Twitter is opening a worm hole that will help people go back in time by building a tweet index that span 8 years. This new index should allow people to look for any public tweet since 2006, which equates to nearly half a trillion entries.

The company explains how they were able to build a system that can serve up queries with an average latency of 100ms in a very long and detailed manner that could make your nose bleed. For those of you who are into engineering, the system consists of 4 main parts: a batched data aggregation and preprocess pipeline, an inverted index builder, Earlybird shards and Earlybird roots.

At the moment, searching for a certain query will show the full results of the index in the “All” tab of search results both on the web and mobile app version of Twitter. The company promises that over time, search results will appear in the Top section of the results page and in new features coming to the search index.

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Twitter-owned Tweetdeck experienced a massive technical issue today as the platform experienced an XSS (cross site scripting) security flaw that enabled hackers to access users’ account and remotely access or implant JavaScript code.

So far, the hackers were able to add annoying pop-ups on a user’s Twitter feed or automatically tweet or retweet from a hacked account. Twitter has then advised users who were affected by the issue to log in and log out of Tweetdeck and check if the issue persists.

Unfortunately, there are still reports from users that the problem hasn’t been fixed. Twitter has momentarily taken down Tweetdeck in order to “assess” the security breach. A few hours after, the social networking site has issued a security fix and re-activated Tweetdeck for all users and issued an apologetic tweet.

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Some users of Twitter’s iOS app have reported recently that they were served with videos when they used a specific hashtag in their tweets.

According to a report by Recode.net, a number of iOS users were served videos when they used the hashtag #amillionwaystodieinthewest, specifically video clips from the Seth McFarlane movie. The suggested videos appear within the tweet in a manner similar to that when a user shares a video or YouTube video on the mobile app.

Photo Credit: Recode.net

At the moment it looks like this feature is only available for iOS Tweeter users and that the videos were suggested as part of a partnership with certain content providers. It can also be noted that the suggested clips weren’t paid as they are shown with a “Video provided by…” message instead of a “video sponsored by” one.

At the moment it looks like the new feature is simply an experiment, but it definitely can become a mainstay feature on Twitter especially if you consider the benefits of potentially serving video content to Twitter users and how it can help drive additional income for the company. 

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Have you ever had a friend who just can’t stop tweeting about everything that’s happening in his life to the point that it’s the only thing that you can see in your timeline, but you’re not too keen on unfollowing him/her because you’re afraid to hurt his feelings? Well Twitter has finally heard your agony and has introduced today the Mute function.

With the added feature, users can now filter their feeds by muting other users whose updates they deem not relevant. Once a user is muted, his tweets will no longer appear on the timeline although they can still see, reply or retweet updates from the person who muted them.

The user will also not know that another user has muted them and the process is fully reversible in case the person wishes to see the users tweets again in the future. According to Twitter, the feature will soon rollout to Twitter users on the web and the company’s mobile apps.

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Fans of microblogging site Twitter is getting a new feature in the next two weeks that should make monitoring activities in the social network a more convenient fare.

In the next two weeks, Twitter will roll out notification bubbles on its website that will show users retweets, favourites and replies on their profile. On top of that, notifications for direct messages and new followers will also be shows in these bubbles.

However, unlike Facebook’s real-time notifications, Twitter’s notification bubbles will be fully interactive and will allow users to reply to tweets within the bubble.

Whether or not such new feature will be welcomed by Twitter users remain uncertain, so we’ll just have to wait for it to pop up on the site.

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Twitter has finally raised the white flag when it comes to its music recommendation service, Twitter Music after exactly a year since it launched.

The service was initially released on the iPhone and iPad back in April 2013 and aims to introduce new tracks to users through trending playlists and genres. However, the service had a number of restrictions that made it a less appealing choice to consumers in the face of competition such as Spotify and Rdio.

The lack of consumer interest and its inability to get traction has forced the micro-blogging site to retire Twitter Music with just a year after its launch. The app has now been pulled from the Apple App Store while the web-based service has already halted streaming activities and now redirects to iTunes Radio and Vine.

Furthermore, Twitter has dropped all development activities for the app months ago. The entirety of the service will closed down on April 18.

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Twitter may soon be more than just a micro-blogging site as the company is said to be working with partners to bring some e-commerce functionality into the site.

An image of what appears to be a version of the Twitter app that comes with expandable, sponsored tweets that include a sales blurb and a “Buy with Fancy” button.

The leaked image was reportedly seen on a public section of Fancy.com are is reportedly a mock-up created by Fancy.com as a presentation to Twitter. The proposed feature is called Twitter Commerce and will likely be placed on the Twitter app’s Discover section.

The new feature will also use Fancy’s tracking system, which will allow user to track their purchases even from within the app.

Obviously neither Twitter nor Fancy is talking about the leaked image so a lot may still change if and when the feature is rolled out to the app. And if Twitter is still talking to other parties, the Buy with Fancy button may just be one example of the many types of e-commerce functionality that will enter the social networking site in the future.

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