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Twitter is more than just a micro-blogging social network. In the 14 years of its existence, it has been effectively used as a tool for marketing and promotion, citizen journalism and even propaganda. But if you’re only using its app on your phone, you are not doing Twitter right. Here are a few tools that will help you leverage its powers... TweetDeck.Twitter.com This browser-based tool gives you a dashboard view of your Twitter feed, notifications, messages and trending terms. You can also add columns for lists, collections, likes, mentions, followers, and even schedule your tweets. TweetDeck provides you with search tips; it lets you manage multiple accounts from a single interface and also gives you access to keyboard shortcuts to make navigation easier. Analytics.Twitter.com If your tweets are not getting the traction they deserve, check Analytics to help you measure your reach and impact on Twitter. On Analytics, you can see which of your tweets got the most reactions and replies, the number of users who have followed or unfollowed you, month by month, as well as details on their interests, location and demographic. It gives you reports of your engagement on the platform in actionable percentages along with tips…

For three decades, Doris Burke has covered basketball at ESPN. She’s been there for some of the biggest calls in NBA Finals history and has conducted the post-game interviews of the championship-winning team and emceed the awards presentations since 2009. In 2017, she became a full-time NBA analyst. By most accounts, she’s considered one of the best in the business.  Not surprisingly, like every announcer with so many hours on the air, she’s had her share of bleeps, bloopers, and blunders. On Sunday, during ESPN’s broadcast of the Milwaukee Bucks-LA Clippers game, Burke inadvertently added to her blooper reel with remarks specific to the game that the Twittersphere interpreted as R-rated comments and went crazy. Doris Burke inadvertently makes R-rated comments   RELATED: Doris Burke Had an Impressive Basketball Career Before She Ever Picked Up a Microphone In a tight NBA matchup with the Clippers leading the Bucks 100-99 and just over two minutes remaining, Doris Burke described the Bucks’ defensive effort, and specifically the work of Giannis Antetokuonmpo, providing help-side defense to Khris Middleton on LA superstar Kawhi Leonard.  “You have to know when to come,” Burke said. “So Khris does a great job. Giannis comes from behind and…

Twitter is adding a "super" option to its service. The social media giant announced it’s exploring a new subscription option called “super follows.” The feature, which will likely roll out later this year, will allow content creators to charge a fee for exclusive content that won’t be shown to regular followers. The company announced the feature in an investor presentation on Thursday, per The Guardian. The content can vary from subscriber-only newsletters to videos and deals. Currently, the feature is in internal testing and not available to the public, though the company said it will have “more to share” soon. Interested users would pay a monthly fee to access the additional content. Twitter has not revealed the percentage it would cut its creators. The move, which users and investors have been asking for, comes as Twitter aims to find ways to make money outside of advertising. It would also put Twitter on the same playing field as other subscription-based companies such as Patreon and OnlyFans. A Twitter spokesperson said they’ve been "examining and rethinking the incentives of our service — the behaviors that our product features encourage and discourage as people participate in conversation on Twitter." “Exploring audience funding opportunities…

When musician John Roderick’s 9-year-old daughter asked him how to use a can opener, he saw it as a teaching moment. He refused to show her and vowed that they wouldn’t eat until she had puzzled it out. It took her six hours, during which Roderick provided hints, cajoled, philosophized and occasionally teased her.Roderick documented the event on Twitter, and was excoriated. The typical sentiment was disgusted disbelief: Why not just tell her?But this reaction shows overconfidence in the answer to a difficult question, one that’s especially relevant as parents assist with remote schooling: When kids ask for help, what’s the right mix of support and challenge? If you “just tell them,” aren’t you undercutting motivation and the chance to build independence?For over a century, some education theorists have warned that kids who are “just told” might learn superficially. Virtually all researchers agree that understanding involves interpretation; learners don’t simply absorb what a parent says, they create their own meaning. For example, if a child hears “Piera saw the doctor yesterday,” she goes beyond the literal words and understands that Piera probably felt ill. Because understanding is active, some theorists advise that the child should act while learning — that…

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. A new forecast this week expects consumer spend to grow to $270 billion by 2025. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year. This week, we’re looking into what’s next for the future of one of the top social apps (Twitter), as well as Spotify’s latest announcements around its future plans for podcasts and subscriptions, along with other top stories, including the Clubhouse…

Last Friday afternoon Texas A&M cancelled their home game against the Arkansas Razorbacks, literally as they were loading the bus per Eric Musselman. Found out while boarding the bus to travel to College Station today that our game tomorrow was cancelled. Our players are devastated that they do not get to compete. We are working with the league to see if we can add a non-conference game. ⏲️— Eric Musselman (@EricPMusselman) February 19, 2021 The Hog staff quickly tried to find a non-conference team to play for that Saturday. So they would reach out to Arkansas State for a Saturday matchup in Fayetteville. Per Richard Davenport the Red Wolves would decline the matchup and life would go on....so you would think. I’m told Arkansas basketball tried to line up a game with A-State but Wolves declined.— Richard Davenport (@ArRecruitingGuy) February 20, 2021 The story was that Arkansas State did not have an opponent for that Saturday. The Red Wolves were in contention to finish first in their league and a one-seed in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. Ok, that’s cool. I am sure they didn’t want to risk an injury, blah blah blah. So, a news outlet caught up with…

ABC NewsA 3rd stimulus check could be coming. Here’s what Americans did with the othersFor millions of Americans like 27-year-old Edvonte Copeland, stimulus checks from the federal government have provided a financial lifeline. A special education assistant and assistant athletic director at a high school in Minneapolis, Copeland’s work became unpredictable as the pandemic forced classrooms to go virtual. When the most recent $600 check arrived in the mail, Copeland immediately used it to help pay his bills.Associated PressWisconsin hunters exceed wolf target by nearly 100 animalsWisconsin hunters and trappers killed nearly double the number of wolves that the state allotted for a weeklong season, and they did it so quickly that officials ended the hunt after less than three days, according to figures released Thursday. Nontribal hunters and trappers registered 216 wolves as of Thursday afternoon, blowing past the state's kill target of 119. The wolf season began Monday and was supposed to run through Sunday, but the DNR shut it down Wednesday afternoon as it became clear hunters would exceed the target.ProFootball Talk on NBC SportsESPN: Matthew Judon’s “personal attacks” on Jamison Hensley were “completely uncalled for”Ravens linebacker Matthew Judon reacted to a report that he didn’t appreciate…

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Twitter earlier this month announced it would be expanding its partnership with Google, moving more data and workloads from its servers to the Google Data Cloud. While Twitter doesn’t yet have plans to port its entire infrastructure to the cloud, its growing relationship with Google’s Data Cloud highlights some of the key challenges companies face as their data stores grow and how employing the right cloud strategy can help them solve these challenges. From on-premise to the cloud Before its interest in the cloud, Twitter had long been running on its own solid IT infrastructure. Servers and datacenters on five continents stored and processed hundreds of petabytes of data, served hundreds of millions of users, and had the capacity to scale with the company’s growth. Twitter also developed many in-house tools for data analysis. But in 2016, the company became interested in exploring the benefits of moving all or part of its data to the cloud. “The advantages, as we saw them, were the ability to leverage new cloud offerings and capabilities as they became available, elasticity and scalability, a broader geographical footprint for locality and business continuity, reducing our footprint, and more,” Twitter senior manager of software engineering Joep…

Twitter plans to at least double annual revenue and hit 315 million or more daily active users in 2023, the social media giant said Thursday ahead of an investor day set for noon ET. The daily active users (DAU) figure reps a 20% compound annual growth rate from the 152 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2019. The goal is to see sales jump to $7.5 billion from $3.7 billion in 2002 by growing audience and gaining advertising market share in both brand and direct response. The new targets buoyed Twitter shares which  jumped as much as 12% to a record intraday high of $80.75. They’re trading up 9% late morning, outpacing the broader market and the rest of the tech sector. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 1.2%. DJIA is down by about 160 points. CEO Jack Dorsey will kick off the event, which will focus on “Healthy Participation” in consumer product priorities, policy and enforcement as well as financial metrics and faster development. Content moderation has become a major issue with Twitter at the fore, having permanently banned former president Donald Trump from the platform for his comments during and after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on…