First Tweet-Only Device Debuts

Twitter tries and fails to take down another celebrity

(NEWSER) - Bill Cosby is not dead, despite what you might have read on the Internet this afternoon. In fact, the 73-year-old comedy legend is alive, well, and making up words on Twitter, reports WPIX . Using a term he created after a similar false alarm in February, he tweeted today, "Again, I'm rebutalling rumors about my demise." He added , "Emotional friends have called about this misinformation. To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is." To learn more about things the web has actually killed, click here . More»

Arizona senator's following 46 times greater than nearest rival

(NEWSER) - John McCain is leading the charge of tweeting lawmakers, with 46 times more Twitter followers—a cool 1.7 million —than his nearest competitor, Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill. McCain’s popularity also illustrates Republicans’ quick embrace of the social network; twice as many of them tweet, compared to Democrats. “I love it; it’s so interactive,” McCain tells Bloomberg . More»

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»

Fans can also read thoughts of squirrel, monkey, Sharpie, freckles

(NEWSER) - Conan O’Brien’s breakout Twitter success—442,296 followers and counting—may be overshadowing the exploits of a coterie of related microbloggers. Conan’s beard (144 followers) has something to say, as do the squirrel who lives in his backyard (1,191), his freckles (14), and his Sharpie marker (10), the Los Angeles Times reports. “I’m famous!” tweets the beard. 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.