• 26
  • Sep

A TweetMeme Farewell

0 Comments

When we launched TweetMeme in 2008, I never dreamed of how quickly our service would take off and the incredible reach it would have.

TweetMeme was built to curate and rank Twitter links and gained 10 million monthly users in just nine months. We were the first to create the iconic (green) retweet button that was installed on 500,000+ websites, with a peak serving of 1.5 billion daily retweet buttons.

We are now in the process of shuttering TweetMeme and I wanted to share the reasons behind this decision, along with next steps to guide you.

TweetMeme was the first website to show the true power of curating news from Twitter. For millions of users, it was a homepage that showed a truly democratized view of what was popular on the Internet. Many stories broke first on TweetMeme as we cared more about the virality of a story, rather than who was saying it. When the plane landed in the Hudson River in New York, TweetMeme was the first to break the news on its homepage.

Three years on and the consumer news market has moved on and our core business DataSift has now grown to over 10,000 users, offices in 4 cities, $14m in investment and an amazing ecosystem of applications built upon it. We will be sad to see TweetMeme go, but it is no longer competitive or cost effective for us to continue to keep the infrastructure going behind it.

We have done our absolute best to ensure that the shutdown of the free TweetMeme API is as easy as possible for everyone. The shutdown of the free API which allows anyone to look up retweet counts and resolve short links to full links, is already in effect. Here is the timeline for the remaining steps as we wind down TweetMeme:

Buttons and API

Today whitelisted API will be shutdown and all whitelisted users will lose access to the /url_info end-point.

It has been two years since Twitter launched their own button and as part of the final TweetMeme transition, the TweetMeme button will over the next 24 hours be switched over to the Twitter button (the ‘web’ TweetMeme button will immediately look like Twitter buttons). Please note that this will happen automatically and no action needs to be taken from your end.

A few other important notes:

  • The Retweet Button will lose some functionality when transitioning to the Twitter Button. The parameters tweetmeme_alias, tweetmeme_service, tweetmeme_service_api and tweetmeme_space are deprecated.
  • In certain situations we advised to manually install the TweetMeme button using an iFrame, unfortunately this button will no longer be operational and will not be converted to a Twitter button. Sites will need to replace the embed code with Twitter’s own.
  • The Image Button used within RSS feeds is being dropped.
  • The Follow Button is being dropped.
  • Our WordPress plugin will be switched to only use the Twitter button. As such, we strongly encourage you to upgrade the WordPress plugin when prompted from your dashboard.

Website

On the 1st October the TweetMeme website will be fully shut down.

Thanks

Thanks for your support as a TweetMeme user – it’s been a great ride. To learn more about DataSift, I encourage you to visit datasift.com. I also welcome you to stay in touch by following me on Twitter @nik and tuning into our DataSift blog.

Read More
 
  • 05
  • Jan

New TweetMeme Chrome Extension Version and Open Source

0 Comments

We have just made available a new version of the TweetMeme Extension for Google Chrome. The extension is a way for you to take a little TweetMeme button all over the web with you to easily share any page you come across. It gives you at-a-glance realtime tweet counts for pages as you visit them in Chrome, and one-click tweeting of the page you’re on. It also benefits from TweetMeme’s enormous database of historic tweet counts stretching back many years.

In the new version, we’re pleased to announce the addition of automatic tweet translation. By default there is no translation of pages (your tweet will be in the language the page is written in), but you can now optionally force all tweets to be translated into a language of your choice from: English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese (that’s English, Français, Italiano, Deutsch, 日本, Español, Português). We use the TweetMeme API to do the translation, which is in turn powered by Google Translate.

You can download the new version of the extension straight away from the Chrome Extension site. If you have it installed already, the update will roll out to you in the next few hours, or if you’re impatient you can go to the site straight away and it will re-install the new version for you!

Open Source

I am also extremely pleased to announce that the source code behind the TweetMeme Chrome Extension is now open-sourced under the MIT license, and available for you to clone, fork and comment on at Github.

Open source code is an important component of building the latest web applications (you only have to look at the popularity of the Apache projects, open-source applications by various other social media companies, and many many other projects) and keeping the ecosystem active and developing, and we’re extremely happy to be contributing back to the community by adding this release to our existing open source projects.

Read More
 
  • 17
  • Nov

Something for everyone!

0 Comments

This week we’ve added a range of new channels to the TweetMeme channels area!   The subject areas range from Ugg (the Australian boot brand) through to Xfactor – because we know you just can’t get enough of it -  to the Royal Engagement news sorrounding Prince William and Kate Middleton.

We really hope you like the channels and feel free to share them with your colleagues, friends and family!

  • Royal Wedding – The Royal Engagement and Royal Wedding coverage of Prince William and Catherine (Kate) Middleton.
  • Recipes – Recipies from around the world – think Thanksgiving if you’re in the States….
  • Lyrics – Lyrics from songs shared on twitter.
  • Hair & Makeup – Anything & everything about hair & makeup – for both women and men.
  • How to – Anyone sharing a how to tip or hint.
  • Yoga - Everything you could ever want to know about Yoga.
  • Ugg – The brand, the boots and the Aussie company.
  • Pregnancy – Everyone seems to be getting pregnant at the moment so you’ll find all those shared pregnancy tips in one place.
  • Diwali – It’s coming up to the festival of light, so why not see what people are sharing in preperation for the event.
  • Black Friday – With all the up & coming deals, offers being shared on Twitter.  Keeping you ahead of the shopping crowds.
  • Election – So many elections around the world, be that on TV or at a political level, you’ll find all the details here.
  • XFactor - We know how addicted to XFactor some people are so here’s your difinitive guide to top content relating to XFactor.

So there you have it, this week’s top new channels.  If you’ve got ideas for a channel or want a custom channel build for your brand or organization please do get in touch with us by leaving a comment or contacting our sales team directly.

Read More
 
  • 12
  • Aug

Twitter Tweet Button

75 Comments

Back at the beginning of 2009 we produced a little green web button that counted how many times users shared a link on Twitter. We started out with a simple idea ‘How can we get more people to share content on Twitter’ – and today we return to that simple thought.

We have grown to more than 750 million daily retweet button impressions, which for a tiny team is an amazing achievement. That said the market requires an official solution that can accelerate this growth. So today Twitter is launching its own Tweet Button and we are very pleased to be partnering with them to continue to grow the overall Twitter ecosystem.

What does this mean? Firstly we will be assisting Twitter with the technical challenges involved with the button and secondly we will be working even more closely in the future on delivering real-time curation of the Twitter Firehose. This will manifest itself in the launch of a number of new products and the first of these is being unveiled today.

DataSift gives developers the ability to leverage cloud computing to build very precise streams of data from the millions and millions of tweets sent every day.

  • Tune tweets through a graphical interface or our bespoke programming language
  • Streams consumable through our API and real-time HTTP
  • Comment upon and rank streams created by the community
  • Extend one or more existing streams to create super streams

Find out more on the new DataSift blog or follow @datasift

For press enquiries send emails to press (at) tweetmeme.com

UPDATE:

Robert Scoble has posted a video interview with Nick Halstead, Founder of TweetMeme discussing the Twitter Buttons and the new product DataSift.

Read More
 
  • 20
  • Jul

TweetMeme Pro

4 Comments

In response to feedback from some of our larger publishers, we are proud to announce the launch of TweetMeme Pro.

TweetMeme continually looks to improve its service and develop new ways for our publishers to integrate seamlessly. The company has grown substantially over the past year and now serves in the region of 700M buttons per day on around 250,000 sites.

We understand that it is important to provide the option of delivering a branded experience for its users through improved delivery and the ability to customise the button.

The TweetMeme Pro Button provides support for:

  • Up to 10 UTM tracking codes within the button
  • Customisation on the design of the button
  • Customisation on the design of the pop-up box
  • Dedicated servers to ensure high reliability and performance
  • The best user + publisher Retweet experience*
  • 100% accurate Retweet counts*
  • URL Shortener Support (including BIT.LY Pro)*
  • Web, RSS, Email and Mobile support*
  • Support for HashTags + Whitespace*
  • International language support*

The TweetMeme Pro solution means you will be able to track the performance of tweets made through the button, and deliver a fully branded experience to your users.

Existing sites already using the TweetMeme Pro solution include:

      

As of today we are already serving 80 million Pro buttons daily using a combination of co-location and dedicated servers. TweetMeme’s hosting partner, DediPower, not only supports the 700 million standard retweet buttons that we serve each day, but also provides the high capacity, on-demand infrastructure required to cope with our growing Pro and standard button-base.

To find out how you can use TweetMeme Pro please take a look at our website or sign-up.

* – Features also included in the standard TweetMeme Retweet Button.

Read More
 
  • 24
  • Jun

World Cup 2010 Channel

0 Comments

Our World Cup 2010 Channel continues to bring in the latest and greatest on World Cup news from Twitter. We have had a great mix of content from official score reportings being tweeted straight after the match is over, to some fantastic World Cup viral gems.


A big shout to our channel sponsor AT&T who have done a fair share of work making this channel what it is today. Be sure to check out their featured tweets and ‘Cup Buzz’ to get more World Cup 2010 news.

Here is a top 10 of the most popular World Cup tweets in the past 7 days

10. Australia-Serbia – The matches of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
9. World Cuo 2010: Nicolas Anelka misses France training
8.  World Cup instant Twitter replay: how we did it
7. Capello ‘to quit if England fail to reach last 16
6. FIFA may sit Slovenia-U.S. referee
5. The Best Website Designs of the 2010 World Cup
4. 2010 World Cup: South African man killed by wife, kids for changing TV to Germany
3. Top 10 World Cup Twitter Trends [CHART]
2. Algeria star slaps female reporter
1. USA vs Algeria World Cup Match Could Set New Internet Traffic Record

By the way is anyone else impressed by John Terry’s commitment by diving, face first, in a true fish like move to save England from a slovenian shot?

Why not take a look at our other Channels? If you want to take advantage of sponsoring a Channel like AT&T, just give us a shout!

Read More
 
  • 22
  • Jun

Community Wiki for Language Translations now Live

0 Comments

The TweetMeme Wiki is now live for those of you who would like to help translate the TweetMeme plug-in to other languages. It doesn’t matter how big or small the contribution is, we appreciate it all. We hope to have completed full translations for as many different languages as you the community provide very soon.

You can find the wiki at: tweetmeme.wikispaces.com

Editing privileges is available to members of the wiki only, so a quick sign-up on the site will allow you to start contributing there and then.

Current languages available to help translate:
Arabic, Bengali, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

We are also open to languages not currently shown on the wiki, just edit away using the same template layout as our other languages.  If there are any translations that people feel need discussion please do this on the discussion section of the page where there is a discrepancy.

Read More
 
  • 17
  • Jun

WordPress 3.0 Released

6 Comments

WordPress 3.0 has just been released with lots of new features! Don’t worry both our plugins have been tested and will work with WordPress 3.0. For more information on the plugins check out the Extend pages of WordPress.

TweetMeme Button
TweetMeme Follow Button

Read More
 
  • 16
  • Jun

Retweet Button Going Global

19 Comments

We are fast approaching a major milestone in Retweet Buttons and within weeks we will have passed being live on over 200,000 websites. In conjunction we have recently passed serving 500 million button impressions daily. To assist our continued growth we are today releasing a major update to the button to include international language support.

Two parts of the button have translation features,

Firstly the button itself and the pop-up you get when you click to do the retweet are now translated into 7 languages English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese. We will then be putting up an area to crowd source the translations to other languages.

Secondly we have integrated Google Translate to automatically translate any stories you retweet into your own language. This automatically detects if translation is required and prompts you when it has made the change, it is a simple one-click to revert the translation if that is not what you desire.

The new language support is on top of an impressive feature set,

  • The best user and publisher retweets experience
  • URL Shortener Support (including BIT.LY Pro)
  • Mobile Phone Support (iPhone, Android)
  • Image Button – that allows the embedding into RSS + Emails
  • Spaces – allows you to control how many white spaces you leave at the end of the tweet
  • Hash Tag support

If you are website owner you can read all the technical details of the changes on our help page, if you want to install the button from scratch visit our installation page.

UPDATE

As some of you who already use our button with the language translation are already aware we initially released our translations as an opt out, due to the popular demand for an opt in process instead we have now swapped that around so you can now opt into your tweets being translated into your local language.

Read More
 
  • 03
  • Jun

TweetMeme Button Chrome Extension

2 Comments

We’re pleased to announce that the TweetMeme Button Chrome Extension is now available for download from the Chrome Extensions website.

The extension allows you to take a little version of the TweetMeme Button with you everywhere on the web, showing live tweet counts for pages you are viewing, as well as providing quick tweeting of whatever you’re currently looking at.

Our standard Retweet Button is massively popular, and over half a billion of them are seen every day across a huge range of websites. But that doesn’t mean there will always be a retweet button at hand when you need one. So with the Chrome Extension, as soon as you discover the next hot article, blog post, picture or video, with just a few clicks you can have your customised tweet dispatched to your followers.

Help and support for the extension is available on our help forum.

Read More
 
 Page 1 of 13  1  2  3  4  5 » ...  Last »