“When we first broke the news that iOS 5 would come with Twitter integration, I wasn’t thinking big enough. Based on the fairly vague (but credible) information I had, I figured it was mainly based around the Twitter Photos product which Twitter was rushing to get out in time. Turns out it goes much, much deeper. Apple has essentially baked a “Twitter Connect” into iOS 5. It’s something that all iOS apps will be able to easily use,” MG Siegler reports for TechCrunch. “And they should. And they likely will.”
“It’s a massive win for Twitter. And a smart move by Apple. Social is not at their core, and they know it (*cough* Ping *cough*),” Siegler reports. “So they partnered with a company that gets it. But what does it mean for the Twitter ecosystem? After days of dodging my questions, I finally got a chance to talk with Twitter’s head of platform, Ryan Sarver, about it this afternoon.”
Siegler reports, “‘Overall the big thing for us is the combination of two big platforms,’ Sarver told me. ‘And we’re complementary to each other. Twitter from day one has been a mobile-friendly company — that was a part of Jack’s [Dorsey] original vision. So to pair up with Apple on this is a great opportunity,’ he continued, also pointing to the nice alignment of 200 million iOS devices with the 200 million Twitter accounts.”
Much more in the full article here.
I still don’t “get” Twitter.
Me either. I don’t find it very intuitive.
Me either. I’m only in my mid-30s, and this story about the way people worked together on Twitter to bust Idiot Rep. Anthony Wiener was like reading a report from another planet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/nyregion/conservative-group-scanned-weiners-posts-warned-women.html
(Wiener’s behavior itself is a hair more comprehensible; I do have a Twitter account, which I rarely use, and routinely get spammed to “follow” some supposed hot young girl— in my case surely just porn-spam, but in Wiener’s apparently some of them were real young “political admirers”— either way I can’t imagine how dumb you have to be to respond by sending pictures while you’re a Congressman… and anyway shouldn’t you have something better to be doing?)
Yawn from me as well.
I dont get it either.
Twitter is a short run thing – it wont be popular in 5 years, maybe not even exist.
Its a laugh that the guy says its a ‘combination of two big platforms’ – Twitter isnt a platform, its a .com play with the owners hoping to (a) earn some cash, and (b) sell it before it becomes obvious what crap it is.
Think hula hoops, yo-yo’s, and all the other crazes that die out.
I love Twitter. I know at first it seems strange and hard to “get” but after you start following some people/companies of interest, then it starts to sink in. Look at it as a live conversation you are reading, filled with news from people with shared interests. Don’t focus on the posting. Personally, I follow some writers, some actors and director, some TV shows, all things Apple, various companies with products I like, my local stores, etc. By reading through the stream of tweets you just find little gems of knowledge, facts, jokes, sales, news. etc. Then you report things that you like (if you want).
Out of the box it is hard to get, until you find the value for you.
Here’s my beef. . . WAY too much noise! You say you follow “all things Apple”? Yeah, RIGHT! That’s IMPOSSIBLE!…even if you’re Apple’s marketing department you can’t follow ‘all things Apple” on Twitter.
Two interesting points here:
1. Notice how many characters it took to make a very simple point.
2. “By reading through the stream of tweets you just find little gems of…..” Indeed. Most accurately stated, I think, as, “By reading through the streams of drivel etc.”
Sure, there are gems. But the work to get them!!! Sheesh! I don’t have the time, and still cannot comprehend the numbers of people who do. But then, I never did comprehend the enormous popularity of “Friends” either.
It is so true that there can be a lot of drivel. So many people have so little to say and they say it a lot! But then that is true with Facebook too. It is clearly not for everyone. I just just offering up a way that I found it useful.
Typically I check my Twitter account when something is happening, like world news, a TV show season ending, a new book release or WWDC. Otherwise it is sometimes just daily nonsense. If someone provides no value to their posting then you unfollow them and clean up your stream of tweets.
p.s. Hated “Friends”
ok.. part of this is about Facebook, part Twitter. Funny as hell!
botvinnik, a person who posts comments on the internet, doesn’t get Twitter, a platform for posting comments on the internet.
Err…
This has to be the best post I’ve seen on MDN this year… Awesome observation!!!
MDN posts about a specific topic, Twitter is just a big blur of bullshit…similar to your comment, Wheels.
Heh, this is a great move, but make no mistake, Twitter just became “Appled.”
First step towards the acquisition of Twitter by Apple.
Apple – worth $320 billion.
Twitter – worth the lint in your pocket.
To watch the Internet and all its crazes become just another service with IOS devices doing everything – priceless!
Woops ! Uhh…I just accidentally tweeted a pic of my junk.
If you are a liberal democrat slime ball politician from NY, don’t worry, your job is safe, whereas if you worked at Apple, it might be on shaky ground due to some morales clause in your contract not to bring embarrassment to the company and your profession!
Or conservative slimeball politician from NY (Chris Lee, a few months ago.
Face it, ALL politicians are slimeballs.
Unless you are a certain Family Values politician from Louisiana that just happens to find his phone number in a certain DC Madam’s record book. Then you just drag your grief stricken wife in front of the press while your GOP collegues stand behind you so a Democratic governor doesn’t fill your seat with fellow Democrat.
there’s a lot you are leaving out with vitter…
like it happened 7 years prior to the “incident” he already dealt with it, and notice how his name was the only politicians released?
Give me a break. The SOB should have resigned or been kicked out of the senate. So much for his hypocritical family values.
Don’t forget about slimeball John Ensign or Newt who was having an affair with a staffer.
What Weiner did was stupid but as far as information available suggests that he was not physically involved with any of the femals, who by the way seem to be adults.
The reality is that if you wanted to kick out of Congress any member who has fooled around or done other sexually oriented activities with someone not a spose the place would be barren.
The more people claim family values the more likely they are behaving in a way opposed to family values.
Yeah, if it was an uptight narrow minded conservative slimeball it would have been a tweet pic to little boys.
Naw, that sounds like a priest.
I’m not sure it’s fair to say that Apple doesn’t “get” social. Technically speaking, I think Ping was really well developed. It’s failing is that it has too narrow a scope in an already densely saturated field. People already use Facebook in the way that Apple wanted people to use Ping. And since Ping doesn’t really do anything else, it doesn’t bring anything to the table.
Frankly, I prefer the narrow scope of Ping. It’s about discovering new music and talking about music. And, for Apple and artists, selling music. I do not want a Facebook experience. Apple wasn’t trying for a Facebook-style service thankfully.
“that was a part of Jack’s [Dorsey] original vision. ”
Yeah, I believe the original vision was, “Hey Dudes, I’m going to Jay’s house tonight, text me back!”
He had no idea, zero, that Twitter would become the 21st century marketing platform that it is. He tossed his ‘original vision’ about 2 months into Twitter.
I think many people do not understand Ping, they think it’s suppose to be a replacement for Twitter and Facebook and calling it a failure.
Then Apple either did a poor job of communicating why it’s a great thing, or it aims to fill a niche that few wanted to venture into.
Either way, its takeup seems to be very low.
Twitter is essentially the best part of Facebook (Status Updates). The problem as I see it, is it’s not very usable in it’s present form. It’s easy to publish, but less easy to follow.
I think Apple could do a lot with it.
(Look at how they are getting iMessages/SMS to transparently co-exist. Imagine what they could do with Address Book, Mail the screen saver and Twitter).
I agree with botvinnik … I still don’t “get” twitter either. I have an account and ‘follow’ a few people/companies, but on the whole ….. yeah. It’s just a giant status bar of what someone is doing. It’s kind of an alert system of it’s own I guess. Dunno. I just don’t get excited about twitter.
I don’t think twitter gets social, either. That’s why so many people don’t get twitter. They haven’t done much to make the service relevant to *most* people.
Where appl comes in is that now people have a reason (content) to actually post — not just retweets and links to DemandMedia.
Based on comments on MDN for awhile, I think it’s safe to say that we-uns don’t “get” Twitter either.
(-1)
I won’t be playing ball with these guys. Social Media is BS if you are over- say 21.
Doubt I’m the only one of the 200 million who don’t give a flying eff at a rolling doughnut about Twitter, FarceBook or the rest. Just let me turn the BS off- all I ask.
To everyone who wishes to tell your virtual friends about your virtual life- feel free.
Tweet, tweet, tweet! Watch out mr zuckerberg. You reap what you saw!.
Yeahbut – Apple’s got this new messaging app that’s a Blackberry Messaging Killer (but that only works between iOs users) and now a seemingly redundant Twitter function. What gives?
Twitter != messaging
Twitter is mostly public. Messaging is private between the parties involved. So, no redundancy.
Yeahbut, you can send a private Twit, which would replicate the new Apple iOS messaging feature. I use Twitter occasionally to send private messages to friends so I kinda get that part. And I understand the “public-ness” of Twitter in general since I occasionally broadcast to all six of my “followers.” I guess I’m just trying to understand if there is really a substantial difference in the two a[applications. But thanks for the reply!
While I don’t use Twitter, I can see how it can be useful or popular. On the other hand, look at the damage people have done to themselves by tweeting out something without thinking it through. It’s worse than email – someone thinks they’ll be funny, or they’re angry, or whatever, so they pop off a tweet, and Boom Goes The Dynamite, trouble ensues.
I consider myself pretty techno-savvy, but I don’t get Twitter (I have an account and don’t know why). That said, I’ve witnessed its power for communication in the uprisings in Iran, Egypt and elsewhere, so I am not ready to write it off. Apple’s integration of Twitter into iOS may prove to be a very smart move.
So, you don’t ‘get’ Twitter? Ask any kid, and you’ll find that some form of micro-blogging like Twitter, et al, is their present and future communication channel of choice. Kids are the future. Future iOS users that is..
For Twitter to be baked into iOS 5 at such a core level of the API, is an indication of Apple’s acknowledgement of this mass-communication phenomenon.
Will Apple buy Twitter? Is Twitter even up for sale? Who knows, but Apple may have a first right of refusal option if Twitter ever does become available for acquisition.
I ‘get’ twitter. I just do not give a crap about using it and ‘tweeting’.
As long as it can be disabled and left out the way I’m OK with it being in iOS.
Twitter is definitely for a certain type of lifestyle. I don’t Twitter. I don’t want to follow people. I don’t care about people’s random thoughts throughout the day. If I want to find out information on a person or band, I’ll find it. I’m too busy as it is to have my day interrupted by others. And so far, the majority of Twitter posts in the world have caused nothing but scandals for people too dumb to understand its power.
Apple and steve jobs probably really like many things about Twitter. The core people, the vision, the product. Mainly though that Twitter sits in a very intereting space somewhere above, beside and in-between social, search, live content.
Also, they are not FB or Google. Not that Apple would want to partner with either FB or Google at this point.
And Twitter is still quite pure; untainted by privacy issues like the others.
And Twitter does not really monitize yet; no crappy ads, no creepy profiling. I think this point is very intereting to Apple.
Just to clarify, there are some “ads” though promoted tweets. They are clearly marked and easy to ignore. They are being careful about that. And yeah, no creepy profiling. I think Twitter is the smarter social network, and Facebook is the dumber one. (smarter is not always successful or as profitable).
I “get” twitter… but I don’t “get” how its actually popular. So you can follow people, companies, etc like a stalker and post a status…..why do I need facebook and a facebooklite(twitter). Its purely just someone who saw facebook… stripped the code for statuses.. and made their own site… done! oh and then they add in private messages too… so yay! beyond excited… not. I tried it out for a couple weeks and found it to be just pointless.. I’d even go as far to say myspace has more interest than twitter.. but it fell off the face of the earth once facebook was open to everyone… didn’t take much time at all to surpass them
I am mid 40s and get twitter enough to get info on stuff I am into like mdn, like for the last 6 months while the app was being revamped. Yet I don’t see the big deal about twitter
twitter is a global zeitgeist feed. Facebook behaves more as a regional walled garden.
if you follow the right people, twitter can be very useful.
This is great! It just got ten times easier to post inane crap to Twitter! Mobile computing just got taken to a whole new level!
I wish they went for Facebook instead of Twitter. Though I myself “get” Twitter, nobody I know personally or care about actually uses the service. Also, I need to watch the Keynote again because I don’t even remember what it even does
I don’t understand why people don’t get twitter/facebook. It’s very easy – Facebook is a way to keep up with friends and family. Twitter is limited to 140 chars and is more timeline-oriented. It allows a very easy way to follow all kinds of people/businesses, etc .., most of which post shortened URLs to timely news, stories, product reviews, etc… it’s a great way to get news and information faster than you can look it all up yourself – that’s how I use it, and it’s great.