Twitter, Microblogging | 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.

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.

Three weeks after tweeting (and then deleting) a series of strange messages, former senator Scott Brown spoke publicly on the tweets for the first time. "Anyone ever hear of pocket tweet, pocket dial? I mean it was pretty simple," Brown told Boston's Fox 25. "I mean, I have an iPhone 5. If anyone has iPhone 5, the keys are small. It's very, very sensitive."

Twitter pages are getting a bit fancier (some might say more Facebook-like) whether you like it or not, starting Wednesday. For years, a user's Twitter page has featured the option of a profile photo and a page background of your choosing. Now, there's a third element being added to your page's look, a "header" photo that surrounds your profile photo. The short messaging blog has been doing a soft rollout the past few months of the three-element look, but on Dec. 12, it goes site-wide to all users.

Images from Instagram, the photo-sharing app that lets user spruce up their work with a slate of arty and retro filters, no longer show up on Twitter, a popular place to share them.

Hoping to break any stigmas of government assistance, Newark Mayor Cory Booker of New Jersey will live on food stamps this week–a challenge that first began as a Twitter conversation. The Democratic mayor will operate on a food stamp budget of about $30 a week ($4.32 per day), roughly the same amount provided to people in New Jersey who take part in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).