Twitter - from the past!

Ever watched a recorded TV programme and wished you could see what the reaction was on Twitter? Now you can!

Together with the brilliant developers at Raak, I've (beta) launched Tweet Rewinder.

It's a mobile web app that lets you rewind your Twitter timeline and see tweets from the past unfold in real time

So you can jump back to the time a TV recording had actually been on, and then watch what people were saying in sync with the programme.

You can do the same thing with certain hashtags (there's a list anyone can use or users of the paid-for service can choose their own hashtag to capture - whether it's a TV programme, news event or conference).

Anyway, if you go to www.tweetrewinder.com, you can watch a video that explains how it works and sign up for the beta version (which works best on a mobile phone right now). But here are some screenshots. (You can follow Tweet Rewinder on Twitter, too).

Going back in time

Choose your timeline or a hashtag, then choose the time

Tweets from the past in real time

Then watch tweets from the past unfold in real time

There's also a write up at The Next Web.

Let me know what you think!

There will be a gap in your timeline for the period when the computer was asleep - and there's no easy way to make those tweets reappear.

Tap to see more

With the mobile web version, there's a handy "tap to load more tweets" jaggedy bit of the page - as you can see from the screenshot (showing a gap when my phone was asleep for an hour).

Once you get to the end of the most recent tweets to load, you've given a way to fill in the gap that exists.

On the web version of Twitter, or at least the version that I seem to get on my Mac on several different browsers, that jagged bit is replaced by ... a line that's twice as thick as the line between normal tweets.

Here's an example.

Annoying slightly thicker line

As you can see, there were obviously tweets between the 10 minutes ago one and the 59 minutes ago one. The only sign you're missing any is that the line between the tweets is slightly thicker than normal.

But how do you make those tweets appear? Apparently you can't, without reloading the page (which you might not want to).

Or am I missing something ...?

Shhh, don't tell ...

To avoid prison, I've changed or anonymised the details so you can't Google them, sorry.

1. One tabloid ran a story bemoaning how celebrity X hadn't talked about his wife much lately. That was the entire (non)story. It went on, for no reason, to compare the love of (rumoured super injuncter) celebrity X for his wife with the love of family-loving (and rumoured super injuncter) footballer Y for his wife. Underneath that: "Comments closed for legal reasons". This couldn't have been more obvious if it tried.
2. A broadsheet ran a column in which the author suggested an ideal set of companions for a meal - the names were a who's who of those with alleged super injunctions.
3. Another broadsheet has just run a story, written by the travel correspondent (OK, it wasn't the travel correspondent but it was on a par with them in terms of relevance), complaining that a certain performer hadn't done any gigs for a while and hadn't been on Twitter lately. There was no point to this story.
4. Meanwhile a tabloid suggested an actor was deserving of an award for acting after being seen bravely holding hands with his wife.
5. The News of the World just told everyone to look on Twitter, but helpfully pointed out it wasn't Gaby Logan or Alan Shearer, just so you woudn't be confused by any false rumours.
6. Meanwhile, every paper in Britain has gleefully pointed out that there is a Twitter account that has revealed who has a super injunction - before, again, helpfully pointing out exactly which of these tweets is not true.

I am amazed that the lawyers let these stories through. Although there's not much chance of people going to court for tweeting the rumours, the paper's are treading a very fine line. It's almost as if they are deliberately trying to get the facts out in the open so they can get these super injunctions overturned ...

Twitter's hardly been bound or gagged by the injunction

Actually, they're probably not.

If you look back at the Alfie Patten injunction, it transires that the court order was never sent to google news, so they weren’t bound by it: “We investigate removal requests based on court order violations once the court order (and the pages they want us to remove that allegedly infringe on the court order) have been brought to our attention,” said a Google spokesman. “To date, we have not received a court order relating to [this] case.” Same seems to be true in this latest case as anyone can find out the details with a bit of Googling.

And in the same case, the wording of the injunction was: “Who is bound: This order binds all persons and all companies (whether acting by their directors, employees or agents or in any other way) who know that the order has been made.”

So people passing the stories round on Twitter sound like they're not bound by the injunction as they've never seen it - a problem with blogs and super injunctions I've pointed out before.

Update: One lawyer quoted here by Judith Townend argues: "The Order will usually contain a penal notice which states very clearly that not only will the Respondents be in breach and potentially guilty of contempt if they reveal any details of the injunction, but so will any third party who is not a respondent in the proceedings but is aware of the injunction and then goes on to leak its details."

But in the same post a legal writer adds: "If you tell me that someone is having an affair and I publish this fact on my personal website or on Twitter, I cannot be in contempt of court if I did not know that a court order existed."

Most of the 000s of people tweeting stuff this stuff must know a super injunction exists - but they will have no understanding of what this means and no way of finding out the specifics. Finding them guilty of contempt of court would be pointless - and isn't going to happen.

With regard to the specific Twitter account that tweeted details of several alleged super injunctions, Stephens says: “The individual behind this is clearly going to be tracked, his electronic fingerprints are all over it and when he gets the knock on the door I would very strongly advise that he takes a toothbrush with him.”

Even this is true only if the culprit is an idiot. With no UK Twitter office to serve court orders on, and assuming the culprit used a hotmail account not in their real name, the sender is untraceable. Unless they're an idiot ...

If anyone should be packing his toothbrush, it's the Telegraph's consumer affairs correspondent. I'll leave you to work out why.

The biggest problem is that the lawyers involved didn't seem to think it's necessary to tell Google or Twitter that an injunction exists (and they can't tell Twitter anyway as it doesn't have a UK office ...)

This means that once the information is out, it's easy to find it by typing the relevant people's named into Google or Twitter search (with collateral damage to people named who aren't involved).

False rumours also denied on Twitter

In the John Terry superinjunction case, you could find out the details via Google real-time search just by typing his name into Google. No one had told Google of the injunction.

With the Alfie Patten injunction, Google News listed foreign news outlets that revealed the details of the case (the lawyers didn't bother sending the injunction to Google) - and various UK sites also published the info including Brand Republic and Walt Disney and (indirectly) ITV because they didn't know it existed.

And blogs routinely breach the terms of these injunctions but a catch-22 prevents them from knowing this as Fred Goodwin found.

Is there anyone who doesn't know the football and actor in the latest cases - especially when one weekend newspaper directly compared the two names for their relationships with their wives ...? If the lawyers want to keep these names secret, maybe start with learning how the internet works?

Photo credit.

The first food tweet

Knowing that, we can find the first tweets sent just by changing the number at the end.

It appears tweets started at number 20 (numbers 1-19 don't work - maybe there were deleted or just never used).

And here are the first 81 ever sent (starting with the URL ending /20 up to the URL ending /100 ), over March 21 and 22 2006. They get a bit more interesting, honest  - including the first mention of food! ...

To see the real tweet, just go to https://twitter.com/#!/a/status/20 and change the number at the end to 19 + the number of the tweet you want (so if you want tweet 20, you change the number at the end to 19+20=39).

Tweet number 1: /20
@jack Jack Dorsey
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 2: /21
@biz Biz Stone
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 3: /22
@noah noah glass
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 4: /23
@crystal crystal
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 5: /24
@jeremy Jeremy
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 6: /25
@tonystubblebine Tony Stubblebine
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 7: /26
@Adam Adam Rugel
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 8: /27
Deleted!

Tweet number 9: /28
@ev Evan Williams
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 10: /29
@jack Jack Dorsey
inviting coworkers

Tweet number 11: /30
@biz Biz Stone
getting my odeo folks on this deal

Tweet number 12: /31
@dom Dom Sagolla
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 13: /32
@rabble rabble
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 14: /33
@dom Dom Sagolla
oooooooh

Tweet number 15: /34
The first tweeted swear word
@jeremy Jeremy
Oh shit, I just twittered a little.

Tweet number 16: /35
@jack Jack Dorsey
waiting for dom to update more

Tweet number 17: /36
@timroberts Tim Roberts
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 18: /37
@dom Dom Sagolla
waiting for Jack to update more first

Tweet number 19: /38
@dom Dom Sagolla
oh this is going to be addictive

Tweet number 20: /39
@timroberts Tim Roberts
Planning for Sprint #4

Tweet number 21: /40
@biz Biz Stone
wishing I had another sammich

Tweet number 22: /41
@meredith meredith
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 23: /42
@meredith meredith
typing my first message

Tweet number 24: /43
@dom Dom Sagolla
following Mer

Tweet number 25: /44
@meredith meredith
I'll check back in later

Tweet number 26: /45
Deleted!

Tweet number 27: /46
Deleted!

Tweet number 28: /47
The first ever tweet about what someone was drinking.
@biz Biz Stone
having some flowery orange pekoe tea

Tweet number 29: /48
@timroberts Tim Roberts
setting up my mac mini

Tweet number 30: /49
Deleted!

Tweet number 31: /50
Deleted!

Tweet number 32: /51
The first ever tweet about what someone was eating.
@jack Jack Dorsey
lunch

Tweet number 33: /52
Deleted!

Tweet number 34: /53
@dom
Dom Sagolla
free lunch

Tweet number 35: /54
@biz Biz Stone
feeling pains in my back

Tweet number 36: /55
@biz Biz Stone
using twttr.com

Tweet number 37: /56
@dom Dom Sagolla
twttr my nttr

Tweet number 38: /57
@biz Biz Stone
going out to do an errand

Tweet number 39: /58
@dom Dom Sagolla
already addicted to twttr.com

Tweet number 40: /59
@dom Dom Sagolla
high on sugar

Tweet number 41: /60
@biz Biz Stone
settling back in

Tweet number 42: /61
@tonystubblebine Tony Stubblebine
watching connections on FlashCom

Tweet number 43: /62
@jack Jack Dorsey
working on SMS in

Tweet number 44: /63
Tweet number 45: /64
Tweet number 46: /65
Tweet number 47: /66
Tweet number 48: /67
Tweet number 49: /68
Tweet number 50: /69
All deleted

Tweet number 51: /70
@rayreadyray rayreadyray
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 52: /71
Tweet number 53: /72
All deleted

Tweet number 54: /73
@dom Dom Sagolla
sugar crash

Tweet number 55: /74
Deleted

Tweet number 56: /75
@ev Evan Williams
checking out twttr

Tweet number 57: /76
@biz Biz Stone
kinda twttring around and such

Tweet number 58: /77
@jeremy Jeremy
Having a twitter just now.

Tweet number 59: /78
@biz Biz Stone
walking the dog

Tweet number 60: /79
@ariel ariel
just setting up my twttr

Tweet number 61: /80
Deleted

Tweet number 62: /81
@jack Jack Dorsey
changing status through my blackberry browser

Tweet number 63: /82
@tonystubblebine Tony Stubblebine
is there a way to add friends without typing in phone numbers?

Tweet number 64: /83
First use of an @ but I'm not sure it was a message to someone ...
@dom Dom Sagolla
@Errand

Tweet number 65: /84
@jeremy Jeremy
Oh man, this twitter tickles my nose

Tweet number 66: /85
@jeremy Jeremy
hax0ring, using lynx to make this post from a machine 1 world away...

Tweet number 67: /86
@biz Biz Stone
eating little snacks that livy made

Tweet number 68: /87
@dom Dom Sagolla
Heading back (via nokia)

Tweet number 69: /88
@biz Biz Stone
wishing there were more little snacks

Tweet number 70: /89
@jack Jack Dorsey
on my way to drawing class

Tweet number 71: /90
The first attempt to tweet a URL

Tweet number 72: /91

@dom Dom Sagolla
waiting for Buzz

Tweet number 73: /92
@jack Jack Dorsey
drawing naked people

Tweet number 74: /93
@biz Biz Stone
doin' some emailz

Tweet number 75: /94
@biz Biz Stone
waiting for livy to get back from wildcare

Tweet number 76: /95
@Adam Adam Rugel
pumping iron

Tweet number 77: /96
@Adam Adam Rugel
put some rss on my mp3

Tweet number 78: /97
@noah noah glass
Oh crap, I think I might be getting that f'in cold

Tweet number 79: /98
@jeremy Jeremy
fantasizing about jack drawing naked people mmmmmmmmmmmmm..... naked people.

Tweet number 80: /99
@biz Biz Stone
learning about the earthquake I felt earlier today

Tweet number 81: /100
@dom Dom Sagolla
Heading home

Well, you can certainly see why it took off ...

Display the number of Twitter followers you have.

First, you need to copy this code, which I picked up here, and save it into your functions.php file (via the theme editor link in the left hand column of WordPress's admin page). You'll need to change screen_name=XXX to replace XXX with your username.

function get_follower_count() {
// first check the transient
$count = get_transient('follower_count');
if ($count !== false) return $count;

// no count, so go get it
$count = 0;
$data = wp_remote_get
('http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show.json?screen_name=XXX');
if (!is_wp_error($data)) {
$value = json_decode($data['body'],true);
$count = $value['followers_count'];
}
// set the cached value
set_transient('follower_count', $count, 60*60); // 1 hour cache
return $count;
}

Next, you need to call the number that this function works out by adding some code at the appropriate place in your theme - the sidebar.php file in my case. One suggestion is like this:

<?php echo (get_follower_count()); ?> others do.

The problem with that is that if you've got more than 999 followers, there's no formatting - so 1,000 comes out as 1000 with no comma. I know. Can you imagine?

The solution is to use the number_format command:

<?php echo number_format (get_follower_count()); ?> others do.

Now if you have 1,000 followers this will display 1,000 and not 1000. Sorted (though see comment below). (Picture credit.)

• Display Twitter on your LinkedIn profile
• Share Twitter messages with your LinkedIn contacts or groups
• Share LinkedIn jobs, news, and more on Twitter

This is what happens in practice:

Having anal at the top of my homepage didn't look good

Yes, anyone who was a professional contact of mine on LinkedIn who receives email updates got an update about my tweet that said "I have deleted my last blog post as having anal at the top of my homepage didn't look good."

The reason for that tweet is that I was exploring (for work reasons, honestly) how Google Instant treated rude words (answer: illogically). Tweets I sent that day included:

• The good thing about Google Instant is that I can discuss how it blocks funbags and jubblies from showing instant results.
• Google Instant allows stinky hitler but not dirty sanchez.
• The vagina monologues don't get a Google Instant result. But coon does. ching chong is OK, but ching chong chinaman not. Any logic to this?
• Yes - it's on a par with "soapy tit wank" in google's eyes RT @edpmary @malcolmcoles Does Google still abhor the word "clitoris"?

Blog posts that resulted from this included:

• Google puts the anal into analytics - about how when you type analytics, Google Instant doesn't fire up results when you get as far as typing anal.
• Google Instant filters put gay and lesbian on a par with rape, racism and paedophilia- which tried to make a serious point about the messages Google was sending out with its differing treatment of language - with its filters allowing paki jokes and kiddie fiddler searches but censoring ones about lesbians and funbags.
• Instant's filters misfiring on video search pointed out the filters on video search were hopeless.

Anyway, in the context of these blog posts, and on Twitter itself (once I explained what I was doing), the tweets made sense. Sent to people in a LinkedIn email update with no context, they must have looked completely unprofessional. And possibly like I was really a 13-year old. Or a pornographer.

So: unhook your Tweets from your LinkedIn profile.

Oh, and to make matters worse - that screenshot above? It's from an email my mum received.

Google's tools

Google autocomplete is one of the best ones - which shows what you might be wanting to search for based on what you've typed so far.

Google autocomplete

Autocomplete gives different results on the Google web search page to the Google news search page. The former is based on search volumes over months. The latter makes suggestions on current search volumes. So make sure you use the latter - it's pretty quick at responding to a spike in people searching, as my experiments show.

You can also use Google Trends, pictured here.

Google Trends

The list on the left for the UK is based on social media and search terms. Ignore it. It's rubbish, usually full of gibberish and overrun with American social media trends.

The list on the right is purely based on search terms. And while it's for searches in America, it's actually far more useful. Though it won't be much good if you are a hyperlocal UK publisher.

Other useful Google tools / tactics include:

• Google Analytics:  see what search terms have driven traffic so far that day when you get into work - you probably won't have much search traffic between midnight and 9am but you often see phrases that people are using that find old content - and which give you a clue what people are searching for now.
• Google Webmaster Tools: see what searches show your pages in the results. The data is usually a day or two behind but it gives you some really good data for long-running stories or events.
• Google Insights If you're writing about an event, you can look back at similar events in the past and see how people searched - comparing search terms, search volumes etc. This graph, generated today, compares people searching for I'm a Celebrity with and without the year 2009 back in late 2009.

Search volumes

Other real-time search data

There are other places that give you insight into what people are searching for right now, including:

• Yahoo Buzz (UK): This is one of the best ones and seems pretty accurate to me. Quite celebrity focussed though. (It's quite hard to find the data, though. Go to the bottom of the page where there's a partial list. Click one of the terms and a slightly longer list will be shown in the right hand column).
• AOL hot searches: the data is in the right hand column and under the pretty top 5 they have lists for products, people, TV, health etc. It's not updated very often and I don't think it's as good as Yahoo's lists.
• Surchur: This is a dashboard that pulls together data from various sources to give a summary of what's hot and where. It's quite American biased.

Fortunately Microsoft has killed off Bing X rank as it was utter rubbish.

I also like to use the Hitwise data center. It's about a week behind but you can see fast moving search terms, top retail search terms etc. It's one its worth looking at every week to spot trends.

You can also spot things that other sites may not realise people are searching for.

For instance, this chart from a few weeks ago has Kate Middleton engagement at number 7. And Kate Middleton bikini at number 10. You perverts.

Finally there is Twitter. What people tweet now, other people search for later. So look at what's trending. You can use services like Trendsmap to see what's trending where.

The site hosting the tweets

Individual published tweets

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

A tweet

Update: They took it down. There's just a big white space ... Update 2: It's back - but there are so many updates (it's the number one trending topic in London on Twitter) thatonly a fraction get few (or else they are moderating 99% out - some tax ones still getting through).

Poking around the Vodafone site, it appears to be using the http://webpurify.com/ profanity filter to protect the feed. They probably thought this was all they needed when they went home for the weekend.

Profanity filter ...

But while it automatically chops out tweets that are profane, this hasn't worked to keep out the tax messages.