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Add items to your #AmazonCart directly from Twitter
As if you need more temptation to spend, Amazon has now made it possible to put items aside for purchase using Twitter. To start with, you need to connect your Twitter and Amazon accounts from your social settings page (you can also opt out). After that, it's almost too easy. When an Amazon product link like the infamous banana slicer above is tweeted from any source, you just need to reply with #AmazonCart (#AmazonBasket in the UK) to place it in your cart. At that point, you'll receive a confirmation email and tweet from Amazon. It's not quite an impulse buy, as you'll need to enter your Amazon account to complete the purchase. So far, we've confirmed that the service is now live in the US and UK, but there's no word yet of other regions. Meanwhile, check the video below for more info.
Twitter's new profile pages are now available for everyone
After a few weeks of test drives, Twitter officially rolled out its new profile pages to the masses today. Besides the sexy new look, the update includes a few tweaks like a running tally of how many times you've favorited tweets and a new page where you can see every photo and video you've ever uploaded. The month and year you joined Twitter are also now displayed right under your username -- a big plus for early adopters who want bragging rights, and a way for everyone to see how long an account has been around (and possibly determine how legit it is).
Twitter experimenting with pop-up notifications on the web
Twitter isn't shy when it comes to experimentation. The social network tests some new features by rolling them out to regular users, albeit on a very limited basis, while other projects, such as @eventparrot, are made available to the entire community. The latest unreleased tool to make an appearance is a notification window that pops up whenever you receive a reply or mention, a la the screenshot above. Engadget editor Sarah Silbert noticed the pop-up in her own account, but she seems to be the only staffer with access to this particular tool. We reached out to Twitter for more information, but reps weren't able to share anything related to this particular implementation. The company has gone on the record before to shed some light on its otherwise mysterious experiment program -- in the past, engineers have "tested various features with small groups," and that appears to be the case here as well. Have you come across any Twitter features that your friends haven't seen? Let us know in the comments, and feel free to send us a tip with a screenshot, too.
Twitter focuses on photos in embedded tweets
Some say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but regardless of how you do the math, it's fair to say that a good photo can say a lot more than 140 characters. With that in mind, Twitter is giving greater emphasis to photos within tweets by placing them front and center in the post, with the actual tweet serving as a simple caption below. Looking at it now, the decision seems an obvious one, but all photos were previously smaller and subservient to the short text. The visual redesign applies to both landscape and portrait photos, so regardless of how you frame your image, you can now let your shooting skills do the talking for you.
IFTTT makes nice with Twitter, brings back tweet triggers and actions
When Twitter placed user caps on third-party clients last year, IFTTT was one of a few services that decided to halt tweet integration, lest it run up against that cap and have to figure out an alternate solution. According to TechCrunch, however, it seems that the Twitter integration is back after extensive talks between the two companies. IFTTT, if you aren't aware, is a handy internet service that lets you create custom actions between different apps and services with a set of triggers and actions -- an example would be to send a picture to Picasa any time you upload it to Instagram. So as you might expect, there are now new tweet triggers and actions. Examples of triggers include "New tweet by you" and "New tweet by you with hashtag" while actions could be "Post a tweet" or "Post a tweet with image" among others. Some interesting IFTTT Twitter recipes include the ability to automatically tweet a link once you post it to Facebook, a way to hook up G+ posts to Twitter and even a recipe that'll bypass Instagram's turning off Twitter cards. And since IFTTT works well with connected hardware like the Belkin WeMo and the Philips Hue, you could also send a tweet to turn those devices on or off. So if you're hooked into Twitter and would love some automation in your life, head over to the IFTTT link below to get started on a recipe or just create your own.
Twitter briefly showed which sites were embedding which tweets
It's been possible for Twitter fans to embed posts and whole timelines for some time, but authors almost wouldn't know it when they aren't told that the sharing takes place. Users may not be in the dark for much longer -- F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen noticed this weekend that Twitter was briefly listing the sites embedding a given tweet. We've asked Twitter for more details, but the quick disappearance of the feature suggests that the company was conducting field tests. If the addition becomes permanent, it would be consistent with Twitter's desire to track major events -- we'd know just which tweets get the web community buzzing.
Twitter for Mac 2.2.1 brings Notification Center support, various bug fixes
It's certainly been a long time coming, but the latest version (2.2.1) of Twitter for Mac finally brings support for Notification Center in OS X Mountain Lion. Aside from the side-pane pings for your @replies and DMs, a number of fixes have been implemented that should stabilize your experience some more. Most notably, Growl users on Lion and Mountain Lion can enjoy receiving notifications again. The update is available directly from the Mac App Store right now, so hit the source link if you're interested.
Yahoo, Twitter partnership brings tweets to your newsfeed
The ever-changing web portal that is Yahoo under Marissa Mayer will receive its next tweak with help from Twitter. In addition to providing summarized stories, Yahoo newsfeed will soon include occasional tweets based on your interests. Folks in the US can expect to see the change in the coming days across desktop and mobile versions of Yahoo -- just try to keep your excitement contained to 140 characters.
Slayin soundtrack now available
I remain a big fan of Slayin, a little game that got released on the App Store a while ago, that compresses a full fantasy-style RPG into a fascinating little endless game. I think the game's mechanics (where you simply move back and forth across the screen, holding your weapon out in front of you, as you kill monsters and collect money and XP) are my favorite part about it, but the soundtrack's good as well. And now, composer Matt Creamer has released the Slayin soundtrack for download over on Bandcamp, where it's now available for you to listen to and download directly. The in-game theme is a particularly excellent piece of 8-bit music, but almost everything there is good, and there are even some unreleased tracks for real Slayin fans to check out. The price is name-your-own, so technically you could grab it for free, but the composer definitely deserves a few bucks at least for his work. And if you haven't heard any of these sounds in the game yet, you definitely should. Slayin is one of my favorites on the App Store so far this year, and it's available for US$0.99 right now.
Respawn Entertainment teases E3 appearance this year
Respawn Entertainment (which came from the disunion between Activision and the former heads of Infinity Ward) promised us last year that the company would not debut its first game at E3. Though we may see a glimpse before the show, Respawn's co-founder Vince Zampella has tweeted that, "Yes, we will finally be at E3," presumably not just to enjoy the sometimes smelly confines of the Los Angeles Convention Center again.So far, all we've seen of Respawn's secret title is a company logo and the blurry screenshot above, but if Respawn is headed to LA in June for the show, they'll likely be bringing some game info along. As Zampella added, "I have no intention of showing up empty handed!"
PSA: URLs in tweets now eat a couple more characters
The dreaded day is upon us, as Twitter has followed through with its plan to increase the maximum length of t.co wrapped links. So, from now on, you've got a few less characters to play with if you want to share an URL with the world: links of the http kind now take up 22 characters instead of 20, and https links hog 23 characters instead of 21. Forget the "t.co wrapped" part -- the reduction comes into force when any URL is included in a tweet, and you can't trick it with shortened links from sites like Bit.ly, so u'll jus need 2b a lil more concise. Even Neo can't mess with the laws of the Twitter.
Twitter and Vine combine to enable embedded video tweeting
Twitter took Vine under its wing late last year, and it looks like that new relationship is bearing its first fruit. Earlier today, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed Vine's new capabilities with a single tweet earlier today with a Vine video embedded. Like Twitter's card implementation, the video appears as a link in the tweet, and users need only click the "View media" (instead of "Show summary") link underneath for that tweet to expand and show the embedded vid. Once played, the clip loops until you tell it to stop. The video Costolo shared is only a few seconds long, so we don't know if there's a time limit for embedded Vine videos, nor can we say when the rest of us will be able to start using Vine. However, we can surely point you to the source to see the service in action.
Tweeria is self-proclaimed 'laziest MMORPG ever'
If you like the idea of MMOs but don't want to actually have to do anything to progress in one, then Tweeria may be the answer to your weirdly specific situation. The game, such as it is, draws from your Twitter account to create a character and go on missions. Players go on raids, engage in PvP, loot, and level up based on everyday tweets. According to the game's developers, Tweeria's proven to be pretty popular, with over 14,000 registered users. The application reads your tweets, sees who you follow on Twitter, updates your profile, and posts tweets for you over the course of the game. The game's blog said that Tweeria began as a "private, non-commercial, and mostly experimental project," and was not prepared for the current level of popularity. There are some issues with player-submitted artwork and possible copyright violations that Tweeria's creators are trying to smooth over with future policies.
Twitter archive begins rolling out to users today, enables sorting by month and keyword
A "small percentage" of Twitter users may have noticed the feature earlier this week, but the rest of us should officially have access to the service's archive tool soon. After downloading your own Twitter archive, you'll be able to launch an HTML file that provides a familiar web interface, but with vastly improved searching features and full access to all of your tweets since your very first day on the site. The advantage of Twitter archive is twofold: you'll have a backup of all of your tweets (and retweets), but you'll also be able to dig through all those masterfully crafted messages more quickly and efficiently, thanks to localized storage. Initially, the archive option will only be available for users with accounts set to English, but those of you displaying the site in other languages will have access "over the coming weeks and months." Check it out at the source link below.
TweetDeck for the web and Chrome gains ability to embed tweets, not much else
TweetDeck today announced a new feature that may not nab it any design or productivity awards, but, still, it'll surely be appreciated by some power users of the Twitter-owned client. And while the ability to embed tweets isn't exactly novel at this point (Twitter's had it for many months), it's still nice to now have the option present on both the web and Chrome versions of the application -- which, in turn, should make it easier to insert select snippets from the Blue Bird social network into your personal website or blog. Besides the "Embed this Tweet," TweetDeck didn't make any other additions, though the service did make it clear that it spends "a lot of time improving TweetDeck for a large consumption of Tweets, as this is one of the core uses of the product." Onto the next one then.
Twitter brings content preview cards to Android and iPhone, lets us email tweets from the web
Twitter has been on a mission to bring more of its expanded tweet content to the mobile world, and most recently lavished attention on the iPad. It's carrying that campaign to a much wider mix of screens: an update to the Android and iPhone apps gives them article summary and photo preview cards whenever they either search for tweets or browse through the Discover tab, all without having to tap the post first. Photos in the reworked search have likewise moved to the top by default to help track down that elusive concert photo. Web users aren't being left out of Twitter's latest update frenzy, either. The social network is tucking an option into the "more" section of each tweet that lets us email a pristine-looking copy to anyone who isn't part of Twitter's flock. All of the features are available to try immediately in the relevant official clients, which should make life grand for those of us who want more than just a wall of text in our search results.
TweetDeck gets a makeover, new update brings themes and improved fonts
If you're a social media junkie and TweetDeck is your pusherman, you may or may not be happy to know that the Twitter-owned application has received a cosmetic update -- one which inches the platform further away from the post-buyout product that power users once knew and loved. While subtle, the latest software bump brings enhanced, adjustable fonts and a brand new "lighter theme" that features dark text against a light background. The update is now available for Windows, Chrome and Mac web users. As for you app fans, Chrome and Windows requires a restart, while Mac users will need to visit the App Store. Those looking to keep it retro can always get their download on at OldApps.
TweetDeck for the web slips in expanded tweets and header photos
TweetDeck is Twitter's professional desktop client, though you might not always know it given that the app is sometimes out of step with its more pedestrian siblings. Today, Twitter is presenting a unified front in a more timely fashion. The web versions of TweetDeck now show the expanded tweets and header photos that reached the iPad and mobile apps a week ago. No major surprises are waiting in the wings save for the absence of a matching update to the native Mac and Windows apps -- hopefully, that's a gap that closes soon.
Twitter CEO reveals plans for interactive tweets, content curation, reinforces belief in syndication
Twitter has ruffled a few feathers recently, so when CEO Dick Costolo took the stage at the Online News Association conference in San Francisco, he took the opportunity to put some minds at rest. First he dismissed the idea that the service would become a media company by forcing users to the site or official app for content, before reasserting his belief in syndication. Costolo then went on to imply that the reason behind the tighter (and unpopular) API controls was ensuring quality -- stating that Twitter would reach its full potential now there's more control over how tweets are delivered. With boots strapped, we can look forward to some new features, such as the option to curate messages that are published (such as during live events) plus tweets with interactive features like polls during live sports games. The famous 140 character limit is to remain, but will also serve as a "caption for additional functionality." Perhaps of most interest to disenfranchised developers, however, was the mention of application functionality in tweets, where short messages could contain small interactive apps. Something for devs to get potentially get back on board with? We hope so. But until further details unfold, we're still left considering our options.
Twitter offers embeddable timeline tool, gives web designers new toy to play with
Until now, the only way for folks to see someone's tweets on the web was to grab screenshots or head directly to their Twitter page. No more. The microblogging platform just launched a new tool that lets folks embed Twitter timelines into any website, meaning you can have your 140-character musings right alongside your long-winded blog posts. Plus, you can interact with those tweets as you would at twitter.com, following and replying directly from the module. Interested? Head on down to the Twitter Developers source link below to learn how the embedding works.
