Twitter experiments with 'Event Parrot'

IDG News Service - Twitter is known to experiment with new features to give its users more ways to find and follow content. Here's what appears to be the latest: a news delivery service. A new account called "Event Parrot" appeared on the site at least several hours ago. The account, which identifies itself as a Twitter experiment, is designed to send direct messages to its followers to "help you keep up with what's happening in the world." Twitter declined to comment on the account, or clarify when exactly it was created. But with more than 14,000 followers as of press time, it is already gaining some traction. The Event Parrot account introduced itself in a tweet Thursday morning, which read: "Hello world. So happy to keep in the know about what's happening in the world." The account gained a verified check mark during the morning, which is something that Twitter gives to the accounts of certain prominent individuals and brands to establish their authenticity. Signs point to the account being a Twitter-run experiment. "A common thread across recent releases has been experimentation," Twitter said in a September blog post on the topic of experiments. "We've tested various features with small groups of our 200 million users before determining what we'll release." Twitter has been doing more experiments in recent months, the company said, so much so that it's rare for a day to go by that it does not release at least one experiment. How the Event Parrot account is supposed to work, however, is less clear. Some reports have cited the delivery of direct messages involving world news like 2013 Nobel Prize announcements, or the kidnapping of Libya's prime minister. How Twitter will decide which news might be more relevant for which people isn't clear. Event Parrot is a curious experiment for Twitter because many of its users already use the site to gather news from their contacts and news organizations. The most recent Twitter experiment to be turned into a full-fledged feature was its Magic Recs account. That account is designed to notify users of certain tweets or contacts that Twitter determines would be of interest to them, based on the people in their network.museo 700 font free panasonic dp2500 driver intervideo sansa media converter for e260 atelier web remote commander full version philips brilliance 105 driver rail simulator 2012 full version free facebook messenger for nokia 311 drivers for trendnet tew 423pi french retail plus rp capu 835 drivers office 2013 themes

Direct Twitter messages with links fall prey to technical issues

Twitter's direct messaging feature appears to be experiencing technical difficulties by not allowing certain messages to be sent if they contain links. The issue was first noticed by some users Wednesday night, with tweets flagging the issue continuing to appear through Thursday morning and into the early afternoon. Apparently, whether a message can successfully be sent depends on the link it contains. In internal tests, messages containing links to Twitter.com, Facebook.com, YouTube.com and NYTimes.com appeared to work fine. But messages containing links to Google.com did not go through, and neither did messages containing links to Businesswire.com, Inquisitr.com, PCWorld.com or Computerworld.com. Twitter could not immediately be reached to comment on the issue, though in other reports the company described the problem as a "technical issue with URLs." Some users' problems, however, suggest there might be more going on. When trying to send a message containing a link, some users reported seeing a message that read, "Permission denied. There was an error sending your message: Text contains malware." Tweets and direct messages containing links can be dangerous on Twitter, and in the past have been used to hijack members' accounts. In the Netherlands, users reported earlier this year that they were targeted by malicious malware. In that case, hackers used links within Twitter to land people on external sites that would attack their browser and deliver malware. Twitter already tries to flag certain URLs to prevent phishing and scams, by blocking the posting of suspected malware URLs and flagging suspected harmful shortened URLs. Harmful sites may include phishing sites, sites that download malicious software to the user's computer, or spam sites that request personal information, the company says.tajima dgml by pulse ambassador free jungle book movie 1994 softick ppp 2 21 driver for pcga cd51 inkwell mac os x skype na android 2 2 4shared music pro apk plotech 6 94v 0 driver hp laser jet 3745 print drivers canoscan 656u driver