Micro Blogging Site Twitter turns seven!

The micro-blogging site Twitter turned seven today. Seven years ago, on March 21, 2006, the first official tweet was sent out by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter. The public launch of the micro -blogging site was done on July 15, 2006. The company confirmed that it has over 200 million users around the world with 400 million tweets being sent out on a daily basis.

Here is an excerpt from the company's official blog post

There's an old English saying, "Keep a thing seven years, and you'll always find a use for it. " Today is Twitter’s 7th birthday, which we observe on the day @jack first tweeted. Since then, we've seen breathtaking velocity in Twitter's growth, which is due entirely to your many uses of it. We're gratified that so many millions of you have made Twitter yours.

It's thanks to all of you that our open, real-time platform is thriving: we have well over 200 million active users creating over 400 million Tweets each day. The steep trajectory of Twitter's momentum is something @jack, @ev and @biz only dreamed about back in 2006.

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Twitter blocked in Pakistan over contentious material

Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter on Sunday because it refused to remove material considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country’s top telecommunications officials.

The material was promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication’s Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.

Yaseen said Facebook agreed to address Pakistan’s concerns about the competition, but officials have failed to get Twitter to do the same.

”We have been negotiating with them until last night, but they did not agree to remove the stuff, so we had to block it,” said Yaseen.

Instructions to block the site came from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology, said Yaseen.

”The ministry officials are still trying to make them (Twitter) agree, and once they remove that stuff, the site will be unblocked,” said Yaseen.
Officials from Twitter and Facebook were not immediately available for comment.

A top court in Pakistanordered a ban on Facebook in 2010 amid anger over a similar competition. The ban was lifted about two weeks later, after Facebook blocked the particular page in Pakistan.

The Pakistani government said at the time that it would continue to monitor other major websites for anti-Islamic links and content.

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Twitter's new email digest feature to summarise top stories, tweets for users

Micro blogging site Twitter has planned to roll out a new 'email digest' that would summarise top stories and tweets in users' networks. According to Othman Laraki, Twitter's growth and international director, the new weekly summary feature, which was announced on the company's blog Monday, is already available to some users.
 "This summary features the most relevant tweets and stories shared by the people you're connected to on Twitter," Laraki said in the blog post.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the new feature is described as being similar to Twitter's 'Discover' tab, which the social network redesigned earlier this month.
 The feature comes just four months after Twitter acquired Canadian start-up Summify, which is a service that sends users emails summarizing the top stories from their Twitter and Facebook networks as well as other services, such as Google Reader.

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'Twitter will last longer & become more valuable than Facebook', says Ad.expert

Micro blogging site Twitter is expected to last longer and become more valuable than social networking giant Facebook, one of the UK's leading ad men has claimed. Ad firm Ogilvy and Mather's vice-chairman Rory Sutherland, who helped to turn Microsoft into a major consumer brand in the Eighties, said although Facebook might be the most popular social network at the moment, it could struggle to maintain that position in the future.
"I can see Facebook being superseded more easily than Twitter being superseded," The Telegraph quoted Sutherland, as saying.

Facebook Vs Twitter 

 "As a forum for outbursts, Twitter's [character] limit, its haiku element is very appealing. I wouldn't bet against it being more valuable [than Facebook] in the long term," he added.

Sutherland's remarks come as Facebook is gearing up for the largest initial public offering the technology sector has ever seen.

Twitter is growing rapidly in metropolitan areas, but has struggled to make money out of advertising.

Sutherland, however, believes that Twitter's 'potential for making money is higher than anyone realises'.What do our Readers think please post your Comments

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'Tweets in Space' plans sending Twitter messages to habitable planet

Twitter users across the world may be able to find followers 22 light-years away - thanks to 'Tweets in Space', an ultramodern project that hopes to transmit 140-character texts to a potentially habitable planet this fall. During a live performance set for September 21 at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum, collaborators Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern plan to beam tweets carrying the hashtag #tweetsinspace all the way to GJ667Cc, New York Daily News reported.
Scientists have asserted that the recently discovered planet in other star  has the potential to support some form of life.

'We look at it from the standpoint of democratizing deep space transmissions,' Kildall said.
'All tweets sent during the performance, whether you're at the event or at home on your computer, will be transmitted.'
'We thought it would be worthwhile to show the sea change in how information is broadcast in our culture.'
 Kildall and Stern hope to send out their interplanetary Twitter feed via a high-powered radio transmitter. They hope to pay for the gear with donations they collect through the fundraising website rockethub.com.
 Thus far, they have amassed almost 1,600 dollars of the 8,500 dollars they insist they will need to beam the messages a distance of five light-years.
 There hope is that five light years is far enough into space for any ET's on GJ667Cc who might be tuning in to pick up the signal.

'We're making some assumptions about their listening technology,' Stern said.

'We're assuming a similar intelligence to our own can pick out patterns,' Stern added.

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