Twitter

The Bahraini government started the process of revising its penal code last month to allow officials to jail anyone who insults King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, according to Amnesty International.

It appears that the government is now taking action.

Six people were sentenced to one year in prison on Wednesday for allegedly insulting the King on Twitter, according to Al Jazeera.

The criminal court ruled that these people were "misusing the right of free expression" and their tweets were "undermining the values and traditions of Bahrain's society towards the king on Twitter."

Bahrain, which … Read more

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo gave a rundown on life, goals, and business at the social network during an interview Wednesday at the National Venture Capital Association's VentureScape, according to the Mercury News.

Addressing whether Twitter will go public (no), who he admires (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos), and what annoys him (Silicon Valley snarkiness), Costolo riffed on what it's like steering the helm of one the world's top social networks.

"One of the things I'm always challenging people inside the company is, you have to take more risks," Costolo said, according to the Mercury News. &… Read more

Do you have a Twitter problem? Do you want to talk about it? Instead of going cold turkey, perhaps you can begin to wean yourself from the little birdie by accessing only the mobile version of Twitter on your Mac with BirdDrop. Then again, perhaps having one-click access to any form of Twitter from your Mac's menu bar will only increase the time you spend on Twitter. How you use it is up to you. I'm here only to inform you of the app's existence and how it works.

BirdDrop is a free app that installs a … Read more

QR codes haven't exactly set the world on fire, yet most people know what they are, and most phones can scan them, either out of the box or with a third-party app.

The Findables Case takes that idea to heart by emblazoning a unique QR code on each hard-plastic shell, the idea being to use that code to share information about yourself or help recover your lost phone.

In other words, your case can now take the place of your business card, while at the same time offering good Samaritans a means of contacting you (that doesn't involve poring through your address book).

When someone scans the code, they'll see one of three profiles (chosen by you via a companion app or the Findables Web site): Business, Social, or Lost.… Read more

"Thank you for sharing" takes on an entirely new meaning when using social media. Most of the people who use Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks intend their posts to enlighten, amuse, or inspire their friends and followers. It doesn't always work out that way.

For businesses, Twitter is primarily about customer relations, but this can backfire, too, as Customer Think's Trish Miller points out in the Top 10 Twitter Mistakes of 2012.

The first time you sat behind the wheel of a car you didn't just turn the key and head for the freeway … Read more

If you like sports highlights but spend more time on social networks than watching TV, Twitter and ESPN are going to do their best to meet your needs.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter and ESPN plan to announce tomorrow a deepening of their existing relationship, agreeing on a pact under which the leading sports channel will unveil a wide variety of highlight clips in its tweets. The videos would be available on Twitter "shortly after" they take place live.

Naturally, the new arrangement -- which expands on a pact signed in December under which ESPN began … Read more

Twitter's shopping spree shows no signs of letting up. Today, the social-networking giant said that it has acquired big data startup Lucky Sort.

Lucky Sort CEO Noah Pepper said in a blog post that his company's "goal was to make huge document sets easier to analyze, summarize, and visualize by building elegant and user-friendly tools for text analysis."

Neither Twitter nor Lucky Sort said precisely how the startup will be integrated into Twitter's larger plans, but Pepper said in his post that several members of his team would be moving to San Francisco to become … Read more

There are a lot of Twitter clients for iOS. Integrating dozens of different features, these tools allow you to interact with and manage your tweets quickly and easily across multiple devices. But there are issues. Viewing images and videos often sends you to other apps, notifications don't always work properly, and Twitter options may be buried a few menus deep. That's why the well-constructed Echofon for Twitter is such a welcome addition to the field.

By no means a perfect Twitter app, Echofon for Twitter still manages to be one of the better options on the App Store. … Read more

Joss Whedon fans can now catch the latest musings of their favorite creative guru in 140 characters or less.

Whedon finally hopped onto the Twittersphere early Monday using the nom de Twitter of @JossActual. Displaying his usual deadpan sense of humor, Whedon describes himself as a "ladies man, man's man, man about town... Java man, Isle of Man, Mandroid, Man Who Would Be King Ralph, girly man."

As of late Monday, the writer and director known for "The Avengers," "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," "Firefly," "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" … Read more