Technology, Twitter | featured news

Hackers compromised Twitter accounts of The Associated Press on Tuesday, sending out a false tweet about an attack at the White House.

Twitter lit up Friday morning with dramatic reports from confused and terrified residents of suburban Boston, where a massive manhunt was under way for a suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombings.

Twitter #Music, a service which'll help you discover tunes based on Twitter activity, doesn't exactly come as a surprise. The social network's been teasing this one for a while and the rumor mill's been steadily churning out its secrets.

Twitter's announcement today that it will let advertisers target pitches based on words people type in tweets has marketing types in a tizzy over the potential for another ad venue as effective as 's search ads.

Twitter like all other social media is a virtual Aladdin’s cave. It is a gateway to riches. But just like in the story, this Aladdin’s cave is also booby-trapped. Use it right and you will come away with the genie of knowledge ready to do your bidding. Use it wrong and you will be a casualty of wasted time. So, ‘rub’ it just right.

Twitter appears to be getting ready to push into the music space with a service that shows users which artists are trending and features emerging artists. Twitter hasn’t officially announced the new service but it is being tested, according to a tweet from “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest — a message that was subsequently retweeted by Twitter’s vice president of business and corporate development, Kevin Thau.

Hackers apparently broke into at least two of North Korea's government-run online sites Thursday, as tensions rose on the Korean Peninsula. The North's Uriminzokkiri Twitter and Flickr accounts stopped sending out content typical of that posted by the regime in Pyongyang, such as photos of North's leader Kim Jong Un meeting with military officials.

One of the Vatican's main Twitter accounts and the website of its communications office were running stories about Batman on Thursday with the headline "Holy Switcheroo!" — raising concerns they might have been hacked.

The BBC Weather Twitter account began posting some peculiar updates Thursday. You could argue that they were loosely weather themed, yes, but the tweets were a series of digs at countries and heads of state in the Middle East.

As if Facebook weren't annoying enough. The Wall Street Journal reports that the social network may adopt Twitter's arguably most tiresome -- and arguably most Corporate -- feature: the hashtag. Facebook is testing the effectiveness of hashtags and is considering adding the categorizing feature to its site, reports the WSJ citing sources familiar with the matter.