Numbers in March 2009

Several weeks ago, we noted that Twitter was now growing at a staggering 1,382 percent on an annual basis, via data from Nielsen Online. Today, the latest numbers from Compete show the trend accelerating even further, with Twitter.com growing 76.8 percent just from February to March.

In total, the stat tracking service now estimates that Twitter reaches more than 14 million people monthly in the US – and that’s just on its website and doesn’t include third-party clients like TweetDeck or Twhirl.

Meanwhile, Facebook  posted huge numbers of its own in March, growing 23.4 percent month-over-month to more than 91 million US visitors. That represents nearly 200 percent annual growth, and, given its size relative to the much smaller Twitter, is also extremely impressive.

So what’s driving this sudden surge of adoption of Twitter and Facebook? It would seem that the continued integration of these platforms by mainstream media has a lot to do with it. It’s hard to find a TV news program that doesn’t include references to their Twitter or Facebook profiles, which in turn drive users to the websites. Appearances by Twitter execs on shows like The Colbert Report and Charlie Rose don’t hurt either.

Resource : Mashable.com

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Google take over Twitter

Daripada beberapa sumber Google sedang berbincang untuk mengambil alih Twitter dengan nilai USD250juta. Beberapa bulan lepas Twitter telah menolak offer yang diberi oleh Facebook untuk mengambil alih dengan nilai lebih kurang USD500juta kerana kaedah pembayaran tidak menarik. Google mencadangkan untuk membayar secara cash untuk mengambil alih Twitter.

Kenapa Google ingin membeli Twitter? Twitter adalah suatu idea inovatif yang akan menjadi satu lagi platform untuk menjadi real time search engine yang lebih hebat dan terkini.Buat masa ini Google masih belum ada suatu sistem yang menyamai Twitter.

Ada juga sumber mengatakan bahawa Google dan Twitter akan bekerjasama untuk membina real time search engine.

Kita sama-sama tunggu dan lihat perkembangan. Apakah akan berlaku take over ini.

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