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Twitter Boosts Security With ‘Login Verification’
Twitter this week introduced login verification, which it says is "a form" of two-factor authentication intended to help users better secure their accounts.
Those who sign up for login verification will have to enter their normal password plus a six-digit code sent via text every time they sign into Twitter.com.
To activate login verification, head to the account settings page and select "Require a verification code when I sign in." You'll need a confirmed email address and phone number, which Twitter will test before finalizing login verification.
"With login verification enabled, your existing applications will continue to work without disruption," Twitter said in a blog post. "If you need to sign in to your Twitter account on other devices or apps, visit your applications page to generate a temporary password to log in and authorize that application."
AP Twitter Feed Hacked With Bogus Report of White House Attack
The Twitter account for the Associated Press was hacked on Tuesday, with the attackers posting a false report about explosions at the White House.
"Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured," the @AP Twitter feed tweeted this afternoon.
The account has since been suspended. Minutes after the offending tweet appeared, the AP took to its Facebook page to say that "the Associated Press Twitter account (@AP) has been hacked. Please do not respond to news posted there in the last 20 minutes."
AP reporter Julie Pace also confirmed at today's White House press briefing that the account was hacked, CBS's Mark Knoller tweeted.
In a later update, the AP said the Twitter attack "came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal the passwords of AP journalists," but did not elaborate.
The hack, of course, comes just over a week after the Boston Marathon bombings, and one day after Canadian officials said they had thwarted a major attack on transportation systems there. The AP tweet got hundreds of re-tweets shortly after it was posted, though many immediately suggested that the feed had been hacked.
Report: Twitter Music Launching This Weekend
Having already tackled video with its Vine app, Twitter will reportedly jump into music with a new app that serves up music recommendations based on your activity on the micro-blogging site.
Twitter Music is expected to launch this weekend, just as many music heavyweights descend on the Coachella music festival in California.
As reported by All Things D, Twitter Music will be available as a separate app and offer up songs based on Twitter settings, like who you follow. You can preview songs from iTunes and SoundCloud and watch videos from Vevo, ATD said.
Twitter has apparently called in some high-profile beta testers. Ryan Seacrest tweeted last night that he has been "playing with @twitter's new music app (yes it's real!)...there's a serious dance party happening at idol right now."
"Lovin the app...shows what artists are trending, also has up and coming artists... spinning u now @frankturner," Seacrest said in a follow-up tweet.
Report: Twitter Preparing to Launch Music App
For years, Twitter has resisted blockbuster acquisition offers, opting to stay the course and build what it believes can be a broad communications platform that will stand the test of time. Now the company is reportedly laying out the next phase of that plan with a new application focused on music.
The first rumblings of this new music app came yesterday via a report from CNET that said Twitter had acquired music discovery service We Are Hunted. According to a source, the acquisition is part of a plan to use the technology from We Are Hunted to launch an official Twitter Music app that would allow iOS users to discover new music based on the people a user follows on Twitter.
Twitter has not confirmed the reported acquisition, but in a follow-up report, AllThingsD claimed that the new Twitter Music app will not only rely on SoundCloud for its music streaming functionality (as the original report claimed), but it will also include other, unnamed music-streaming companies as well. But the real revelation from this follow-up report is that the Twitter Music will supposedly include music videos, made possible with support from music video service Vevo.
This latest move mirrors Twitter's acquisition of Vine as a means to launch its own video-sharing app. By all appearances, the Vine integration into Twitter was a success, particularly because the app, which only allows six-second video clips, matched Twitter's popular abbreviated information-sharing aesthetic.
Twitter Hack Hits 250,000 Users
Twitter said today that it detected "unusual access patterns" on its network this week, which indicated that attackers might have accessed the user data of approximately 250,000 users.
The micro-blogging site said that it discovered "one live attack and [was] able to shut it down in process moments later." But it's likely that the hackers still gained access to things like usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords.
As a result, Twitter has reset the passwords and revoked session tokens for the affected accounts. Those involved will receive an email from Twitter notifying them that they will have to reset their password. "Your old password will not work when you try to log in to Twitter," Twitter said in a blog post.
"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter said. "The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users."
Even if your account was not affected, Twitter urged members to use this experience to make sure they are "following good password hygiene, on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet."
That includes having a password that's at least 10 characters long with a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols - and not using that password across a number of sites.
Google+ Tops Twitter as World’s No. 2 Social Network
Google+ has passed Twitter and YouTube to become the world's second largest social network, beaten out only by Facebook, according to U.K. market research firm Trendstream's Global Web Index (GWI).
Despite early reports declaring the social network a failing enterprise, Google+ attracted some 343 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2012, up 27 percent from the year prior. The firm defined active users as those who have used or contributed to the site in the past month. In recent months, Google has more closely tied Google+ to its other services, so signing up for a Gmail account means creating a Google+ profile, for example.
Google's uber-popular video sharing site YouTube ranked as the world's third-largest social network with about 300 million active users, followed by No. 4 Twitter with 288 million active users. Facebook is still by far the most popular social network, with 693 million active users around the world, according to the Global Web Index.
"2012 saw Facebook shrug off the potential for Facebook fatigue and saturation in a spectacular way with active users growing 33 percent," Global Web Index Consulting director Brett Petersen said in a statement. A staggering 51 percent of the global Internet population now actively uses Facebook on a monthly basis.
But no other social network has gained more active users in recent months than Twitter. "The fastest growing network in 2013 in terms of 'Active Usage' was Twitter, which grew 40 percent across our 31 markets," Petersen wrote.
Bieber, Obama Top 2012′s ‘Year on Twitter’
What were the biggest events on Twitter this year? From the presidential election and the Olympics to Superstorm Sandy and Justin Bieber, fans of the micro-blogging service were not at a loss for things to tweet in 2012.
Twitter today unveiled a look back at some of most talked about events, most re-tweeted posts, and more. It also teamed up with Vizify to let you visualize your own year on Twitter.
President Obama's election night "Four more years" victory tweet featuring a photo of him hugging the First Lady (below) remains the most re-tweeted message of the year. It also broke a record for most retweets ever last month. Popstar Bieber, meanwhile, came in second to the president with a goodbye tweet to a young fan who passed away from brain cancer in September.
In a section dubbed the "Pulse of the planet," Twitter took stock of the events that prompted the biggest conversations this year. Not surprisingly, the Summer Olympics were very popular, generating 150 million tweets.
"The closing ceremonies (specifically, the Spice Girls' performance) amassed the largest Games-related spike, 116,000+ Tweets per minute," Twitter said. "The largest competition-related conversation: when Jamaica's Usain Bolt (@UsainBolt), most-discussed athlete, won gold in the 200m sprint (80,000 Tweets per minute)."
Other sporting events that grabbed people's attention included the Super Bowl (13.7 million tweets), the Euro 2012, and the UEFA Champtions League semi-final.
Obama Re-Election Results in Record Twitter Activity
The race for the White House finally came to a close last night, with President Obama holding on to his role as the U.S. commander in chief. But what the election also revealed was the newly important role Twitter has come to play in public affairs. The social-networking service was the epicenter for commentary for professional pundits, political luminaries, and citizens alike, breaking at least two records of note.
According to a Twitter blog post, the election was the most tweeted about political event in the company's almost seven-year history, logging 31 million tweets in the hours leading up to the announcement of the race's final results.
The Twitter activity reached its peak when networks began to call the race for Obama, resulting in 327,452 tweets per minute. During the final stretch of the election, as the Twitter team watched user activity from the back-end, the company's CEO, Dick Costolo, tweeted, "Wow. The tweets they are many. Incredible." Costolo's comment was soon punctuated by Twitter engineer Dana Contreras, who tweeted, "Unbelievable tweets-per-second graph."
Twitter Tops Facebook in Mobile Ad Revenues
Despite Facebook's recent ad-related push, rival Twitter is besting the social network when it comes to U.S. mobile ad revenue.
According to a new eMarketer report, Twitter earned $129.7 million in mobile ads this year, while Facebook earned $72.7 million.
Neither company ranks among more established platforms like Google and Pandora, which have taken years to hone their advertising craft, and pulled in $1,423.1 million and $226.4 million, respectively. Millennial Media and Apple both pulled in more than Facebook, capturing $84.1 million and $75.1 million in 2012, respectively.
"The increasing focus on mobile by both Twitter and Facebook, as well as other major digital advertising publishers, will continue to [grow] in the overall U.S. mobile advertising market," which eMarketer forecasts will reach a total $2.61 billion this year, the company said.
In June, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo reported that its mobile platform surpassed its website in terms of generating advertising revenue, a milestone that came four months after the company introduced ads into smartphone and tablet users' application timelines.
The Promoted Tweets option has helped to tighten the integration between the company's ad products and the core user experience, eMarketer said.
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