Another Twitter Knockoff, This One for Moms

Total posts up from 1B a year ago, 5B just 4 months ago

(NEWSER) - Twitter isn’t growing as explosively as it used to, but the volume of traffic on the microblogging site is still expanding fast enough that it should hit 10 billion total tweets in the coming days. That’s up from a billion about a year ago, and 5 billion just 4 months ago. Gauging the progress is quite simple, Mashable reports; just look at the number tag at the end of a tweet’s URL. A recent one read 9917803012, and the site produces about 50 million a day. More»

Data analysis tells you words to use and when to build your brand

(NEWSER) - You might think all you need to do to get your 140-character gems rebroadcast on Twitter is make them, well, good. Wrong. Fast Company looks at some data-proven tips from Hubspot's Dan Zarrella:

• Links work—If they're the right links: Retweets (or RTs) are three times more likely to have links than the general field, but use the right URL shortener. Newer services such as bit.ly are tops; old standby TinyURL is out to pasture.

Pages are easier to read and faster to load, but that may not survive advertising

(NEWSER) - As far as Facebook is concerned, the “liter” the better, writes Rafe Needleman for CNET. The site’s scaled-down “Lite” version is now available in the US and India, and the "new layout feels simpler and faster, almost Twitter-like.” Gone is “most of the navigation and info page that was on the left,” leaving users undistracted by the “mostly superfluous details that resided there.” More»

(NEWSER) - The delightfully profane dad who's the unwitting star of the August Twitter sensation "shitmydadsays," where his recently-moved-back-home son posts his cranky rants about making messes and dodging chores, may not be quite as clueless as he's been made out to be. Sam Halperin is actually a 73-year-old with a long career in nuclear medicine, the Los Angeles Times reports, and his Justin, is actually a writer at Maxim. More»

(NEWSER) - Last Thursday, the Twitterverse flickered and temporarily went blank. And a writer sat there, staring. “It was funny, in a kind of pathetic, soul-crushing way,” Laurel Snyder writes on Salon. “I stared at the blank screen, hitting refresh over and over.” Her withdrawal worsened as she sat on a park bench, "twittering to no one. And that’s when I knew I had a problem.” It was time for her to face her addiction. More»