Software : Twitter mobile update takes the kitchen sink approach to content discovery

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Twitter mobile update takes the kitchen sink approach to content discovery Posted: Twitter has updated its official mobile app on iOS and Android with features that should make it easier for users to discover new content. The most major addition comes from the Discover tab, which now consolidates tweets, activity, trends, and suggested users to follow in a single timeline, which sounds useful and not overly cluttered at all. To bring a little more clarity to the Discover tab there are also now previews for user activity and trends at the top of the tab, which users can tap to see those lists independently. Users can also now click on URL links in tweets directly from the timeline, rather than going through the extra step of expanding a tweet before opening links. Streamlining search Continuing the theme of consolidating features, the search option has also been updated to now return search results for tweets, photos, and user accounts in a single stream similar to the Discover tab. Search offers a bonus treat for iPhone users with the latest update, offering a persistent search icon next to the compose tweet button at the top of the app. The search button was already part of the Android and iPad Twitter apps, but Twitter has seen fit to let the iPhone app catch up with the other versions. The Connect tab is the last update recipient, now showing all interactions including new followers, mentions, and retweets in a single stream by default. However, users will still have the option to change the Connect tab to only show mentions in the app settings. Twitter's latest mobile update pack more features into each tab to make it much easier to find new content, but it may consolidate things too much so that it is harder to find the content you are actually looking for in the shuffle.

Vine cuts fight against porn, puts 17+ age restriction up instead Posted: Vine, Twitter's micro-video posting app, received an update today with its most notable feature the banning of minors from using the service. New users and those trying to update Vine will be greeted with a new warning message informing them that the app in question is intended for users 17 years of age and older. Along with the warning, Vine's App Store description has been updated to cover all bases, saying Vine may contain frequent or infrequent drug use or references, sexual content, profanity, violence, mature and suggestive themes, and gambling. Perhaps it's a simple typo, but it seems to be telling that "intense sexual content or nudity" is the only item listed as occurring frequently when all other situations are said to be infrequent. Vine sprouts thorns It didn't take long for users to start posting their 6-second smut on Vine, which Twitter at first tried to shrug off using terms of service that placed responsibility solely on users. The porn problem didn't go away, and Twitter started to intervene by censoring pornographic search terms from the service. While Twitter will continue to monitor and remove pornographic searches, imposing an age restriction for Vine appears to be the social media giant's way of admitting there is only so much it can do to stop smut outright on Vine. Twitter is still trying even though it may be futile, as today's Vine update also adds the ability to report objectionable videos using a "…" icon in the corner of each video post. In reality, the age restriction is not much of a hurdle for a motivated youth, but the cautionary warning is at least enough to keep Vine getting pulled from the App Store. It seems that the pursuit of a porn-free Vine will be one punctuated by little victories rather than really penetrating the issue.

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