Your Twitter profile is an essential place to communicate your brand, not only through the content of your tweets, but also through the visual imagery that people see when they visit your profile page.  Don’t let them see the default Twitter background.  Instead, use that background space to make a statement and communicate your brand and primary marketing message to your audience of visitors.

There are a number of sites that offer free, premium and custom Twitter backgrounds.  Depending on your goals for your Twitter profile to directly or indirectly build your online brand, you can determine your budget and choose the type of background that meets your needs.  However, investing in a unique, branded design is important if you’re serious about using your Twitter profile as an extension of your business.

Keep in mind, your Twitter profile background is a static image.  You can include URLs and contact information in your Twitter background, but visitors won’t be able to click on those links.  With that in mind, make sure URLs are spelled out completely in your Twitter background design.

Following are several sites that offer great Twitter background designs at various price points and levels of customization:

1. Social Identities

Social Identities offers Twitter and Facebook backgrounds.  Social Identities has created custom Twitter backgrounds for a wide variety of tweeters, including the one pictured above.

2. Twitbacks

Twitbacks offers free Twitter backgrounds that you can personalize by uploading your own photo and information.

3. Twitrbackgrounds.com

Twitrbackgrounds.com offers free and custom Twitter backgrounds.

Fortunately, custom Twitter backgrounds are very affordable, and there is an option for everyone.

Have you customized your Twitter profile yet?  Leave a comment and share your story.

According to Quantcast, Tumblr is now receiving 10.7 million uniques when compared against Typepad’s 10.6 million stateside, although the gap between the two services expands once you include international users.

The app was built by Mobelux, the same company who created the official Tumblr iPhone app (which was previously known as Tumblrette).

Just like its iSibling, the Blackberry Tumblr app can upload images, text and audio, as well as video too (which might explain why Tumblr increased the video size for Tumblr fans everywhere).

Tumblr has yet to be listed upon Blackberry App World (as a quick search reveals), although “BB fans” can download the app over here.

While it’s great to see Tumblr embracing both the iPhone and Blackberry platforms, hopefully they will consider launching an Android app soon (as the only decent app available is Tumblroid, which will leave one $1.55 poorer).

Similar to how other micro blogging apps like Echofon and SimplyTweet function, Buzzie will send a user an alert whenever they receive a new comment or “buzz” (the latter which I do not recommend if one has over a hundred followers).

While this addition makes the app much more useful than the Google Buzz web app, Buzzie is still lacking in image support, a feature its rival Buzzr has (thanks in part to TwitPic).

Hopefully Buzzie continues to launch new features for this app, as it has the potential of helping bloggers on Google Buzz reach a different type of audience than other types of micro blogging platforms (like Twitter and Tumblr).

However, like its Friendfeed predecessor, Google Buzz is slowly becoming a hit amongst many in the tech blogosphere, and I’m beginning to see even art bloggers embrace Google Buzz (as they can easily display their albums to the delight of their fans).

For those of you who are more interested in using Google Buzz as a micro blogging service, here are 3 iPhone apps you may want to check out.

Buzzie

Launched with much fan fare throughout the blogosphere, Buzzie is thus far the most elegant Google Buzz app upon the app store, which basically allows you to post status updates, search for new friends and find nearby buzzers on a Google Map (note: be careful who you contact though!).

You can even download images that you see from within your buzz stream, although there is currently no way to upload any pictures to your stream from the app itself (note: this is unfortunately due to Google’s limitation of the API, which they are promising to resolve in the near future).

Buzzie is currently selling in the app store for about $2, although the price will go up once Buzzie 2.0 hits (which will hopefully have image and video support).

Buzzr

Created by I See U, Buzzr is at its very essence the mobile web app of Google Buzz with one extra feature: image uploading.

Buzzr gets around Google’s lack of “developer foresight” by utilizing Twitpic, a popular third party image service for Twitter.

Unfortunately there is no way they can associate your image with your Buzz account (so all images uploaded are public), although hopefully they will give users other image uploading options in the future (perhaps via Picasa or Flickr?) as Twitpic can be very slow sometimes (especially during lunch).

Buzzr is currently selling for about $1 in the app store (which is perfect for a blogger short on cash).

Ultimate Notifier

While technically a push notification app, Ultimate Notifier is one of the first push services that officially supports Google Buzz (which is helpful if you are gaining a following with the service).

Priced at around $2, Ultimate Notifier may help satisfy your buzzing urge, although if you have purchased another push notification service (like Boxcar) you can simply type in your buzz feed address in order to receive notifications.

Any others?

These are the only 2 Google Buzzing apps (3 if you include Ultimate Notifier) that survived Steve Jobs app approval process, although developers are busy creating more apps for the iPhone (and hopefully other smartphones as well).

Earlier today Mashable linked to a story upon GigaOM announcing that Twitter–a social network loved by numerous bloggers, is about to embrace tweet advertising.

(GigaOM) According to one source in the media industry, Twitter may launch its new advertising platform at the South by Southwest conference, which starts March 12. The social network is apparently working with several major partners for the launch, including “new and traditional media,” the source said.

Although I do recognize that Twitter can not keep providing a free service and keep the lights on indefinitely, there are probably many bloggers (like me) who have no desire to pollute our tweet streams with random ads sponsoring everything from socks to music.

In order to avoid the masses leaving Twitter for Facebook (or even Google Buzz), they may have to provide a premium option disabling ads altogether–a move which may not please users (especially those already short on cash due to the recession).

Twitter could make premium accounts inexpensive (say between $1-$3 per month) which would be a fair trade off for keeping our streams ad free.

However if they decide to charge more (say between $5-$10 per month) users may end up abandoning Twitter for Facebook, or demanding more features (i.e. verified accounts, higher API limits, etc.) from the popular startup.

While this author is not too pleased with the idea of ads inserted within streams, hopefully Twitter will provide an inexpensive way to opt out of ads as not everyone wants to put their entire life on Google and Facebook’s servers.

Fast forward towards today and one will discover Friendfeed to be mostly vacant save for the presence of super geeks (like Scoble).

For those of you who still refuse to forsake Twitter’s former rival, you may want to check out Freshfeed, an iPhone app created by Palaapp.com.

Priced at $2.99, Freshfeed allows users to not only post images into their Friendfeed stream, but also insert audio as well (and thus far seems to be the only app that does this).

While there are about a dozen Friendfeed apps available (many of them free), Freshfeed seems to be the only one that is still under active development.

Although Friendfeed’s ultimate fate is uncertain (as Facebook has yet to announce any plans to terminate the service), as long as the site remains alive, I’ll be Friendfeeding with Freshfeed–at least until someone comes out with something better.

Users have the option of turning on geotagging, enabling friends (and potential stalkers) to chart your daily route as you tweet across the map.

TweetDeck also now (finally) supports native retweets, joining Echofon, Tweetie and Twittelator in the quest to kill off the oft abused “RT copy & paste” function (although users can still opt to use it if they must).

Despite upgrading their iPhone app, TweetDeck still only supports one video carrier–12seconds–which is perhaps the only underwhelming feature of this app.

Video issues aside, TweetDeck is still one of my favorite Twitter apps as it balances elegance with power, making it a joy for newbie’s and guru’s alike.

Here is their press release, followed by my thoughts after giving it a brief test run (since my time was limited within the geek world today).

(Naan Studio Blog) You’ll find a dedicated list tab in Echofon 3 which allows for viewing, creating and editing your lists. You can also manage lists you follow, see what lists follow you. This is quite possibly the most complete lists implementation of any iPhone Twitter app.

Native retweets are now supported as well. Retweets are displayed in the familiar twitter.com style. You can still use the traditional retweet format, which allows comments along with the retweet. When viewing your profile, you can see retweets from those you follow, your tweets that have been retweeted and tweets you’ve retweeted.

Echofon’s embrace of the native retweet function was long over due, although they do give users the option of using the original RT feature (which I hate).

Echofon also embraces lists support as well, although unlike many (okay most) apps I’ve tried, your changes actually work. (note: other users are reporting crashes, but my experience is great thus far).

Last but not least I can finally edit my entire profile from within the app, and even change my profile picture (which I do frequently on Facebook).

While I could list other items that made me fall in love with app (Flickr support, smart push notifications, I did find a couple deal breakers that kept me from ditching Tweetie for this app.

Deal Breakers

To put it bluntly, Echofon STILL is lacking unlimited drafts. This is something even the dinkiest Twitter apps have, and it’s sad that this feature is still overlooked.

Echofon also needs to expand the number of options for video and photo uploading, as boasting only a couple (despite the fact it had Flickr) is underwhelming.

Conclusion: You can check out more of Echofon’s features over here, although in my honest opinion this is one of the few Twitter apps I had no regret paying for (in this case $5).

While I’ll continue to use Tweetie for now, I think I’ll keep Echofon as a backup (as Tweetie has been erroring out on me lately).

– Posted from my iPhone

Plurk has just issued their official response to Microsoft’s apology hinting that they are not ruling out the possibility of pressing legal charges against the Redmond software giant.

“We are currently looking at all possibilities on how to move forward in response to Microsoft’s recent apology statement. We are still thinking of pursuing the full extent of our legal options available due the seriousness of the situation.”

This whole debacle started a few days ago when Microsoft was accused of ripping-off Plurk’s design and code for use on their newly released microblogging service called MSN Juku. In response to the accusation, Microsoft quickly took the service down and followed it up with an apology acknowledging that the code was indeed copied from Plurk, not by them, but by an independent vendor that they hired to do the project.

Plurk, however, wants Microsoft not only to take responsibility but also be accountable with their actions as well.

This event wasn’t just a simple matter of merely lifting code; Due to the nature of the uniqueness of our product and user interface, it took a good amount of deliberate studying and digging through our code with the full intention of replicating our product user experience, functionality and end results. This product was later launched and heavily promoted by Microsoft with its big marketing budget.

Some people are saying that going against Microsoft in legal battle would only be a waste of time, especially because it wasn’t really Microsoft who did the copying but a third-party. Furthermore, Microsoft did immediately took down the service showing their strict observance on their policy regarding intellectual properties.

But then again, whatever course of action Plurk takes regarding this issue, they are sure to get huge amounts of exposure.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Join the discussion below!

Plurk, one of the biggest microblogging services in Asia, is accusing Microsoft China for ripping off not only their design but also their code with their beta release of MSN Juku, Microsoft China’s newly released microblogging service based on Windows Live Messenger launched last November 2009.

According to Plurk’s blog post,

“… we were absolutely shocked and outraged when we first saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft’s new offering had with Plurk. From the filter tabs, emoticons, qualifier/verb placement, Karma scoring system, media support, new user walkthroughs to pretty much everything else that gives Plurk its trademark appeal, Microsoft China’s offering ripped off our service.”

To see for yourself, below is a screenshot of Microsoft Juku and Plurk:

If Microsoft wanted a horizontal style layout, they could’ve at least changed the design elements! I mean, c’mon!

More after the jump…

Sadly, Juku’s imitation doesn’t just end there. Apparently, aside from the design, they copied the code as well.

On closer inspection, we found that MUCH of the codebase and data structures that Microsoft’s MClub uses are identical snapshots of our code. Microsoft has taken Plurk’s custom developed libraries, css files and client code and just ported them directly over to their service without any attempt to even mask this!

Here are some screenshots taken by the Plurk team comparing the code of Plurk and Juku side by side:

Of course, the code are not exactly alike. However, it is easy to spot the similarities in both the structure, as well as with the variables and functions used. Plurk claims that 80% of the client and product codebase were copied from them.

Microsoft was quick to give out an official statement regarding the issue saying that,

“Microsoft takes intellectual property seriously, and we are currently investigating these allegations. It may take some time due to the time zone differences with Beijing.”

A few hours later, Juku’s service was suspended followed by an official press release on the Microsoft website which read:

On Monday, December 14, questions arose over a beta application called Juku developed by a Chinese vendor for our MSN China joint venture. We immediately worked with our MSN China joint venture to investigate the situation.

The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.

When we hire an outside company to do development work, our practice is to include strong language in our contract that clearly states the company must provide work that does not infringe the intellectual property rights of others. We are a company that respects intellectual property and it was never our intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that others in the industry have done.

We will be suspending access to the Juku beta indefinitely.

We are obviously very disappointed, but we assume responsibility for this situation. We apologize to Plurk and we will be reaching out to them directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.

In the wake of this incident, Microsoft and our MSN China joint venture will be taking a look at our practices around applications code provided by third-party vendors.

It seems that all of this is the fault of the independent vendor that they hired who clearly lacks the creativity to come up with their own design and code. Unfortunately for Microsoft, this is not a valid excuse as they should have seen the similarities with their new product and Plurk, which is already quite well-established in Asia for them to not notice.

No news about Plurk’s response yet. Be sure to tune in here on BloggingPro for updates on this issue!

Plurk, one of the top micro-blogging services, has just opened up its API to developers!

Yep, you heard it right! Plurk’s official blog, Plurk Labs, announced the news today with much excitement.

As Plurk grows, the demand for different set of tools, applications or features to complement our product has also increased. While some of those requests are later added into our social platform, we fully aware it would be impossible for us to implement everything by ourselves. Our users love Plurk passionately and we love them back just as much. So if someone’s mom wants to read her Plurks from her kitchen microwave, she should be able to (provided someone else already wrote such application using our API).

For all those people scratching there heads on what API is, here’s a quick explanation: API means Application Programming Interface. By opening up Plurk’s API, developers can be able to make applications that can use Plurk’s features, data, etc.

Imagine what people could do with Plurk now its API is open. How about the ability to embed our plurk timelines on our blogs? That would be sweet!

Interested developers can head on over to http://plurk.com/API for the full documentation.

One of the impending casualties of the blogging space obsolescence is live blogging. Yeah, there was a time when people blogged real-time in their respective blogs and kept updating one single post in rapid succession to cover an event. A couple of years ago, as blogs were slowly gaining prominence, live blogging was the apex of covering an event live via blogging.

But due to the emergence of microblogging and platforms such as Twitter and Plurk, live blogging is on its way to extinction. Microblogging is fast and automatic, making the process of constantly updating a blog post cumbersome and clunky. Add to that the proliferation of third-party sites and apps that support micro-blogging, live blogging can be officially be considered a dying art.

But before we say “good riddance” to live blogging,  I believe it can still have a place in the blogging ecosystem. Remember that one key limitation of microblogging is the number of characters (e.g. Twitter’s 140 character limit). Live blogging is essentially free from this constraint. Another is the multimedia aspect of live blogging, such as the ability to post audio and video streams into a blog post.

Live blogging may not be hottest thing right now, but I believe it still has a use in specific situations to keep it from becoming completely obsolete.

–

UPDATE: Nah, I change my mind. Live blogging is dead.

All blog owners should not only improve their writing and research skills, they should also develop their internet marketing skills. They should learn how to market their blogs so that they can entice people to visit their blog and continue reading the posts they make. A properly marketed blog is also a great source of income. Imagine getting more money from the ads that you put in your blog? That’s a benefit I’d love to get from my blogs.

The problem is that internet marketing is a subject that intimidates a lot of people. Personally, I don’t think that this should be a source of fear. Internet marketing is not really that hard especially if you have the tools to help make things easier for you. For example, Twitter is quite easy to use. The popular microblogging platform is now widely used as an internet marketing tool. Its popularity makes it an obvious choice to implement marketing efforts because of the number of people that can be reached by the marketing message. Because of its effectiveness as a marketing tool, it’s also a natural progression that independent tools are developed to further mine the capabilities of Twitter.

Tweet Whistle is one of these tools that have unleashed the power of Twitter. Tweet Whistle is a marketing tool that allows you to market your blog in Twitter more easily by automating Twitter’s functions. With this application you can automatically target followers and even automate your Twitter posts. What’s more, Tweet Whistle is the most affordable Twitter marketing application you will find on the net. You can see for yourself how useful Tweet Whistle is by trying the trial demo, which you can download at http://www.tweetwhistle.com/.

But if you want the opportunity of using the full version of Tweet Whistle for free, you can join Tweet Whistle’s contest, wherein the winner will get a licensed copy of Tweet Whistle and a $25 cash prize to be paid through PayPal. To join the contest just do the following:
1.    Follow @thetoolsmith on Twitter

2.    Just tweet the message below:

Just enter to win $25.00 and a free copy of “Tweet Whistle” Just follow @thetoolsmith and Retweet http://tweetwhistle.com

Raanan Bar-Cohen – Media Engineer
Ryan Boren – Engineer
Sam Bauers – Coderoo
Anthony Bubel – Happiness Engineer
Lloyd Budd – Digital Entomologist
Jon Fox – Title Pending
Noel Jackson – Stylist
Isaac Keyet – Design Junkie
Marianne Masculino – Happiness Engineer
Nick Momrik – Happiness Engineer
Matt Mullenweg – CBBQTT
Donncha O Caoimh – Murphy’s Quality Control
Thorsten Ott – Bug Zapper
Andy Peatling – Social Engineer
Michael Pick – Lightbulb Engineer
Warwick Poole – Systemologist
Heather Rasley – The Deputy
Mark Riley – Support Maven
Joseph Scott – Bug Exorcist
Alex Shiels – Code Bloke
Andy Skelton – Code Wrangler
Matt Thomas – The Detailer
Jane Wells – Libation Engineer

Of course there are about four or so missing from this list, as they don’t seem to have a Twitter account I can easily find, and this list doesn’t even include the project focused Twitter accounts or other accounts related to these people. This is just their primary Twitter accounts, so if you have wanted to follow them, now you can.

There are three sets of plugins, ones that display your Twitter messages on your blog, ones that allow you to push out notifications of your blog posts to Twitter and ones that create other interactions with Twitter.

Displaying Tweets

LifeStream – I use this plugin on what “should” be my company site, Digital Life News and I enjoy it. Fairly full featured, and backed by a close friend of mine.

Lifestream displays your social feeds and photos much like you would see it on many of the social networking sites.

Twitter for WordPress – I haven’t used this plugin, but I can see why it is popular. It shows your latest tweets in your sidebar.

Twitter Tools – Everyone knows Alex King is an amazing plugin developer, and so his Twitter Tools suite is no exception. It fits into both categories, allowing you to display your tweets on your blog, as well as pushing out blog post information to Twitter.

My favourite piece from his FAQ on the plugin:

What happens if I have both my tweets posting to my blog as posts and my posts sent to Twitter? Will it cause the world to end in a spinning fireball of death?

Actually, Twitter Tools has taken this into account and you can safely enable both creating posts from your tweets and tweets from your posts without duplicating them in either place.

MyTwitter – Another simple plugin to see your Twitter messages on your blog.

MyTwitter allows users to display their recent Twitter status updates (tweets) on their WordPress site and update their status through the Options page. Includes customization options including number of recent twitters to display, formatting options, and stylesheets. It can be called as a function or used as a widget.

Twitter Feed – Looking a lot like your Twitter page, Twitter Feed is a nice widget for displaying recent tweets. It looks well featured, and highly configurable. An exciting way to display interactions with Twitter.

Pushing Blog Posts to Twitter

Twitme – If all you want is to push your blog post links to your Twitter friends and followers, Twitme should do that just fine. Last updated only two weeks ago, this plugin is still in constant development.

Twitpress – In the same vein as Twitme, Twitpress also takes blog posts, and automatically pushes information about them to your Twitter account.

Bird Feeder – Yet another blog post to Twitter plugin. This one was also recently updated, and is focused on fulfilling its single function as quickly, and as easily as possible.

WP to Twitter – This is the plugin I generally use to feed my blog posts to Twitter, and it has always worked quite well for me.

The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your blog using the Cli.gs URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post from Twitter.

Other Interactions with Twitter

Tweetbacks – Created by a good friend, Joost de Valk, Tweetbacks brings responses to your posts on Twitter, back into your blog.

People are talking about your posts, and not only in the comments to your post. A lot of that conversation is happening on Twitter, and now, you can take that conversation right back to your blog! This plugin imports those tweets about your posts as comments. You can display them in between the other comments on your blog, or display them separately.

Tweet Tweet – One of the better known WordPress related figures, Donncha O Caoimh has created a plugin to back up your Twitter messages.

This plugin archives your tweets, and the tweets of those you follow in your database. It also stores replies from other people, as well as direct messages.

TwitterCounter – Much like people show off their RSS feed subscribers in a little “chicklet” box, this plugin allows you to show off the number of Twitter followers you have. Created by Ajay D’Souza and Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

TweetRoll – Much like a blogroll, or those friend boxes from various blogging communities, TweetRoll displays some of your followers in a fancy widget that will hopefully increase your subscribers and give attention to those you follow.

These of course, are but a few of the hundreds of WordPress plugins available to bloggers to interact with Twitter in different ways. There are services, full scripts, and more that can be utilized to closer tie your blogging and Twitter together.

What are your favourite Twitter related WordPress plugins?

If you guys get a Twitter direct message with a link, when clicked, brings you to a page that looks like Twitter and asks for your login details, do not login on that page.

Twitter is the latest target of a “phishing” campaign — an attempt by hackers to gather usernames and passwords through deceptive means. This particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages.

And lots of people have fallen victim to this scam already. Even Fox News, President-elect Obama, and Britney Spears were not spared.

Okay, I have to admit that I laughed when the hacked FoxNews made a quip about Bill O’Reilly’s sexuality, or when Britney Spears announced something about the size of her privates, but this is a serious problem here.

The Twitter blog offered some ways to recover your account if you have fallen victim to this trick:

…If you find yourself unable to login to your account with your username and password, please use the reset password link to regain access. This will send an email to the address associated with your account and you’ll be able to create a new password.

If you don’t receive the reset password email, please check your junk or spam email folder as it may be accidentally delivered there. If you are still having trouble logging in, please contact our support team and we’ll help you out.

So people, be careful about your DMs, and keep those accounts safe!

Now you can do a Doogie Howser and ramble with your daily thoughts with a simulated IBM PS/2 interface! Go to Twoogie to channel his prodigious wit into your own twitter-feeds.

Just login to Twoogie with your Twitter username and password and post your ramblings away! You’ll see that your Twitter timeline will be updated in no time.

You can even add your your username behind the URL to view your Twitter stream the old school way. The site’s design is obviously old school, a throwback to the old computer screens from the ’80s. And the Doogie Howser, M.D. theme song even plays automatically when you load the site.

All in all, this Twitter app can give you a good laugh and it can also keep the show’s theme song stuck in your head for hours. If you want to check out the developer’s other apps, go to Syndeomedia Labs.

We?re very happy that Six Apart wants to invest in growing the vision that we the founders of Pownce believe so strongly in and we?re very excited to take our vision to all of Six Apart?s products. Mike and I have joined Six Apart as part of their engineering team and we?re looking forward to being a part of the talented group that has created amazing tools for blogging and publishing.

Even though they will be coming up with an export tool soon, those who paid for Pro accounts have been told that they will be emailed soon with more information. On the Six Apart blog though, they’ve announced that Pownce Pro users will get a year’s TypePad pro account for free. As for the Pownce team, they seem to have settled into Vox. Leah Culver and Mike Malone has made Vox their new home. So Pownce is closing, Leah and Mike are joining Vox, but will the community join in? Six Apart hopes so. What’s your take? Leave your opinion in the comments.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Plurk’s horizontal timeline scheme, and I try to use the mobile interface as often as I can. In fact, I was able to devise a way to use the mobile interface solely. I installed Mozilla Prism and made an application out of Plurk. But constantly updating it manually can be a pain.

Enter Plurkybar. Apparently, the developer, Martin Gomez, has the same concerns as I do. Looking for a Plurk add-on for Firefox, and finding only TwisterMc’s Plurk Firefox Sidebar, which he found too simple, he set out to develop Plurkybar. Here’s what he says about his creation:

Plurkybar is “an immensely simple Plurk sidebar for Firefox.” Just download it and you’ll be able to plurk within Firefox without having to have a dedicated window or tab. It automatically refreshes every minute so that you’re assured that you get the hottest, freshest, latest plurks available in your timeline.

Installation isn’t as smooth as going to the Mozilla Add-ons site, though. You have to select “Open with Firefox” if you want to install it there and then, or “Save File” to install it later. If you downloaded the it, just double-click the .xpi file to install Plurkybar. Once you’ve installed Plurkybar, just hit Ctrl+Shift+P to run it, and it’ll open up in your sidebar.

It’s a bit rough around the edges, but that’s why it’s version 0.1. Martin’s actively encouraging feedback and suggestions though, so why don’t you give Plurkybar a try?

The site supposedly loads faster, with Ajax optimizations. The layout has been streamlined, with the navigation tabs moved and some unnecessary or rarely-used elements done away with or hidden, for a simpler look.

If you have suggestions, comments or if you simply want to compliment the Twitter team for their work, do give them a shout out by sending a tweet that starts with @twitter.

“What about…[your favorite feature request / annoyance].” Please be assured the changes we’ve made here aren’t the only things we want to (or will) change. They’re not even, necessarily, the most important. The scope of this project was limited to light-weight front-end work.

They say they have more updates coming, and that they’re currently working hard on improving on the back-end.