Remember all the brouhaha about Twitter trademarking the word ‘tweet’ and subsequently having to explain that they were not exactly doing this to attack third-party app developers over the use of the word?
Well so far Twitter hasn’t been that terribly prolific in using the words ‘tweet’ or ‘retweet’ apart from some odd blog posts and individual employees’ messages on the micro-sharing service. That has changed today.
TechCrunch reader @JoeHagofsky informs us that Twitter has apparently changed the word ‘updates’ on the right sidebar of the page you see when logged onto its website to ‘tweets’ (see screenshots below). It’s also changed on individual profile pages. We see them too and as far as we know this is in fact new.
It’s also interesting to note that despite ‘updates’ being changed to ‘tweets’ in a few places, the big, main button used to send a tweet still reads ‘update.’
Of course, this is a minor update, but in light of the posts linked above it’s fairly interesting to see the startup actually adopt the word. It’s been widely reported that Twitter will soon, possibly as early as this week, launch a completely revamped website which could well offer a better experience than the slew of third-party web apps out there.
Maybe we’ll see much more use of the word when they do.
first
Is tweet in the dictionary yet?
-Zach
http://www.ishatmypants.com
Of course. It’s a word.
Lot of people tweet. But do they really follow all messages on their homepage?
OK Let’s keep the facts straight. People do not tweet. Only birds do.
If it is a verb associated with Twitter usage then people do, indeed, tweet.
i think people are just happy to yammer on like birds and that’s why twitter is so popular. well birds like to 69 too so i guess these tweeple are getting laid more than me.
Wonder when they are going to trademark the term ‘retweet’ as well, bringing down any 3rd party sites using that term, such as the latest retweet.com saga story.
Actually come to think of it I’m starting to think Twitter has no plans to trademark the term “tweet” since they don’t mind people using it as a verb.
When a mark is used as a verb in place of something… ie. “to tweet” instead of “to send a tweet message” then the mark is referred to as genericized.
This is the reason why Google keeps reminding journalists not to use the term “to google”.
So when they changed the word “updates” to “tweets” it signifies that Twitter is basically open to letting the term “tweet” become genericized…. which will be good news for all those “Tweet-whatever” services out there.
This is a smart move on their part.
They would have a hard time winning any trademark cases if they don’t even use the word themselves.
Plus, it’s a good word. Much more creative than “updates”.
Agreed.
Yes, this is industry-changing stuff.
Hopefully you guys get the full depth of my irony
Obviously you’ve never dealt with trademark infringement/copyright/etc cases.
But slighly more opaque to newbies. People just discovering Twitter are going to going to be wondering “WTF are tweets?” Twitter is a site that doesn’t explain itself very well, as it is.
There is no explanation for stupidity.
They’d have a hard time registering the word “tweet” and “retweet” if they weren’t the first to use them
I ‘m going to trademark ‘bark’. and ‘meow’ – definately that.
meower … here we come
will it be a retwiit on the Wii?
Breaking: @ev just farted. Quick, get a story up on TC!
no, he didn’t or Twiegler would have already reported it
I’ve never seen a website compete with its third-party applications for a better user experience. If they lose their own users eyes and become merely a platform they could lose one of the greatest revenue opportunities.
Who uses twitter.com for their tweeting-needs anymore?
Actually, I still often do.
I use it exclusively for some reason. I gave Tweetdeck a try for months but just never got comfortable with it. I already do so much work in the browser, it seemed like a pain to need to maintain/pay attention to another application.
I’m also not a power twitter user, so maybe that explains it.
About time the updates were changed to ‘tweets’.
Though, it is only semantics. *shrugs*
Twitter sucks…
Maybe they’ll finally change the “What are you doing?” message.
This is pretty insignificant stuff, even for a Twitterholic like me.
But buzz me if you hear an explanation for the “More Trending Topics” that appeared on some folks webpages (right-side menu) whose links took the user to an outside webpage. The appeared Saturday night and were gone by Sunday. A commercial experiment? Or was the system hacked?
Seriously, who cares.
Seriously, who comments?
People who are offended by mind numbingly lame observations
Why do they come back here all the time?
like duh. totally. lol.
I found it funny how decided on the name Twitter. Don’t they do brainstorms? It is obvious that short version of Twitter is derogatory to women. Twitter and Tweet is confusing.
Twit is out of question for obvious reasons.
If you know what twitter and tweet actually mean you’d realize they actually did brainstorm. The definition fits the service perfectly.
If you know what twit means, then you would see why I have raised the question.
Please, tell us what you think “twit” means. We’re all dying to know.
I think you’re confusing “twit” with “twat.”
All you guys talk about is TWITTER. Jesus Christ, can you find some real news for once and stop posting about a Twitter? There are millions of websites on the internet and you post about this one 10 times a day.
Twitter is amazing, blah blah blah, can you please give us some real content like you used to?
They also started using “tweet” it in their Twitter 101 documents for business users, most noticeably in the “learn the lingo” section:
http://business...ter101/learning
In my completely uninformed opinion I think Twitter is missing a HUGE opportunity. Most of the tweets I see are from people or businesses trying to market themselves. Everyone is out for more followers. Once in a while on sheer chance one of their followers happen to see their tweet and respond thereby validating all the effort put into tweeting. Totally useless lottery marketing. But what if Twitter took the millions of users and combined real time question and answer mechanism? Marketers could instantly respond to authentic consumer questions and consumers could get instant answers. Twitter could monetize the answers like Google Adsense. Sounds like what is happening in the Google Wave Sandbox.
*blinks a few times*…..ok.
slow news day, eh
Now it’s nice, no one would be able to claim twitter’s property as his own.
OMG! Breaking news! OMG OMG OMG!
Leave the vacuous Twitter analysis to Mashable – that’s what they specialize in.
Shouldn’t it be “twits” instead of “tweets”? After all, the site is named “twitter”, not “tweeter”.
I still think the technically correct name is
Twits
You use Twitter to Twit someone.
Maybe they should change the name to Tweeter.
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Nice bit of info. Thanks.
Looks like they were too late I’m afraid. Ironically pending applications from the very developers they were trying to stop look to have rained on their parade:
Twitter’s “Tweet” Trademark Torpedoed
http://samj.net...-torpedoed.html
Sam