Woho !! Twitter’s Mobile Site Now Uses One-Third Less Bandwidth

Twitter just announced an update to its mobile site that is meant to bring it up to par with the new version of Twitter the company introduced in December. According to Twitter, the idea behind this update is to “give every person on the planet a consistent Twitter experience.” Because of this, the company says, the new version of the mobile site now uses one-third less bandwidth than the previous iteration and should work significantly better on feature phones, older browsers and low-bandwidth connections.

This new version will start rolling out today.

According to Twitter’s VP of Product Satya Patel, the company aims to “make Twitter the most accessible way to connect with the world, even with the weakest signals and the simplest devices.”

Given that feature phones still represent the majority of mobile phones in use today, it makes sense for the company to try to reach more of this market by optimizing its mobile site for these devices.

The updated version of the mobile site, says Patel, should feel just like a native app and gives users access to all the standard Twitter features, including @mentions in the Connect tab, direct messages and trending stories in the Discover tab.

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2011 - The Year In Tech

Okay, last workday of the year. It’s nostalgia time. Let’s take a quick glance in the rearview mirror at the year in Tech, before we speed forward again in 2012. There were defining moments, epic battles, new product introductions, and major corporate screw-ups. Mobile and social drove many of the changes in tech, and we’ve certainly gone through our own major transition here at TechCrunch (but I’ll save that for another post). Below is our list of 11 events in tech that made 2011 memorable.

1. End Of An Era: Steve Jobs Passes Away

The defining moment of 2011 which transcended tech was the passing of Steve Jobs. It shook the world not because it was unexpected, but because Jobs was at the height of his creative arc and his work was far from finished. He had pulled the tech industry into the post-PC era with the iPhone and iPad leading the charge, and the rest of the industry following. But Jobs always liked to surprise people with “one more thing,” and he set up Apple to keep creating those things far into the future. It is telling that his last public appearance was in front of the Cupertino City Council outlining his plans for a futuristic new Apple headquarters. (Other tech luminaries no longer with us include Dennis Ritchie, Bob Galvin, and Ken Olsen).

2. Google Goes Social

After many previous half-hearted attempts to take on Facebook, Google finally got serious about social in 2011 with the launch of Google+. Larry Page, who took over as CEO this year from Eric Schmidt, put it front and center by weaving it into Google’s other products and pushing it to an estimated 65 million people. With its Circles and Hangouts, G+ is forging its own distinct identity. The more that social threatens search as the way people find things in the Web, the more important G+ will become to Google.
 
3. The Kindle Lights A Fire

Amazon entered the tablet race this year with the Kindle Fire, a media tablet based on Android that serves as a window into all the digital media Amazon is trying to sell us—books, movies, music, apps. The $200 Kindle Fire is the best-selling Android tablet out there. Amazon sold more than 4 million total Kindles over the holidays (including the E-Ink versions). Amazon just wants to get as many Kindle Fires into people’s hands as possible so that it can deliver digital books, movies, and apps right into our hands.

4. The Year Of The Pivot

The one thing startup founders learn very quickly is that failure is okay as long as they learn from it. With the cost to create a product lower than ever before, lean startups can afford to try again. This is known as the “pivot,” an over-used term which became a survival strategy for some, even fat startups (see, Color). The two most successful pivots which come to mind are Turntable.fm (formerly Sticky Bits) and Fab.com (which went from gay social network to design-oriented e-commerce site).

5. Netflix Screws Up

This was a tough year for Netflix. Its stock went from $300 to $70 as it tried to speed its transition from a DVD rentals business to streaming online video. Along the way, it introduced price hikes to some of its customers and tried to split off its DVD-by-mail business before backing off and apologizing to customers. (Although, the price hikes remained). Viewers are spending more time watching Netflix movies streamed over the Internet, but the company still has a lot of work to do to repair its once-shiny brand image.

6. Tech IPOs Come Back (Sort Of)

After several years of almost no activity, 2011 was a big year for tech IPOs. We had LinkedIn, Pandora, Groupon, Yandex, and Zynga. And don’t forget about Chinese Internet IPOs like Tudou and Renren. Most of these didn’t perform that well for public investors after initial pops, and even some private investors got burned (Zynga priced below its last private round). Now all eyes are on Facebook, which is planning to IPO in 2012.

7. The Private Billion-Dollar Club Gets Bigger

One reason tech IPOs aren’t performing so well is that much of growth in value is now captured before the IPO by private investors. Tech companies are pushing off going public further and further into the future, and raising huge rounds of funding from the same types of growth investors—DST, T-Rowe Price, Fidelity—who a dozen years ago would have waited for an IPO. As a result, many private tech companies are raising money at $1 billion valuations. We saw this trend take off in 2011 with Airbnb, Dropbox, Gilt Groupe, Square, and Spotify. And it’s not limited just to the U.S.

8. Google Buys Motorola, Microsoft Buys Skype, And Other Big Deals

2011 wasn’t just a big year for IPOs, it was also a big year for M&A. While the biggest tech deal of the year, AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile, was squashed by the government on antitrust grounds, some of the biggest tech deals of the last decade did go through. Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, Microsoft called in Skype for $8.5 billion, and eBay acquired GSICommerce for $2.4 billion. Other notable large deals included HP-Autonomy ($10.2 billion), RightNow-Oracle $1.5 billion), PopCap-Electronic Arts ($1.3 billion), ITA Software-Google ($700 million), Anobit Technologies-Apple ($450 million), Admeld-Google ($400 million), Efficient Frontier-Adobe ($400 million), Radian6-Salesforce ($326 million), Huffington Post-AOL ($315 million), and Kobo-Rakuten ($315 million).

9. The Patent Wars Get Ugly

The patent system is broken. Patents are increasingly used to block innovation in courtrooms rather than create innovations in the marketplace, and we saw this problem reach epic proportions in 2011. Patent trolls continued to extort tech companies large and small. But the patent wars spilled over to the major industry players themselves as everyone pointed their patent arsenals at Android. In July, Google failed to win a bid for more than 6,000 of Nortel’s patents, which went to an anti-Google consortium for $4.5 billion. Google responded by buying patent-rich Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Microsoft started demanding patent licensing fees from Android handset manufacturers, which led to a very public tussle with Google which never seemed to end. And Apple did its part by continuing to sue Android manufacturers, including HTC and Samsung, for patent infringement. It’s a mess.

10. Android And Apple Win The Mobile Internet

All of this fighting is for a very high stakes game—the future of computing, which is mobile. Apple and Android emerged as the two superpowers of the mobile Internet (with 76 percent combined mobile OS share in the U.S.). RIM is in shambles. Windows Phone is still nowhere to be seen (except in TechCrunch writer Robin’s pocket). So far, tablets are all iPad, but the Kindle Fire is coming out punching to become a serious contender.

11. Social Media Fuels Social Protests

Whether it was the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street, social protest movements around the world were fueled by social media like Twitter and Facebook. Protesters self-organized using Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones and any other communications system available to them, which also functioned as a way to broadcast the protests around the world. These realtime technologies make it much easier to start revolutions, but they don’t make it any easier to finish them.

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Saudi Prince Pumps $300 Million Into Twitter

In an unexpected move, a member of the Saudi royal family has invested $300 million in social networking company Twitter. This morning, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, founder and CEO of Kingdom Holding Company and one of the wealthiest people on the planet, announced the investment, which was reported first by Bloomberg.

In a statement, Twitter’s newest equity holder says that the investment was the result of “several months of negotiations and comprehensive due diligence”.

Prince Alwaleed commented: “Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

Prince Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding have stakes in many Arab and international media and entertainment companies; including a roughly 7 percent stake in News Corp.
According to Wikipedia, Kingdom Holding’s international investments include (or have included) other notable tech companies such as Apple, eBay, AOL, Motorola, Compaq and Amazon.

We’ve contacted Twitter for comment and will update when we hear back.

Update: Twitter has confirmed the investment but did not want to disclose more details.

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The Top Spiking Tweets Of 2011

Which event caused a greater spike in tweets this year, the Japanese earthquake, Steve Jobs’ death, or Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement at the MTV Music Awards? Yup, it was Beyonce.

Twitter just released the top tweets per second for the year as part of its ongoing Year in Review. Yestreday it revealed the top tweeted hashtags and other topics).

The Beyonce announcement spiked at 8,868 tweets per second in August. The Troy Davis execution was the second-highest tweeted event at 7,671 tweets per second. Two soccer-related tweets were next, followed by the resignation of Steve Jobs, which spiked at 7,064 tweets per second. His death a little over a month later created a peak of 6,049 tweets per second.

The Japanese earthquake in March came in at 5,330 tweets per second, and was trumped by the puny (but exciting) East Coast earthquake in August, which spiked to 5,449 tweets per second. What about the raid on Osama bin Laden? 5,106 tweets per second.

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Twitter is going after another typo domain name: Twittter .com (with an extra ‘t’)

The dispute submitted by Twitter Inc over the typo domain Twittter.com (with an extra ‘t’), comes on the heels of Twitter’s win this month in a similar complaint against the typo domain Twiter.com.

WIPO Case D2011-1973 was filed this week with the World Intellectual Property Organization.

In the case of Twittter.com, the owner is using a popular scam, like the one used by Twiter.com of luring unsuspecting users to a site that looks confusingly similar to the official Twitter site (as shown in the picture above). 

The user is guided through a series of questions that attempts to gather personal information by promising free gifts like an iPad 2. 

Today, the full administrative panel decision was posted in the case of Twiter.com, which involved Twitter, Inc (the complainant) vs. Geigo, Inc of Albrook Park, Panama (the respondent). 

According to the factual background, prior to filing its complaint, Twitter sent several cease-and-desist letters to Geigo, but received no reply.  

Twitter finally reached a Geigo Inc. rep by telephone, who confirmed that they would not transfer the disputed domain name but would consider altering the content at the website.

This apparently, never happened.

Twitter demonstrated confusing similarity, that Geigo lacked rights or a legitimate interest in the domain, and that it was registered in bad faith, which might surprise some readers since the domain was first registered in 2004. 

Here’s what the panel had to say on the point of ‘bad faith’: “Had Respondent made the initial registration in 2004 and maintained ownership through 2011 the Panel would likely have reached a different outcome about Respondent’s having registered the disputed domain name in bad faith. But Respondent has not even alleged that it or an affiliate owned the disputed domain name continuously since 2004, and has offered no proof (indeed no allegation) that it is or was affiliated with any prior owner. The available evidence, not contested by Respondent, shows another owner as late as March 2011.”

Twittter.com (extra ‘t’) is currently registered to Goldberg Client Services, Inc. according to WHOIS records (privacy has been removed as of yesterday).  The domain was initially registered by its first owner in 2007.

Given the track record of WIPO with Twitter, Twittter.com will likely be ordered transferred.

You can read through all the details of the Twiter.com decision in Twitter’s latest win here.

[Updated November 15, 2011, at 3:06pm EST:  Robin Wauters of TechCrunch pointed out that Twitter has filed a separate complaint (WIPO Case D2011-1992) over Twittr.com.]

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Ashton Kutcher Is Making a Big Twitter Mistake !!

Ashton Kutcher decided to hand over the management of his Twitter feed to Katalyst Group, a company he co-founded, because “a collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted.” The implication is if he had fewer followers, it might be something he could take for granted or, perhaps, more lightly.

I guess that’s fair. Eight million is a number I can comprehend, but cannot imagine on my own Twitter feed, which hovers at 35,000. On the other hand, I do not take my 35K followers for granted. In fact, I doubt even those with 2,000, 200 or 15 followers take them for granted. The audience, no matter what the size, matters.

For those of you who don’t already know, Kutcher’s actions, which he explained in a post called “Twitter Management,” came after he tweeted a defense of fired Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno’s assistant coach has been caught up in an intense child sexual abuse scandal. Kutcher somehow missed the entire controversy and posted a knee-jerk response that was not, to put it lightly, well-received.

Now Kutcher has decided that he can’t be trusted with his own feed. It’s too precious. There are too many people watching and he doesn’t want to massively fail in front of them. “While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk I’m going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst Media to ensure the quality of it’s [SIC] content.”

In other words, from now on, you @APLUSK followers will never know if it’s Ashton tweeting or a Twitter account handler. There’s also a chance that all future tweets be run through a “PC” (Politically Correct” filter). This is a shame. The best accounts on Twitter, and I think Ashton’s has been one of them, are those that are managed by the account holders. Obviously, there are situations where the Twitter account is for a brand or product and it’s impossible to know who is tweeting what. However, when the account is for a celebrity or other notable person, there’s a certain excitement and entertainment value in knowing that they really thought and said that tweet.

Look, I am not defending what Kutcher said. I am astounded that he seemed totally unaware of this huge, national story. Yet, while some people don’t believe his defense, I’m willing to cut Kutcher some slack. Sometimes, we’re busy, not looking at the TV or our social feeds and miss something big. In our always connected world, it doesn’t happen often anymore, but it does happen.

I’ve made my share of mistakes online and on Twitter. It’s not fun. In reality, everyone makes mistakes. Owning up to them, as Ashton did is a good thing. I’m also all-too-familiar with the feeling you get when you first realize that you’ve messed up. Queasy is the word that comes to mind. And when the negative response starts flowing in, the natural reaction is to want to run away. That said, while I have considered closing my Twitter account on one or two occasions, I can’t imagine someone else tweeting for me.

Over the years I have seen many celebrities run away in horror from their Twitter accounts. The celebrity makes a flippant comment or criticism in Twitter, the audience reacts and then the celebrity makes the mistake of answering for it on Twitter. It almost inevitably ends in said celeb taking a “Twitter break.” Most of them slowly creep back to their accounts by the time all has been forgotten or forgiven. It’s true, anonymous individuals can be merciless on the service, especially when you’ve inadvertently picked one of their favorite scabs—they cry out in pain and then complain about the blood. It’s always dramatic and angry and the celebrities are usually stunned.

Kutcher, though, is supposed to be different. He understands social media. He invests in it. I think he loves it. And he has to know that by handing any part of his Twitter feed over to handlers he is destroying it.

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