Twitter Updates Facebook Cross PostsTwitter has polished up the way cross-posted tweets integrate with Facebook. Twitter posts appearing on Facebook now display live links in tags, displays profile information for @mentions, displays images and other media that is linked in the tweet. The changes began rolling out in late May, Twitter told Mashable, but seem to have kicked in universally yesterday. The changes in tweet displays extend to mobile devicesas well, TheNextWeb points out. That's an area Twitter's already pretty comfy in, given Dick Costolo's recent admission that mobile revenue surpasses its web use, but we imagine a little extra Facebook visibility can't hurt.
Bing Search To Serve Up Results From Britannica
Bing and Encyclopedia Britannica are partnering up for search. Britannica Online answers will be integrated into the Bing search page, giving a quick preview of the answers you were perhaps looking for, followed by search results, Bing explained in a blog post. The iconic encyclopedia maker shut its 244 year-old print edition and went online-only in March this year, deciding to refocus their efforts on their digital edition and online learning tools.
The Brittanica Online answers feature is in some ways similar to what Google hopes to offer through its Knowledge Graph (powered by Wikipedia, among others). In both cases, the search results dredge up data that readers will find useful before they've clicked a single link. Google's Graph additionally involves a deeper change in search technology itself, that'll better understand the search terms you enter in, for savvier results overall.
Apple Settling On $2.25 Million Sum In Australian "4G" iPad Issues
Apple has been under fire from Australian authorities over claims it misled consumers there with information that the new iPad is a "4G" device. While the iPad does support high mobile data rates that are compatible with some definitions of 4G, the chips don't actually match to Australian systems to run at 4G speeds. According to The Australian, the company looks like it is now moving to settle the dispute for a relatively low price of $2.25 million and refunds to customers who felt misled. The iPad's branding in several territories has been adjusted to make note of the 4G issue. Apple is widely expected to release an updated iPhone sporting 4G chips inside later this year, though it is unknown whether it will suffer the same issues as the iPad--probably due to the nascent nature of 4G around the world--or if it will be a true 4G worldwide smartphone.
Thunderclap's Crowdtweeting Experiment Struck Down By Twitter
Twitter effectively shut down Thunderclap, a day-old crowdsourcing platform on which people can back tweets they support in order to turn them into trending topics. If a message gets enough supporters, Thunderclap will send the message out en masse. Yesterday, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi got more than 1,900 supporters to back and send out his inaugural Thunderclap, which reached a total of roughly 4 million people in the Twitterverse.
Today, after a second Thunderclap went out addressed to Congress, Twitter suspended the team's access to its API. The four-person team behind Thunderclap, part of New York-based product development studio De-De, is currently in talks with Twitter's support team. If all goes well, Thunderclap will roll out a new version of the platform next week, on which anyone will be able to sign in and create their own Thunderclaps, studio head Hashem Bajwa tells Fast Company. "We're trying to understand what the exact issues at stake are, but it sounds like they view Thunderclap as spam," he says. Since Thunderclap's launch, Bajwa says about 300 people have signed up to create their own messages once the new platform is live, including organizations such as Human Rights Watch.
"We think of Twitter as a river of Internet awesome," he says. "We want to tap into that stream because we believe there are a lot of great causes and people out there that want to have their messages heard."
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