A slew of Twitter users posted this morning the disappearance of significant portions of followers and followees from their accounts. Has Twitter lost swaths of user data? Or is it the side effect of ousting "aggressive followers," who Twitter equates with spammers? Are followers worth much?
Twitter Buys Summize For $15 Million
The not-so-quiet rumors circulating last week about Twitter buying social search engine Summize are no longer rumors but are confirmed. Twitter founder Biz Stone confirmed it on his blog today, and one report has the deal valued at $15 million in cash and stock. Two surprises there: 1. $15 million is exactly what Twitter just secured in its latest round of financing. 2. Twitter has stock.
Twitter Campaign Lauds Laxer Rules For Congress 2.0
Though many were disappointed yesterday in Representative John Culberson’s (R-TX) partisan scapegoating via Twitter, he did sort of fall backwards over an important issue. The issue wasn’t that Democrats were seeking to abridge Congressional freedom of speech as it related to Web 2.0 applications, but that Congressional freedom of speech had already been abridged via previously established draconian gag rules.
CNN Brings Twitter Mainstream
You might say we’ve developed a bit of a fascination with Twitter, what with all the coverage and launching our own Twitter people directory, Twellow. Now that even CNN’s talking about Twitter, we’re reminded we were once fascinated by another upstart before it went mainstream: Google.
Rumors Circulating That Twitter Has Bought Summize And Stable
Just when you thought Twitter was a dead duck, a flurry of news suggests there’s life in the old bird yet!
Twitter (Maybe) Buying Summize
A rumor pops its head out this morning that Twitter is negotiating to buy Summize, a search engine allowing users to dig through tweets on Twitter. Before we continue, let’s take a moment to appreciate the quality snark emanating from David Fry via Twitter rival FriendFeed: One company with no revenue buys another company with no revenue and whose existence depends on the first company?
Twellow Is Twitter Awesomesauce
Since Twitter launched, there was one question to rule them all: What’s the point? The point of Twitter is still debatable, but a few hundred thousand people funneled in anyway, people from all kinds of backgrounds and interests, people with all kinds of connections. Only one problem: To find people, you had to depend on luck, or at least stumbling through a maze of faces and followers with the hope of finding someone interesting or relevant.
Amazon’s Bezos Throws Some Money At Twitter
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has thrown a little love (and presumably a lot of money) at Twitter. Twitter creator Biz Stone made the announcement via his blog that Bezos Expeditions, Bezos’s investment firm, joined Spark Capital’s Bijan Sabet on the Twitter investment team.
Is Twitter Toast?
Self-titled "Social Applications Guru," Jesse Stay, on his StayNAlive blog, suggests its time to charge up the defibrillators* for Twitter. The reason: Third-party developers are bailing out due to Twitter’s continuous technical problems. By following trends he sees among developers at the Twitter Development Talk discussion thread at Google Groups, Stay predicts that once developers go, users won’t be far behind.
Twitter Survives Apple Conference
Fans and critics alike expected Twitter’s new "status" blog to be a busy place yesterday, and in one sense, the company didn’t disappoint. Posts mainly focused on preventative measures, however, and Twitter more or less made it through Apple’s big event without failing.