The latest from TechCrunch
- Twitter To Add "Nifty" Site Features That May Make You Forget Third-Party Clients
- Badges Like Us: Foursquare Gets Its Rap Song
| Twitter To Add "Nifty" Site Features That May Make You Forget Third-Party Clients | Top |
| Twitter appears to be on the verge of some big changes to its website if a tweet that Twitter engineer Alex Payne sent today is any indication. In fact, the new features may be so good that they could make some people re-examine their use of desktop Twitter clients, apparently. As Payne writes : If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon.) Not surprisingly, that tweet had a few third-party Twitter developers worried. “ @ al3x as a developer, i’m not sure how to take that looming tweet…. ,” wrote developer Chad Etzel (who actually used to work part-time at Twitter). Payne immediately repsonded , “ @ jazzychad I don’t mean that developers won’t be able to compete with the site. We still release most everything API-first, of course. “ While I dabble with both Brizzly and Seesmic Web , I still mainly use Twitter.com day to day, so the prospect of these new, more powerful features excite me. The reason I never got into one of the desktop clients is the same reason I only dabble with Brizzly and Seesmic: The lag in the API (and the rate-limit) annoys me. But that should hopefully change soon with the new Twitter firehose of data. Last year, Twitter added two huge new features to Twitter.com: Lists and Retweets. It’s hard to imagine what else they’re working on for the site now. One definite possibility is baked-in geolocation, which Twitter currently offers through its API, but not on the site itself . While new features are great, Twitter has to be careful not to make things too complicated . The core of Twitter has always been its simplicity — if you start tacking on features, that goes away quickly. That said, there is still room for improvement. Certainly, search is one area on the site that could use an upgrade with more options. The upcoming Twitter ads are thought to be built around Twitter Search, so it’s likely a candidate for an overhaul sometime soon. It’s worth noting that Twitter also recently hired a new UI guru away from LinkedIn . This was the guy largely responsible for LinkedIn’s nice iPhone (and other mobile platforms) app. Could Twitter be getting into that game too? And should third-party developers be worried by these moves? Twitter Lists in particular encroached a bit on what services like Brizzly were doing (though they now play nicely together). Any more encroachment and Twitter’s upcoming developer conference , Chirp, could be very interesting. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Badges Like Us: Foursquare Gets Its Rap Song | Top |
| There’s a pretty good indicator that a service is evolving from its early-adopter base to the mainstream: if there’s a rap song about the service. It’s happened numerous times with Twitter as it evolved. And now Foursquare has its own rap too. “ Badges Like Us ” finds Mr. Silva (@ borismsilver ) and “Newby” (@ thenewb ) rapping about checking-in all over cities and earning badges. It also features the lyric, “ I hope this hits TechCrunch or else I’ll be sad ,” so of course, we had to oblige. Other choice lyrics include: “This is Foursquare bitch! Gowalla aint the same!!” “Cant use an iPhone, AT&Ts a piece of shhh” “Checkin w/ the groupies eating lotsa sushi” “Dont checkin to your house, thats just really lame” “And whats up with all these randos trying to friend me?” “Im checked in off the grid like TIGER WOODS B!!!!!” Foursquare is quickly gaining mainstream appeal as they are signing major deals left and right with television channels, schools , and publications. In fact, Bravo even made a TV spot for them this week . And while the service only has around 450,000 users right now, it’s growing fast . And they could well have another coming out party of sorts at this year’s SXSW festival in two weeks. Find the full lyrics below the video: Mr. Silvas in da building Checkins by the hundreds, thousands, trillionz Ayo I know its my first stop Look at that leaderboard and see me at the top Bouncin to new places, adding em quick I know all the TO-DOs and I got all the tips Show up at the Bar and I check in Right Away Sent it to my Twitter cuz Im here to stay Looks like you got ousted welcome to the game This is Foursquare bitch! Gowalla aint the same!! Now that Im the mayor, now that Im here Gimme my free breadsticks AND my cold beer!! La la la la How it feel to wake up and be the mayor of the city! La la la la Tryina get that Crunked badge, drinkin like P Diddy [Chorus] Got a rock like this Cant use an iPhone, AT&Ts a piece of shhh No one on the corner had an app on this So I used my mobile web, wasnt very quick You can learn where to eat just by checking my feed Checkin checkin my feed checkin checkin my feed Follow my lead its the road to success Never need a reservation, they always say YES But I cant teach you my swag You can pay for a coffee but you cant buy a badge School of social media Imma grad I hope this hits techcrunch or else Ill be sad Its Newby Checkin w/ the groupies eating lotsa sushi Newwwbyy Bet you didnt know we could flow like thiiiiis [Chorus] Lets talk about the knockoffs, they just imitating They cant even compare and no were not even hating Copyin foursquare cuz you lack innovation How could you turn down Googles valuation? So let me say it now, let me be clear Foursquare is the app that all you should fear Hockey stick growth, all star investors Lots of passionate users, all beta testers I add lots of value, Im a superuser You cant spell your top venues, super abuser Dont checkin to your house, thats just really lame Ill snatch up all your badges, call me David Blaine Your checkins are fake, theres no way those are true 20 stops in one night? IM GONNA CATCH YOU!! And whats up with all these randos trying to friend me? Im checked in off the grid like TIGER WOODS B!!!!! CrunchBase Information Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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