Twitter posts

Twitter’s new look has been a massive hit with users, until this morning when an exploit was discovered that allows javascript to be executed when the user simply hovers over a link. Some are taking advantage of the loophole to Rick Roll friends, but there are some who have been hit with malware. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah Brown unknowingly sent a link to more than a million followers, many of whom became victims even without clicking any links. The exploit is limited to those using the new Twitter web interface – users not yet seeing the update or those on third party clients…

So the new Twitter – which we and about a million of other sites have reported on  – is slowly rolling out to users as we speak. On the surface, the new Twitter is all about usability: rather that one main column, it contains two that can adapt to either displaying extra information like lists and trends, or can display the photos and videos or that people are constantly linking to or related tweets. But thought of another way, this is a way of getting users to stay put on Twitter’s website. Rather than using apps or clicking away, the new design encourages users to stay in one place. So in a way, this is Twitter’s…

My parents don’t know jack about the internet. We’re talking nothing more complicated than basic email. We’re talking, like… you know those real long, embarrassing parental messages they tend to leave on Facebook, because they don’t ‘get’ the unwritten laws of social networking? Actually, my mother doesn’t even know what Facebook is for. Bad example. Whatever, you get what I’m talking about. The 50+ crowd aren’t typically the most social-savvy folk. So it only adds insult to injury that a 100-year-old tree in Belgium is Facebooking with the best of them. The best of them, of course, being…

Twitterphiles hither and yon, gather and bear witness to the new Twitter.com. At a special event yesterday, Twitter unveiled a new iteration of its website, one with a focus on providing a more robust Twitter experience, among other things. The first thing you’ll notice, in this screenshot provided by TheNextWeb, is the absolutely-goddamned-monstrous side pane, which… by the looks of it, doesn’t immediately provide any info that wasn’t already largely useless. I still still still don’t understand Trending Topics, and I’m a complete whore for Twitter. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. But either…

I wish it wasn’t true. Hell, you wish it wasn’t true, too. But alas – according to website designer Dustin Curtis, who’s been rapping with the folks at Twitter ’bout some metrics, the Canadian eunich sensation Justin Bieber accounts for 3% of Twitter’s entire infrastructure. “Racks of servers are dedicated to him,” an employee informed Curtis. As a non-Bieberite (I’m sure the prepubescent hordes who follow him have their own cute little word), this is sort of depressing. So, somewhere in the US, there is a room full of machines dedicated around-the-clock to pushing word of the goings-on of an…

After my outrage at iTunes 10, you may think of me as a nitpicker. Well, you know what, guilty as charged. And while we’re picking nits, I’ve got some frowning to do about Twitter. That sidebar is getting more brutally ugly and obtrusive by the day; multiple links to who I’m following, a search bar that goes largely unused, a yet-more-unused Lists pane, and… who with an IQ over 70 actually follows the trending topics? I mean, Twitter is still pretty simple stacked up against, say, Facebook, but hey, Biz, can you tone it down? Just a bit? Y’know, streamline that experience? You’re probably ready to…

Ev Williams is a guy that surely deserves to be heard. He’s the CEO of a company that makes no money, and yet is worth approximately $5 billion. He co-created a product that no one understood or knew they needed until they began using it. Speaking at a Girls in Tech event at Kicklabs, Williams spoke out on why he thought Twitter had touched a nerve with the community, making comparisons to Google and email. “Google is very good at ‘I need to solve a problem, I need to buy something, I need an answer. Twitter is more ‘I’m interested in many things, I don’t know what I need to know.’” He cited…

A new study by Pew Internet suggests that more old people than ever are using social networks. Now, before the nethers of some of Techi’s most well-aged readers get all puckered, I’m defining ‘old’ as 50 and up. Come on now, that’s fair. You’re old. Deal. Last year, it was approximated that only 22 percent of internet users over the age of 50 were using social networks to stay in touch. (Frankly, us in the twentysomething demographic didn’t mind that at all – those who have their grandparents on Facebook know what I’m talking about – but you didn’t hear that from me). But fast forward 13 months, and that…

What do you do while watching TV? People watch TV still, right? I guess I mean it in the classic sense. Like, in your living room, on an actual television. Do you multitask? If and when I find myself in front of the tube, I’m generally on Facebook. That I’m on Facebook all the time anyway is besides the point. Apparently, I’m not alone – a study by YouGov of over 2000 people has found that folks tend to do the social network dance while watching TV. A lot of folks. YouGov calls the phenomenon ‘media stacking’, and revealed that 86% of those asked in the 18-24 demographic have combined their two vices, watching…

I promise you, this will be both the cleverest, and, simultaneously, the most useless social media experiment you’ll see all day. Continuing the proud tradition of Twitter’s inconsequentiality,  Graphic designer Shelly Peleg and Mizbala.com cofounder Guy Dayan have seen fit to turn Guy’s Following list into a large bird. Surely, organizing this must have been a bit more of a nightmare than the video lets on – not only would Dan have to coax 36 people into switching their Twitter display pictures to slices of bird, but he’d have to follow them in that order, not to mention subsequently follow…