Twitter is the common dude’s RSS reader, new discovery tools show - Venturebeat.com
It’s the worst-kept secret on the Internet today, but Twitter has just announced some new search and discovery tools for its microblogging service (they hate it when we call it that).
On the company blog today, we read that Twitter is adding to its search tools a flurry of new features, including autocomplete, spelling correction, related items, real names and usernames, and results from people you follow.
“We’re constantly working to make Twitter search the simplest way to discover what’s happening in real time,” writes Twitter engineer Frost Li. “These updates make it even easier to immediately get closer to the things you care about.”
The crux of the matter is simple: Around half of Twitter users are using the service as a supersimplified RSS reader, not as a mechanism for broadcasting their own thoughts to an uncaring world. Since the company wants to grow — and wants to continue to grow more mainstream — it’s in its best interests to make Twitter the simplest, best RSS reader anyone could ask for. And today’s announcements about finding and following topics take the product a bit closer to that goal.
Here’s some more info on exactly what the new features bring:
- Autocomplete features that show both people and search terms.
- Automatic spelling corrections, so you see results for the correctly spelled search term.
- Related suggestions showing topics with similar search terms.
- Results showing real names and usernames.
- Tweets from people you follow, not just the top tweets for your search term.
Search and discovery were among the many major feature overhauls we saw when the “new-new Twitter” launched just six months ago. At that time, the company was promoting its all-new Discover tab as a way to show users the most interesting, popular, and personally relevant stories on the site, based on each’s individual’s usage patterns and behavior.
We’ve known about today’s launch since last night, when Twitter engineering manager Pankaj Gupta tweeted a broad hint about the upgrade and announcement. We’ve been obsessively refreshing the Twitter blog ever since, which made for a sleepless night and a nervewracking morning for some of us in the VentureBeat newsroom.
Search and discovery are both a big part of Twitter’s plan to continue its growth and get normal people to understand and use the service. As of last fall, around half of Twitter’s users didn’t actually tweet. Rather, they used the service in the same way hardcore nerds would use an RSS reader.
For example, before last year’s redesign, folks around the world were hearing about the Middle Eastern and North African revolutions, especially about Twitter’s involvement in the uprisings. “But you had to know to go to Twitter and type in #Jan25,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in a chat about Twitter’s old search tools. “We want to make that a lot easier.”
As Costolo put it in a recent interview, “We connect people everywhere to what’s meaningful. … We want Twitter to be the world in your pocket.” He also noted that the things that make Twitter “the world in your pocket” are unique to Twitter and that the team wanted to build better experiences around those unique aspects — hashtags, asymmetric social following, and so on.
“A year ago, when you signed up for Twitter, the first thing you’d see was the big ‘what’s happening’ box,” Costolo explained. “People didn’t know what to do next. They didn’t have any followers, and they weren’t following anyone. Nothing happened. Now, we get new users to think first about following their interests. Get a timeline and start engaging that way.”
Discovery and search are now supposed to be two of the key ways new users are brought into the Twitter user experience. We’ll see how the real world reacts to today’s changes and, more importantly, what the changes do for the microblogging service’s signup and engagement metrics.
Top image courtesy of Ilse, Flickr
Warburton added to Team GB after successful appeal - ESPN.co.uk
British 800 metres runner Gareth Warburton has been added to Team GB for London 2012 after an appeal against his non-selection was successful.
Warburton was one of four athletes to be added to the squad for the forthcoming Olympic Games - but the only one of the 11 track & field individuals who lodged appeals against their original non-selection.
The likes of Jenny Simpson, Marilyn Okoro and Richard Kilty were all disappointed to be overlooked when the track and field selection was announced on Tuesday - but UK Athletics could only judge appeals against non-selection on the basis of whether due process was followed and all evidence was taken into consideration, measures by which only Warburton was successful.
He will now join Andrew Osagie and Michael Rimmer as the three Team GB athletes for the 800m.
"We appreciate that this is a difficult time for athletes who were not selected to Team GB," UKA chairman and appeals panel head Ed Warner said. "Appeals are heard on a matter of process and facts and not opinion and the panel considered 11 appeals today of which only Gareth's was successful.
"We ensure that the original selection committee has followed the selection criteria appropriately and have made their decisions based on full and correct facts.
"In the case of Gareth Warburton and in light of independent legal advice, the appeals panel decided that the combination of Warburton's current 'A' and current 'B' standards made him selectable under the UKA selection policy and he has been added to the team."
400m runner Simpson was enraged to be overlooked for the event in favour of UK Trials winner Lynsey Sharp, despite having achieved the Olympic 'A' qualifying standard compared to Sharp's 'B' effort. However, she accepted the decision of the appeals panel.
"My appeal was unsuccessful but at least I tried," Simpson said on Twitter. "Good luck to Gareth Warburton who fully deserves his place on the team after his appeal."
The other three athletes to be belatedly confirmed for the Olympics are Abigail Edmonds (women's K2 500m canoe sprint), John Garcia Thompson and Steve Grotowski (both men's volleyball).
A total of 542 athletes have now been selected for the Team GB squad for the Games.
Team GB chef de mission Andy Hunt said: "With the final athlete selections announced today we are now all set for the Delegation Registration Meeting on Monday, which is an important milestone and moment as that is when we officially enter the athletes and support staff selected to represent Team GB on home soil."
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
Libya holds landmark vote under shadow of unrest - Reuters UK
TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI |
TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI (Reuters) - Libya holds its first free national election in 60 years on Saturday in a vote designed to shake off the legacy of Muammar Gaddafi but which risks being hijacked by autonomy demands in the east and unrest in the desert south.
Voters will choose a 200-member assembly which will elect a prime minister and cabinet before laying the ground for full parliamentary elections next year under a new constitution.
Candidates with Islamic agendas dominate the field of more than 3,700 hopefuls, suggesting Libya will be the next "Arab Spring" country after Egypt and Tunisia to see religious parties secure footholds in power after last year's uprisings.
But the credibility of the vote will be wrecked if armed militia with regional or tribal loyalties discourage voters from turning out, or if disputes over the outcome degenerate into pitched battles between rival factions.
"The election will go ahead tomorrow and all the Libyan people need for it to go ahead," Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib told a news conference in the capital Tripoli on Friday.
The greatest threat comes from the eastern region around the city of Benghazi, cradle of the NATO-backed uprising that ousted Gaddafi nearly a year ago but which complains of neglect by the interim government in Tripoli in the west.
"There is no doubt there could be a civil war between us in the east and the west," Hamed al-Hassi, a former rebel who now heads the High Military Council of Cyrenaica, the name of the eastern region, told Reuters.
"The country will be in a state of paralysis because no one in the government is listening to us," said Hassi, whose group is charged with securing the east but has fallen out with the government over representation.
On Friday, local armed groups shut off half the North African country's oil exports to press their demands for greater representation in the new national assembly. At least three major oil exporting terminals were affected.
"The strikes will continue for 48 hours if the government does not respond positively to their requests," said a note to oil companies from shipping agents.
"NO SECURITY"
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a square in central Benghazi late on Friday, saying they would boycott the vote in protest at the fact that the east had been allotted only 60 seats in the assembly compared to 102 for the west.
In the latest attack on election authorities in the east, a helicopter carrying voting material had to make an emergency landing near Benghazi on Friday after being struck by anti-aircraft fire. One person on board was killed.
"There is no security in this country," Emad El-Sayih, deputy head of the High National Election Commission, told Reuters.
Concerns exist elsewhere. In the isolated southern area of Kufra in the Saharan desert, tribal clashes are so fierce that election observers will be unable to visit, and some question whether the vote can proceed in certain areas there.
In Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a former fishing village on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea, the mood ahead of the polls was restrained, with some saying they would not vote.
"They should take care of us first, look at our homes," said Abed Mohammed, a resident of District Two neighbourhood which saw some of the heaviest fighting and where Gaddafi was believed to have hidden before being captured and killed.
"We are not against elections in the future, but first things first," he said.
Yet many Libyans are eager for a first taste of democracy and will be heading enthusiastically to the polls.
While analysts say it is hard to predict the political make-up of the new assembly, parties and candidates professing an attachment to Islamic values dominate and very few are running on an exclusively secular ticket.
The Justice and Construction offshoot of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood is tipped to do well, as is al-Watan, the party of former CIA detainee and Islamist insurgent Abdel Hakim Belhadj.
Parity rules for the new assembly mean there are many female candidates. Yet many of their campaign posters in Tripoli have been defaced, underlining the ambivalence felt by some in Libyan society about a greater female role in politics.
"Politics is a new field for men and women in Libya," said Lamia Busidra, 38, a leading candidate for the al-Wattan party in Benghazi. "The qualifications are there, women can do it, they just need the confidence in themselves to do it."
Early partial results after polls close at 8 p.m (1800 GMT) on Saturday will give some guide to the make-up of the assembly but full preliminary results are not due until Monday.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Tripoli and Taha Zargoun in Sirte; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Ralph Gowling)
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