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TfL slides into your Twitter DMs with weekend travel updates
In an extension to its partnership with Twitter, Transport for London (TfL) has announced a new pilot that will send a direct message every Thursday that will warn of weekend closures and maintenance on the city's travel routes.
Twitter adds desktop notifications to direct messages on the web
Twitter's direct messages via the web just got more useful. Today the social network will start rolling out DM notifications for its site which will be available for everyone by the end of the week. Once it does go live for you, if you have Twitter.com open in a browser tab and get a DM, a notification will appear in the top right corner of your display. The company has really been pushing for the DMs feature to become a full-fledge messaging service to compete with the likes of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. In addition to today's desktop news, it recently removed the 140-character limit from direct messages and in January added group messaging. The company has been in the midst of determining how to attract and keep new users to its service. Expanding one of the core features into something most people use on a daily basis, it might be able to get those users to stick around and actually post status updates.
Twitter's Event Parrot claims to be an experiment in breaking news alerts (update: confirmed)
Wondering what's next for Twitter? TechCrunch points out a mysterious account called @EventParrot that may hold an answer, with its profile promising "direct messages that help you keep up with what's happening in the world." The setup is similar to Twitter's @MagicRecs account which eventually spawned the feature that automatically suggests tweets users might like. Despite a lack of official verification, @EventParrot has snagged a list of followers -- nearly 3,000 strong at the moment -- that includes a large number of Twitter employees and associates. Just this evening it sent out a direct message alerting followers to the kidnapping of Libya's prime minister, although how it will develop remains to be seen. Twitter's looming IPO is turning up the pressure on it to reach even more people, and offering more passively available, personally customized information may be one way to do that. Update: As noted by The Next Web, Twitter designer Paul Stamatiou has confirmed that the company is indeed behind the account, which he also described as an experiment.
Twitter updates apps with direct message syncing and improved search results
Remember that raucous applause that occurred when the WWDC crowd was told that Notification Center clearings would be synced across devices in iOS 7? If you listen carefully, you'll hear something similar happening today from the Twitter faithful. At long last, the company has updated its litany of apps with support for direct message syncing -- in other words, a DM that you reply to on your Nexus 7 will no longer show as an unread message on your iPhone. All told, seven different programs are seeing an update: Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, twitter.com, mobile.twitter.com and TweetDeck (sorry, Windows Phone users!). For Android, iPhone, iPad and mobile.twitter.com, the outfit's making search result improvements as well; additionally, a new in-app indicator in search results will show you when there are new Tweets for your query. Hit up the links below to download the new wares.
