Twitter Shot Down on 'Tweet' Trademark

But at least two startups were quicker on the draw

(NEWSER) - The word "tweet" may be firmly established in the lexicon, but that doesn't mean Twitter owns the rights. In fact, the company has struck out twice trying to trademark the word because other web startups got there first, explains the Wall Street Journal . One, for example, is Twittad, which trademarked the phrase "Let Your Ad Meet Tweets." Twitter sued the company this month in federal court and has closed its Twitter account. More»

Hamza Kashgari, 23, tweeted that he wants to talk to Mohammed as a 'friend'

(NEWSER) - Islamists are calling for the execution of a young Saudi Arabian who tweeted last week about the Prophet Mohammed. "I have loved the rebel in you, you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me," Hamza Kashgari, 23, wrote in a tweet addressed to Mohammed. But "I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you,” he added. "I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more." His tweets triggered more than 30,000 responses in a single day, many of them from enraged Saudis calling for his death. Kashgari has since deleted his Twitter account, and apologized, but his home address was posted on YouTube and vigilantes have been hunting him at his mosque, reports the Daily Beast . More»

It involves whining about a sandwich

(NEWSER) - How to be an ace tweeter? Megan Garber at the Atlantic pores over a new study and starts her lesson with what not to do. This would be "The Most Annoying Tweet Imaginable":

• "BREAKING: Last week I had a #sandwich that was SO HORRIBLE, it made me want to #scream. Seriously, why can't they make better #sandwiches?"

Move represents major policy switch

(NEWSER) - Twitter has apparently decided corporate relations are more important than content. Company officials have announced that they will voluntarily restrict Twitter content in specific countries to comply with government limits on what citizens are allowed to read. "As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," Twitter wrote in a blog post yesterday . "Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world." More»

Messages of love on Twitter can't be a coincidence: E!

(NEWSER) - Rihanna and Chris Brown appear to have sent each other "secret love tweets"—and by "secret," we mean completely public messages posted on a social networking site. The "secret" part? Neither Rihanna nor Brown mentioned the other by name. Brown tweeted yesterday, "Love U more than u know!" and just two minutes later, Rihanna appeared to respond , tweeting, "I'll always love u #1LOVE." More»