I just came across a new Twitter feature “Jump to someone you follow” which is pretty cool.

It seems they’ve been trailing it for about a week now and it’s a nice little way to hope around the people you follow.

Currently it seems to only appear when you are looking at other user’s following (who they follow) page.

See it in action in short 15 second video below:

Twitter has become a huge part of millions of peoples everyday lives, and has embedded into almost every aspect of our society.

From News and TV shows reminding you to “follow us on Twitter” and use the hash tag to bus companies keeping users updated on their routes. In just 5 years the company has seen huge growth and has made some incredible developments and become a fantastic tool for collaborating, communicating and discovering awesome new things in real-time.

So how did Twitter come to be?…

Back in 2006 Jack Dorsey and others at Odeo began work on what was then known as Twttr, 8 days after programming work began the first tweet was sent from @Jack on March 21st “just setting up my twttr” – Seems incredible now, the tweet ID is 20, 5 years on they’ve stopped using incremental ID’s and the Twitter archives & databases are bulging will billions of 140 char tweets. Isn’t that just … well … AWESOME?

Twitter Inc., is now home to over 400 employees, and has been valued at $1 Billion and almost 200 million users worldwide. With an ever expanding user base Twitter seems to be an unstoppable force, much like other social media such as Facebook it seems destined to be with us for a while to come, with new features and better ways of working developing, such as Discover.Twitter.com.

Discover seems like a cool way to find new things and “discover” more on Twitter, they also have a great video with some great celebrity Twitterers including astronauts, Snoop Dogg, Piers Morgan (Not sure why) and Hillary Clinton.

One of my favourite of the tools I have looked at is “Blackbird Pie” developed by @Robinsloan and hosted on Twitter.com. The tool enables you to simple enter the URL for the tweet which it converts to some shiny HTML which you can then paste in.

Example:

Based on the Blackbird Pie tool there is also a very handy Blackbird Pie WordPress Plugin which enables easy integration so all you need to do to embed tweets is add ‘[blackbirdpie id=”35794693342101504”]’ or you can use the full URL ‘[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/dansgalaxy/status/35794693342101504”]’

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/dansgalaxy/status/35794693342101504"]

While there is little difference between them I do prefer the WordPress widget, seems to look just a little bit nicer and easier to use when writing posts. It also has the added benefit that it isn’t effected by WordPress constantly trying to remove the style tags, which can prove rather irritating when writing a post with them in…

I am as always keen to hear what you guys think! So leave a comment below on which you prefer, or if you have found an even better way to embed tweets in your own sites and posts.

I was intrigued to see that I seem to be one of the few selected to view the new version of Twitter… So why don’t we take a look?

So as you can see got a nice banner to view the new version.

Once we click this we are presented with the new twitter design with a overlay explaining a couple of the key new features. Including the ability to preview Pictures, Videos and replies right from within Twitter.

So lets break down some of these new features and take a look, firstly Video previews.

With this new version of Twitter the design encompasses a simple arrow on each tweet when you hover over and click on a Tweet which slides out and includes a variety of items related to the tweet. Including the tweet itself, the Picture / Video preview as well as tweets with the same tags, other tweets from the user, user avatars of users who have retweeted it and other similar related tweets.

The example we have on the right shows the video preview for @iamthealterego this particular feature seems to work well, the design is very clean and flows nicely, most importantly the video preview seems to work well.

Now taking a quick look (after searching for a picture in my feed) shows much the same as the video, as one might expect.

We have the picture showing on the right under the users tweet.

While both of  these might be considered a much needed feature of twitter no doubt the reasoning behind this development is to help keep users on Twitter.com instead of forcing them to open new sites, such as Youtube or Twitpic. This could however raise some concerns for sites like Twitpic, who mostly rely on Twitter.com traffic from the everyday users clicking on photos to view; which naturally leads on to further browsing of their site. This feature from twitter will possibly have a detrimental effect to sites like Twitpic.com who rely on Twitter and the way it worked to function. I will be interested to watch this and how the changes effect the Twittersphere.

Another great little feature I discovered is Twitter seems to be making better use of the Location info it associates with users tweets (who have some form of location tracking enabled).

As we can see it shows a nifty little map highlighting the users location and also a link to “View Tweets at this place”

Which simply enlarges the map to fit the full width of the area and lists the tweets from that location below.

While I could go into extreme detail about each new change, other than the obvious change of look these seem to be the main features which will effect your everyday viewing and usage of Twitter.com, instead I shall leave you with these key parts, and would like to hear your thoughts.

Also just to note, thanks to @iamthealterego, @Rogem002 and @Bennuk who have inadvertently become part of this post.

I thought I should make a post to shout about the system I am currently developing (Currently in Alpha) which is an alternative SMS to Twitter system – eg. You text TW followed by your message and that gets tweeted out on your Twitter account.

Now firstly I will explain WHY I have made this because I know lots of people might think, why bother, twitter already have that!

But alas, not quite. Twitter does have a UK text number, however it has a rather irritating downfall, its a Isle of Man number… so on some networks – like mine T-mobile – which do not have any special deals for the twitter number it means texting this number isn’t included in your SMS allowance and is charged at International Region 1 rates, which is 25p/SMS last time I checked! Which is a lot more than the 3 – 10p PAYG customers might pay, and a damn site more than the cost of unlimited texts.

So now you know the reason, texting this number is cheaper for some people because its properly UK based.

Now for a little bit of tech.

The way the Alpha system is currently working is very bare-bones; there is currently no front end at all and it is purely based on 2 cron jobs working with 2 databases.

My aim is to develop the system so it has a SMS Api/Gateway core, which is the part of the system which interfaces with the actual SMS gateway I am working with, so this runs and grabs all new SMS messages on my account and stores them to the core database.

I then have the SMS to Twitter part or App which then interfaces with the core system, to retrieve and process SMS messages for tweeting.

So as the text system is based off keywords eg, SMS must start with “Tw” or “dansgalaxy” to be picked up, so I register all the keywords with the gateway, and then the core system picks up all the SMS for my account picks out all the info and dumps it into a database so i can easily find and process the SMS and then you have Apps which can interact with the core database to use the SMS.

So currently the SMS to Twitter system is based on a keyword of “tw” so the App authenticates with my core system, and is then able to retrieve the SMS messages which uses the keyword of “tw”.

The system then checks the information for the SMS, picks out the senders phone number, which is then looks up in database to and finds the account holder, and is then able to tweet the users SMS using Twitter Authentication details stored in the database.

Because the system is in Alpha, currently it is very basic however I have great plans for this system and hope I can develop it into a full system where users who wish to use it can sign up authenticate the system with their Twitter account using OAuth instead of the username/password combination and enjoy a simple tool.

All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Cool image made by friend @cj27yeah Cheers Chris!

Its now been a whole year since i first joined the Twitterosphere and dived into Twitter.com, now a year on and i am still hooked, which is quite an achievement as the only other site i am this involved with and has managed to keep me hooked is probably YouTube.

Twitter has become a massive force on the Internet, I am wrapped up in it and tweet obsessively (@Dansgalaxy) as well as managing many twitter accounts and twitter bots.

As well as this other (bigger) businesses are taking advantage of twitter and using it as a way to communicate with their users, often it can be hard to tell which accounts are official here’s a list of companies / celebrities twitter accounts which are worth a look.

Microsoft:

• @Microsoft – Main MS account being run and managed by the corporate communications team
• @MSWindows – Announcing Windows 7
• @WindowsLive – Official Twitter account of Microsoft Windows Live
• @liveframework – liveframework
• @livemesh – Sync, share, and access the information you care about—wherever you happen to be.
• @SharePoint – The official tweetstream of the SharePoint product group – managed by @LLiu
• @bizspark – Microsoft BizSpark – Software, Support, Visibility
• @zunemarketplace – Zune Marketplace is a store for the way you love music, with brand-new releases every week and a huge selection of music in every style imaginable
• @wmdev – Windows Mobile
• @microsofttag – Microsoft Tag
• @ch9 – listen to the cockpit, help us fly the plane
• @ch10 – Channel 10 is Microsoft’s online community for the technology enthusiast
• @ch8 – Microsoft’s community for students
• @mixonline – Come check us out at www.visitmix.com
• @MIX09 – The Next Web Now, pre-empted by @MIX07, @MIX08 and @PDC08
• @SiteNamedDesire – Want a copy of A Website Named Desire? This li’l birdie will tell you how. Wait for the tweets.
• @MicrsftTech4All – News from Microsoft Accessibility team, which strives for technology to be usable by everyone & complements our physical & cognitive abilities.
• @MSDN – Updates from the MSDN site team.
• @adCenterBlog – News, Tips, Tricks & Best Practices From The Guys At Microsoft adCenter

[ Most Microsoft twitter accounts sourced from on10.net ]

Tech News:

Twitter can be a great place to stay on top of the latest tech news, and I often use it as a basic RSS system, and am often reminded to check out TechCrunch.com or the Guardians tech articles when i see their tweets.

• @TechCrunch – TechCrunch.com is a great tech news blog with some interesting stories.
• @GuardianTech – Tech stories from the Guardian
• @Twit – This Week In Tech
• @NYT_tech – New York Times Tech
• @TimesTech – Times (of London) Technology News
• @Digg_Technews - Popular technology stories from Digg.com
• @msntech – Tech and Gadget news from MSN
• @BBCClick – The BBC’s flagship technology TV show.

News:

• @BBCbreaking – Breaking News stories from the BBC.
• @Reuters – Reuters breaking news stories.
• @SkyNews – SkyNews news stories.
• @GoogleNews – Breaking news stories and updates from Google News
• @CNNbrk – CNN.com is among the world’s leaders in online news and information delivery.
• @NBCnews – NBC News — a leading source of global news and information for more than 75 years

Twitter Bots:

Twitter bots are becoming a fun part of the Twitterosphere (Twitter community). Twitter Bots can be like marmite, you either love them or hate them as with most things.

Personally I love some twitter bots (particularly the ones i run) and tend to take the view of don’t like it don’t follow.

Here’s a few of mine and others which I follow which are worth checking out.

• @JacksonBot – Picks up tweets about Micheal Jackson
• @LMAObot – Picks up anything with “LOL”, “Lmao”, “ROFL” etc in it picks up some random and funny tweets.
• @IsDeadBot – Picks up tweets about all things er dead. Which can be more interesting than you might think.
• @NoteRobot – Retweets “Note to self” tweets, very funny and some random laughs!
• @LuvOrHate - Picks up on what people love and hate, again some random interesting tweets – Created by @aaronbassett.

Celebrity Twitterers:

There is no doubt that celebrities have jumped on the twitter bandwagon, be it for self promotion or simply to tweet their life.

I wont go into an extensive list of Celeb twitterers, as there are lots so instead I will share my favourite picks and share with you some great celeb twitter stalker sites!

@StephenFry is one of my favourite twitterers with some interesting posts and insights into an interesting mans life as he goes about his day to day tasks, from visits to the apple store to ponderings a must follow for twitter users.

@lilyroseallen is one of my favourite artists (I know maybe a little sad) but i do love her, and from what i can tell she tweets for “real” and isn’t using twitter purely as a publicity vehicle, which i like you get to see Lily Allen the person.

One of the difficult parts about the web is you don’t really know if the person you are following is the person you think it is, this is where Valebrity.com comes in. Valebrity enables you to “validate” celebrities online so you know who your following is who it says it is!

Worth checking out if you want to follow your favourite celebs.

Also came across a blog post on Mashable.com which is worth checking it out which has 25 celebrities accounts from actors, musicians, politicians and writers which is worth checking out too.

So take a look, follow people and get involved in the wonderful world of twitter!

Don’t forget to follow @Dansgalaxy for updates and randomness from the world of Dan.