Twitter adds Hebrew and Arabic Home Pages

Twitter users have long been able to fire of messages, mostly known as "tweets", & it will now be able to visit Twitter home page with local language notices and instructions. 


Twitter has now launched Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi & Urdu versions of the website, which further localizes the text message services.

Twitter to Censor Tweets

Twitter has been a free and open platform for tens of millions of people around the world, to say and share what they like.

Sweden Allows citizens to take over its Official Twitter Account

With Twitter is now flourishing as a well-established part of the Internet landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to make a splash with a truly innovative marketing campaign using the service. The country of Sweden may have managed that with a new project that sees a different citizen take over its official Twitter account every week.

“No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world,” says Thomas Brühl, the CEO of the country’s tourism agency VisitSweden.

Curators of Sweden is certainly an interesting idea; a variety of Swedes, including an editorial writer, a founder of an advertising agency with his own farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking trucker lesbian are all lined up to take over the account in coming weeks. The plan is that they will portray a diverse range of values, skills and ideas from across the country.

However, it’s a bold step to jump from what Twitter users may reasonably expect a tourism account to offer (news, offers and recommendations of places to visit) to what Sweden’s first ‘curator’ is offering. From his first tweet onwards …

 …he’s tweeted about everything from touching personal news…

to humour that not everyone will appreciate.

Yes, it seems that the ‘curators’ won’t be restricted to tourism-friendly soundbites – it looks like they can pretty much say what they like. Not everyone’s happy with it though – it has already led one Swede living abroad in London to criticise her country’s approach as “a disgrace“.

It’s certainly going to be odd for casual visitors to stumble upon links to humorous photographs and jokes about the Pope on the official Swedish tourism Twitter account, but that aside, it certainly gets people talking about the country and, after all, the project’s aim is clear from its website:

“The idea is that the curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity for Sweden and the wide range the country has to offer. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of Sweden, different to that usually obtained through traditional media.”

In that respect, it’s a success – even if it won’t please everyone.

Tweet to get Scholarship

Not too long ago, students had to craft an essay if they wanted to win a scholarship. Now, they just can craft a tweet.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken Foundation is asking eligible high school seniors to tweet a photo that illustrates their commitment to education and enriching their communities. The KFC Colonel's Scholars winner, announced December 15, will receive up to $5,000 per year to pursue a bachelor's degree at a public university in his or her home state.

KFC started the Twitter contest last year as a way of reinvigorating its scholarship program for the social media age. The competition saw over 2,800 applicants, with the winning tweet coming from California high school senior Amanda Russell: "#KFCScholar Hey Colonel! Your scholarship's the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash!"

Other organizations, perhaps weary of wading through applicants' lengthy essays, also are offering eager students ways to turn a 140-character message into money for college. Last summer Scholarships.com awarded a "Short and Tweet" $1,000 cash prize and Amazon Kindle e-readers to three students who tweeted winning answers to questions like, "What would an extra $1,000 for college mean to you?"

"No lengthy essay, no pile of paperwork -- just your thoughts, in real time," promised the contest's website. "To enter, simply log on to Twitter ..."

In place of an essay, the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business offered a full $38,000 scholarship to its MBA program for the best tweet from a prospective student. "That's right, it's a 140-character application that pays $271 per letter," said the school's website.

Why a tweet? Jodi Schafer, the University of Iowa's director of MBA admissions and financial aid, told USA Today that application essays were "becoming unoriginal." She said "we're hoping that incorporating social media in the process will help bring back some of that creativity." Applicants were encouraged to include in their tweet links to blogs, videos or Facebook accounts.

The college plans to bring back the tweeting scholarship next year to international applicants.

Competitions like these are done more for marketing purposes than finding qualified candidates, said Sree Sreenivasan, a digital-media professor who teaches classes on Twitter at Columbia Journalism School. He cited a scholarship sponsored by Dr. Pepper that was awarded to a girl who threw the most football passes into a giant Dr. Pepper can at the SEC Championship game.

"How is that better or worse than Twitter?" he asked. Sreenivasan believes these scholarships get buzz because they are "marketing to the extreme." He said he would not be surprised to see more competitions like this in the future, because marketers are very imitative.

This year's KFC scholarship competition explores students' creativity in a different way by asking them to tweet a picture instead of just a snippet of text. The ideal image should capture their high school experiences and collegiate dreams. KFC Public Relations Manager Rick Maynard says snapping pictures and sharing them online comes naturally to this generation of students, and the scholarship is a new way to connect with social-networking teens.

"The Colonel was a lifelong learner, reinventing himself at the age of 65 when he turned a $105 Social Security check into what would become a global chicken chain. He would have been thrilled to see how KFC continues to adapt to fit the changing consumer landscape," Maynard said.

Maynard said KFC is watching for new technological trends to help the company decide what to do for next year's competition. In the meantime, students may submit photos until December 13, and the winner will be named around December 15.