#ChooseYourFeed on Twitter with Lists Curated by your Favourite Food Influencers

While Twitter serves up a buffet of conversations, product features like Twitter Lists and Topics empower people to customise their ‘feed’ and follow discussions that appeal to their palate and resonate with their interests. Through these features, you can choose the content you see on the service and organise your timeline as per your preference. 

Twitter Lists are a compilation of various Twitter accounts, and you can create your own Lists or follow Lists created by others. With Lists, you can put together your favourite accounts that Tweet on a particular subject such as food, parenting or any other, and populate a List timeline. Viewing a List timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the accounts on that List. 

Topics, on the other hand, use machine learning to find related Tweets on a subject. Twitter has Topics across numerous interest categories that you can follow to see the best Tweets about what’s happening on the things that matter to you. When you choose to follow a Topic – whether it’s your favorite band, sports team or celebrity – you’ll see Tweets from a whole host of accounts that are experts, fans or just tend to talk about that thing a lot on Twitter. 

Feast your eyes and feed your soul - these Twitter features let you follow food conversations

Expand your culinary horizons and #ChooseYourFeed with Twitter Lists curated by some of India’s most well-known food influencers and celebrity chefs. Through these Lists, you can personalise your Twitter timeline and inject food conversations into it. Moreover, viewing a List timeline shows a stream of Tweets from only the accounts on that List, making it easier for people to find what interests them, in this case, all things food. Some of India’s most celebrated chefs including Thomas Zac (@ChefTZac), Maria Goretti (@mariagorettiz), Prateek Sadhu (@PrateekSadhu), Kelvin Cheung (@chefkelvincheung) and Ranveer Brar (@ranveerbrar) have put together Lists of their favourite food accounts on Twitter. 

Here’s a look at these lip-smacking Twitter Lists curated by culinary influencers and celebrity chefs on Twitter: 

Maria Goretti (@mariagorettiz), who was a VJ with MTV in the ‘90s, is now a Cordon Bleu certified chef and baker. Here’s the List of food accounts that Maria follows on the daily.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/mariagorettiz/status/1296082272014270465

#MyLifeMyYoga: Twitter Celebrates #InternationalYogaDay with emoji

Ahead of International Yoga Day 2020, Twitter has launched a custom emoji to celebrate the much-loved physical, mental and spiritual practice on the service. People can trigger this emoji by using #InternationalYogaDay2020, #InternationalYogaDay, #YogaDay2020, #YogaDay, #MyLifeMyYoga, #योगदिवस, #अंतर्राष्ट्रीययोगदिवस in their Tweets.

The health benefits of yoga have led to its worldwide acceptance and popularity, embellishing Twitter Home timelines with pictures and videos of sun salutations and other popular yoga stretches, poses and asanas. 

Well-known voices from the world of entertainment and sports have been Tweeting to share their yoga sessions, from basic wellness moves to rigorous physical exercises, they have it all covered. Here’s a look at people practising yoga to relax, rejuvenate and find their inner calm:

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/thesushmitasen/status/1253054471258517504

Namaste, Fleets! Twitter Introduces Way to Have Conversations in India

Twitter 

* India is among the first three countries to test a new feature, Fleets

* Fleets are for people to share their ideas and momentary thoughts. These posts disappear after 24 hours and have no Retweets, likes or public comments

* Fleets will be available for everyone in India on Twitter for iOS and Android in the coming days in updated app versions

Twitter in India is testing out a new way to have conversations about your fleeting thoughts on the service  – Fleets. They disappear after 24 hours and there aren't any Likes, Retweets, or public replies. We learned from research that people don’t Tweet because Tweets are public, feel permanent, and display the number of Retweets and Likes. We hope Fleets will empower many more people to express themselves more freely. India is the third market globally after Brazil and Italy where Twitter is rolling out this feature to test.

For Twitter to serve the public conversation, which is its mission, more people need to feel comfortable having conversations. There need to be more ways to have conversations on Twitter with less pressure and various controls. Fleets are fast and familiar. People can tap on their own avatar to start, add text or media and hit send. That’s it, that’s how one Fleets.

Manish Maheshwari, MD, Twitter India: “India is important for Twitter since it is one of our largest and fastest-growing audience markets globally. We are excited to bring the Fleets experiment to India and make it one of the first three countries in the world to experience this new product. From the test in India, we’ll learn how adding a new mode of conversation changes the way Indians engage on Twitter. It’ll also be interesting to see if it further amplifies the diversity of usage by allowing people to share what they’re thinking in a way that is light-touch and light-hearted.”

Fleets from the accounts one follows are always right on top of one’s timeline. People can see who’s seen their Fleet by looking underneath a post. They can tap on someone’s avatar to see what the person has shared since they last were on Twitter. Alternatively, one can also find an account’s Fleets by looking on their profile page.

To create a new Fleet, follow these simple steps:

* Tap the avatar on the top left of your profile to create a new Fleet

* Start typing or tap a media icon to add photo/s or video/s

* Tap ‘Fleet’ to post

To view someone’s Fleet:

* Tap an avatar to see their latest Fleets

* Swipe down to see newer Fleets and up to see older Fleets

* Swipe left or right to see Fleets from other accounts you follow

To engage with your followers on Fleets:

* Buttons to reply and react are available when Direct Messages (DMs) are open

* Followers can reply privately via DM or quickly react with an emoji, and continue the conversation privately in DMs

* Replies and reactions will appear in DMs along with the Fleet they are responding to

People can also report a Fleet using the ‘...’ menu

Mo Al Adham, Twitter Group Product Manager: “Twitter is where people go to see and talk about what’s happening. We want people to be able to have conversations on Twitter in different ways, with less pressure and more control. That’s why we’re testing a way to share their fleeting thoughts.”

Since starting to test Fleets in Brazil, Twitter has seen people become more comfortable sharing what’s on their minds. People who don’t usually Tweet are starting more conversations and sending both Fleets and Tweets. When people send a Fleet, they often share a number of thoughts rapidly.

Fleets will be available for everyone in India on Twitter for iOS and Android in the coming days in updated app versions.

Banks, social networks new target for computer viruses

Cyber criminals are increasingly focusing their attacks on the hundreds of millions of users of social networks and on loopholes in bank security systems, security software vendors said on Wednesday. At the same time, spam e-mail messages rose sharply in the third quarter, Symantec Corp said.

And as Facebook reached 300 million accounts in September, social networks and social media continued to attract criminals, smaller research firm F-Secure said in its quarterly virus report. "As Twitter has grown in popularity, it has been increasingly targeted by worms, spam and account hijacking," F-Secure said.

Cyber criminals choose targets that are widely used, allowing them to go after the largest number of potential victims. "Cyber criminals continue to follow the money," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, technology chief at a small security software vendor Finjan, who on Wednesday revealed a new method criminals use to steal money from bank accounts and hide their tracks.

Finjan said it expects a growing trend of using new software that forges on-screen bank statements, concealing the true transaction amount to dupe account holders and their banks, and then sends the stolen money to money mules accounts.

"With the combination of using sophisticated Trojans for the theft and money mules to transfer stolen money to their accounts, they minimize their chances of being detected," Ben-Itzhak said.

The amount of spam in all e-mail traffic rose to 88.1 percent in the third quarter from 81 percent a year ago, said Symantec's MessageLabs in its quarterly report. MessageLabs said botnets are now responsible for sending 87.9 percent of all spam. Hackers take advantage of the PC vulnerability by booby- trapping websites with a malicious code that loads onto computers.

Infected PCs are commandeered into a botnet, a network of hijacked computers. They are used for identity theft, spamming and other cyber crimes. "Over the past year, we have seen a number of ISP's (Internet service providers) taken offline for hosting botnet activity resulting in a case of sink or swim and an ensuing shift in botnet power," MessageLabs analyst Paul Wood said in a statement.

"However, this won't always be the case as botnet technology has also evolved since the end of 2008 and the most recent ISP closures now have less of an impact on resulting activity as downtime now only lasts a few hours rather than weeks or months as before," Wood said.

Agencies

Motorola's Android system banks on Google's Web power

Struggling phone maker Motorola unveiled its first device using Google's Android system Thursday, expecting it will power features that promise easier access to hot Internet sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The phone, called Cliq, will go on sale at T-Mobile before the end of the year. Pricing info has not yet been released.

Motorola has reorganized its handset biz around Google's Android system, hoping the partnership with the Web search leader can help it win back customers.

The centerpiece of Motorola's Android development is its MOTOBLUR software, which integrates contacts, e-mails and text messages along with postings and photos from social networks by feeding content from these sources into "easy-to-manage streams."

For example, Motorola's live "Happenings" application delivers updates posted by friends automatically on multiple social sites to one place, and gives the user a choice of ways to reply to those updates instantly.

Agencies

Motorola unveils Cliq smartphones

Motorola introduced its first smartphone based on Google's Android software, in a move that's key to the company's goal of regaining its place among the world's top cellphone manufacturers.

The device, dubbed the Cliq, will first be made available later this year in the US through T-Mobile. The touch-screen phone will run a new service from Motorola called MotoBlur, which synchronises all user messages and contacts, Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha said at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco.

"MotoBlur makes text, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter feeds and photos from sources like MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo and corporate e-mail appear in a single stream and sync them together with no different logins," Jha said. "This means you can focus on what people have said instead of how and where they said it."

The Cliq will feature a full, slide-out keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera and access to all the Google programmes and applications available for the company's Android platform.

The phone will be called the Dext in markets outside the U.S. and will launch in France, Britain and Latin America later in the year, Jha said. No pricing was available for the device.

Analysts said the integration of social networking into phones could give Motorola and other manufacturers a foot in the door in their battle to challenge the iPhone as the world's dominant smartphone.

Motorola has been especially hard hit by the move to smartphones, selling just 18.8 million handsets in the most recent quarter, down from 28.1 million a year ago. Earlier this decade, the company's Razr was the world's most popular cellphone.

Jha said that Motorola was now refocused on producing cutting-edge mobile devices. He said the Cliq was crucial to the company's recovery.

"It's a very important starting point for us," Jha said. "I see smartphones as the future of computing. If it doesn't fit in your pocket, I don't think it's going to be a relevant device."

Agencies

Will Twitter permit ads on website?

Twitter, the fastgrowing microblogging site now seeking ways to make money, expanded its terms for users to allow advertisers to reach the site’s more than 45 million monthly visitors.

Twitter, that lets people send an unlimited number of 140-character messages, is just now beginning to ramp up efforts to monetize, or gain revenue from, its popular site.

On Thursday, it revised its “terms of service” to specify that it may run ads. “We leave the door open for advertising. We’d like to keep our options open, as we’ve said before,” founder Biz Stone wrote on Twitter's official blog.

Advertising revenue is the time-honored way for websites to generate revenue while remaining free for users. Explosive growth in social networking is attracting interest: worldwide unique visitors to Twitter’s site reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-over-year.

Agencies

Can Yahoo take on Twitter with its new Meme?

After closing the social network platform SpotM, Yahoo has launched Meme, in English, to take on microblogging site Twitter. The company had launched this service in Spanish and Portuguese languages earlier this month.

Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.

It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.

The company's previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched 'Know Your Mojo' also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch.

Meme does not allow much in terms of customization. The users cannot customize the themes with background images and custom CSS to style the text, as this facility is available with Twitter and Tumblr. Both these services have a rich faux-cabulary, which defines how a person uses the service. Meme does not lend on a particular vocabulary. The setting panel has minimal options like Meme title, 100 character description, avatar/photo and notifications. It also shows the comments posted by the users recently.

Yahoo Meme can have a big advantage over Twitter in terms of reliability. Twitter's image has suffered for frequent service outages, with its "Fail Whale" graphic appearing whenever the site is overloaded, emerging as the company's unofficial logo.

Several technology sites like TechCrunch and paidContent are not pleased with Yahoo's move, they said, "Meme seems to lack in its features and in potential to surpass its competitors." They also pointed out that the company has a spotty record with Mash and SpotM.

Agencies

Is Koobface dangerous for networkers?

If you have been getting tempting messages with video links in your accounts in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter,
IT Exploring Internet Explorer 8, Myspace, Bebo, Friendster and Hi5, beware. Any attempt to download the promised video will make you another victim of Koobface, a worm that could steal critical and personal information from your computer.

The government's India Computer Emergency Response Team has warned that Koobface, a play on the name of social networking site Facebook, comes with an enticing tagline and spreads by spamming the contacts of the victim on networking sites.

With more than 3 million members of Facebook alone in India, Koobface's potential for wreaking havoc on the country's computer systems is immense — a fact that has prompted the government to issue the warning alert.

Typically, Koobface victims get a message from one of their contacts inviting them to click on a video link. The link leads you to a site mimicking the video-sharing site, Youtube. Once there, you are asked whether you want to download a software needed to watch the video.

If you click `yes', the worm gets activated, leaving your computer vulnerable. The worm not only disrupts your internet experience by sending your searches on engines like Google elsewhere and return garbled replies, it also steals data that may have been left in your computer's memory.

If you do or have already been Koobfaced the only way to protect your machine is to delete all files and registry keys that have been added by the worm. Internet users have also been advised by the government agency to install and maintain updated anti-virus software in their computers, as also a desktop firewall, and block ports which are not required.

While you may not be able to notice the worm rummaging through your electronic files searching for personal data, including passwords, the visible signs of the worm would show up on your internet browsing where you would get abnormal results to your searches and be misdirected to other sites.

Agencies

Web updates on objects approaching Earth: NASA

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is introducing a new Web site that will provide a centralized resource for information on near-Earth objects - those asteroids and comets that can approach Earth.

The "Asteroid Watch" site also contains links for the interested public to sign up for NASA's new asteroid widget and Twitter account.

"Most people have a fascination with near-Earth objects," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL.

"And I have to agree with them. I have studied them for over three decades and I find them to be scientifically fascinating, and a few are potentially hazardous to Earth. The goal of our Web site is to provide the public with the most up-to-date and accurate information on these intriguing objects," he added.

The website provides information on NASA's missions to study comets, asteroids and near-Earth objects, and also provides the basic facts and the very latest in science and research on these objects.

News about near-Earth object discoveries and Earth flybys will be available and made accessible on the site via a downloadable widget and RSS feed.

For those who want to learn about their space rocks on the go, a Twitter feed is offered.

"Asteroid Watch" also contains a link to JPL's more technical Near-Earth Objects Web site, where many scientists and researchers studying near-Earth objects go for information.

"This innovative new Web application gives the public an unprecedented look at what's going on in near-Earth space," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Objects Observation program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA supports surveys that detect and track asteroids and comets passing close to Earth.

The Near-Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," also plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

Agencies

Web Abuzz with news of attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team

Within hours of attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team near the Gaddafi cricket stadium in Lahore, Pakistan, the web was loaded with videos, links and discussions

A few gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team near the Gaddafi cricket stadium in Lahore, Pakistan. This news broke out a few hours ago and got the social media enthusiasts active over the web along with the news media.

All media was affected -- starting with news channels like IBN Live streaming a live video about the news to the micro-blogging service Twitter which was the one heavily impacted with 140 character discussions.

This attack on Sri Lankan cricket team has become one of the trending topics on Twitter. Here are a few links which lead to Sri Lankan Cricket team related news and discussions on Twitter:

keyword: Sri Lankan
keyword: #srilanka

Few of the reactions on the micro-blogging site Twitter that were noted:

SuaveRepublique: Suave is wishing that the Sri Lankan Cricketers are OK, and that cricket is never played there again.

tajdaroc: HOW is it that the attckers were able to escape having been in plain sight? The access logistics are as simple as can be #SriLanka #Pakistan

CXOtoday

Social Networking sites surface from Mumbai ashes

Bloggers across Mumbai fed live updates of the unfolding action after terrorists launched waves of attacks in the heart of India's financial capital, bringing the emergence of citizen journalism in news coverage to the fore in India.

Social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, were instantly updated with on-the-scene information by people. Minute-by-minute updates on social networking and micro-blogging sites not just satiated the writers’ hunger for expressing themselves, but also gave people more diverse news.

In fact, instead of switching on the television, many followed the action live on microblogging Twitter by searching the site for Bombay and Mumbai. In certain cases, Twitter updates reportedly appeared hours before the first TV stories.

The minute the news of the terrorist attacks broke out, sites like Twitter were inundated with a huge volume of messages. Twitter seemed to be the most popular choice among other social media sites. Just minutes after the first shots were fired; Tweeters (Twitter users) in Mumbai gave instant eyewitness accounts of the unfolding drama.

Messages, known as `tweets', were being posted to the site at a rate of around 80 tweets every five seconds when the news of the tragedy first broke, according to some estimates. Some bloggers provided running descriptions and commentaries from near the action, while others gave vent to their emotions.

"I've been tweeting almost all night from Mumbai. Upset and angry and bereft," said businesswoman Dina Mehta on her blog, http://www.dinamehta.com/blog.

Images of the attacks also surfaced on photo-sharing website Flickr. The site proved a useful source of haunting images chronicling the aftermath of the attacks.

Photographer Vinukumar Ranganathan has attracted hundreds of thousands of visits to his Flickr photo page where he has published a chilling slideshow depicting the aftermath of the attacks.

Twitter came in for some criticism as well in the blogosphere for divulging too many details that could prove helpful to the gunmen holed up in the hotels with their hostages and who may have been monitoring blog sites.

"It's a terrorist strike. Not entertainment. So tweeters, please be responsible with your tweets," said one blogger identified as primaveron@mumbai.

Unfortunately, the site also contained misleading threads, some of it purporting to be from intelligence services. In fact, many of the posts on Twitter amounted to unsubstantiated rumours and wild inaccuracies.

According to CNN, a rumour that the Indian government was asking Tweeters to stop live updates to avoid compromising its security efforts was published and republished on the site.

This was reportedly fueled by certain news websites, which posted the Tweet on their live update. It read: "Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. ALL LIVE UPDATES - PLEASE STOP TWEETING."

Several local Indian news channels were reported to have carried a live feed of the Twitter updates on the Mumbai attacks.

Twitter's contributors also questioned the veracity of certain TV news reports, pointing out contradictions and errors. When Indian reporters announced an end to Taj hotel siege time and again, Tweeters contended that gunfights were continuing. "Locals say gunfire still happening at Taj," said one feed, hours after fighting was said to have finished.

Many social network users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with blood shortage and rising casualties. Throughout the night, bloggers were active compiling news reports and contact information and information on blogging sites like mumbaihelp.blogspot.com.

Tweeters were also mobilised to help with transcribing a list of the dead and injured from hospitals, which were quickly posted online. mumbaihelp.blogspot.com also offered advice to those with friends and family in the city. "Suggest you avoid calling. Lines are bound to be jammed."

Other websites also quickly filled up with information: Wikipedia had a page up on the attacks by early Thursday morning. A Google map was created just hours after the explosions to mark the locations that had been hit.

Dozens of videos of the attacks have flooded the YouTube too. Gauravanomics has an exhaustive list of online coverage of the attacks. Slained Anti-Terrosism Squad (ATS) chief, Hemant Karkare, was reportedly the most searched topic on Google for nearly an hour after his death was declared.

Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the nation on Thursday was highly viewed, followed by angry comments.

Source: Indiatimes Infotech

Techies turn to social media to reach consumers

Recognizing the limits of traditional advertising, established technology companies are diving headlong into the sometimes chaotic landscape of social media to promote their products.

Companies ranging from PC maker Dell Inc to storage equipment maker NetApp are increasingly turning to outside blogs, viral videos and websites such as FaceBook, Twitter, FriendFeed and Digg — and their tens of millions of users — to reach consumers.

These social networking sites harness the age-old power of the word-of-mouth recommendation and can be potent marketing tools. If nothing else, they demand a higher level of consumer engagement than conventional ads.

“This is 180 degrees from that sort of advertising,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. “Having a conversation with them (consumers) is a very new skill.”For tech companies with big marketing budgets, the shift to social media is an implicit acknowledgment that television and print are not necessarily the most effective ways to reach buyers, particularly younger ones.

In addition, with a recession looming, corporate budgets are being slashed. UBS has forecast global ad spending will fall 3.9 per cent in 2009. In such an environment, social media could prove to be a cost-effective way to sell to consumers.

But the strategy is not without some risk. While every company wants to generate buzz, online backlash can be brutal.

Consumer healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson learned that the hard way with a recent Web video ad for its Motrin painkiller. While apparently trying to be irreverent about the pain of wearing a baby in a sling, the ad offended many mothers who savaged it on Twitter, the wildly popular “micro-blogging’’ site where users communicate with short “tweets’’ of 140 characters or less. J&J was forced to apologize on Monday.

Brian Keeler, a vice president at media consultancy VShift, said the key to social media is credibility and enlisting consumers in the act of marketing itself. But if you upset your audience, it can mean trouble. “With the online media, things can go viral and spin out of control really fast,’’ he said.

Dell has a dedicated team of around 40 people that interacts with consumers through its blogs, community forums and third-party sites. The company began its social media push last year as it moved to repair its public image.

“There’s been a realization over the last several years that your customers are going to talk about you online and you have a choice to join that conversation,’’ spokeswoman Caroline Dietz said.