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Porn bots are now storming Twitter's trending topics
Instagram isn't the only social media app being invaded by porn bots. Now they're on Twitter, too. For the past few days, as I was scrolling through Twitter's trending section, I noticed a number of accounts showing similar behavior as the bots that have taken over Instagram comments. But, whereas on Instagram they're leaving messages like "We gonna ignore the fact that I've GOT A HUGE BOOTY?" or "DON'T LOOK at my STORY, if you don't want to M A S T U R B A T E !" on Twitter the spam also includes pictures of women in bikinis and a bunch of words relevant to topics currently trending on Twitter. And they're even more brazen in their attempts to lure in gullible readers, with messages like "I moan very much during sex, if this does not scare you, call me on whatsapp."
Twitter’s faster, redesigned site starts rolling out to everyone
It took quite some time, but the new Twitter.com is finally here. Months after teasing parts of it, Twitter has announced that it is now rolling out its redesigned site globally, which will bring people a web experience that's faster, easier to browse and more customizable. In addition to making conversations simple to follow, Twitter says the goal with this updated look and feel is for it to be more consistent with what you use on mobile devices. That's why the overhaul will make features like Explore, Bookmarks, Lists, Direct Messages and your Profile easier to access, removing the friction of having to switch between tabs, windows or screens to begin a new task or look at Top Trends.
Facebook lets news organizations broadcast your trending topic discussions
Anyone else think that Twitter's love affair with TV has gotten those down in Menlo Park a little scared? Facebook has announced that broadcasters like CNN, NBC and Sky can now gain direct access to your public wall posts concerning trending topics and embed them in their shows. That means that your insightful or controversial opinions on Shark Week might be sharing screen time with Al Roker without your explicit say-so. News organizations will also be able to generate real-time infographics to gauge the state of the nation and show, to an unprecedented level of detail, just how many of you care about twerking at any one time.
Twitter search improved with 'real-time human computation,' teaches you what trendy hashtags mean
Twitter's pretty often enhancing its microblogging platform by adding plenty of new features, and the latest changes could very well be among the most useful ones. Via its Engineering Blog, Twitter has gone into detail about how it has improved search within its social network, noting that a "real-time computation" system has been built to help "identify search queries as soon as they're trending, send these queries to real humans to be judged, and then incorporate the human annotations into our back-end models." What this means, essentially, is you'll now be able to learn more about what the service's millions (and millions) of users are talking about, helping you discover what the most popular topics are all about -- you know, something like #notimpressed or #tigerblood. The company's blog post is rather thorough on how the search improvements work, so be sure to hit the source link below if you'd like to learn a little more about the recent tweaks.
Twitter announces 'Trends' for 100 more cities, spreads the trending topics love
Even though there's an ongoing kerfuffle between social giants Instagram and Twitter, the microblogging service is putting that aside and focusing its own efforts on improving the experience for some of its (many) users. With that in mind, Twitter announced earlier today that it has expanded its trending topics feature, also known as Trends, to an additional 100 cities around the world, including big-name places like Frankfurt in Germany and Guadalajara down in Mexico. Of course, this means more people can now easily glance at some of the most talked about things around the Blue Bird social network -- still, don't expect Justin Bieber's name to pop up every single day on the list, as Twitter was pretty clear on how it feels about that.
MIT prof and student discover algorithm for predicting trending Twitter topics
Predicting the future of Twitter's trending topics is, as of right now, an impossibility. But two folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have cracked the code with an algorithm they're saying predicts -- with 95 percent accuracy -- the topics that will trend in the next hour and a half. The prediction has even been calculated as high as four to five hours ahead of time with the same level of accuracy. Not too bad! Of course, beyond impressing friends with the predictions, the algorithm has direct implications for the likes of Twitter itself -- being able to sell ads against trending topics could benefit the social media company enormously in its ongoing quest to monetize. At any rate, it's distinctly less dangerous sounding than the last idea we heard involving Twitter and predictions. The algorithm will be presented next week at MIT's Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks, should you wish to dig into the nitty gritty of the math behind the madness.
Google+ quietly gets trending topics, dares you to search for it
Did the addition of "What's Hot" not satiate your burning desire for real-time happenings on Google's social network? You're in luck, as Mountain View's quietly added another way to aggregate popular content on Google+. Upon initiating a search, a list of trending topics appears to the right, exposing what's currently en vogue on Mountain View's social network. Functionally, it's a dead ringer for Twitter's trending topics and unlike "What's Hot," won't bombard you with random unrelated, but popular, posts. Will it pass muster as an official feature, or will it be left to linger in the ether? We'll find out, but Google if you're listening, we're watchin'.
Google+ learns about trending topics, photo filters and how to appease Google Apps users
Still having a blast adding people into circles? Well hold on tight, because Mountain View just introduced some worthy upgrades to its social network. First up is a new feature dubbed "What's Hot" which, much like trending topics on Twitter, highlights popular content being shared on the social network. Photography aficionados in the audience can gussy up snaps with more photo editing features dubbed "Creative Kit", including a multitude of filters -- some of which (for a limited time) pertain to Halloween. And finally, those of you who use Google Apps within an organization can now partake in all the Google+ fun -- provided your IT admin isn't a social networking-hating luddite. Links explaining all that and more await you below, but before you go, why not hop past the break for some vampiric renditions of Larry and Sergey, and a few other celebs. [Thanks, Rich]
