Internet, Social Media | featured news

Twitter is confronting a slew of challenges -- from hiring, to keeping its service up and running, to finding meaningful revenue -- as it deals with sudden stratospheric growth.

Finally, Twitter has a significant use. It allows you to bypass the endless taxi line at the McCarren airport in Vegas so you can lose money quicker!

Tweetmeme is on a tear. According to Compete, the Twitter-centric link tracker went from nowhere in February, 2009 (with 26,000 unique visitors) to more than tenfold increase in March (to 385,000 uniques). Nick Halstead, The CEO of UK-based Fav.or.it, the company behind Tweetmeme, tells me he is tracking closer to 200,000 uniques a month based on yesterday's visitors, but that he is adding 50 percent a week.

It's happened: America's favorite Tina Fey character - Sarah Palin, former Republican Vice Presidential nominee - has joined Twitter. With the handle AKGovSarahPalin, Palin jumped on the social phenomena the other day and has started posting things like Alaska's swine flu status and her staff being misquoted.

A French hacker posts 13 screenshots of a Twitter product manager's admin interface to prove the claim.

The website known for its user-generated videos will showcase Hollywood content in an effort to boost revenue and compete with the growing popularity of Hulu.

Celebrity Ashton Kutcher narrowly beat out CNN early Friday in an online popularity contest to see who could more quickly attract 1 million followers on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Twitter is most interested in striking distribution partnerships with big Internet and media companies, not in being acquired or striking an advertising deal, says company director Fred Wilson.

The 31-year-old actor recently threw down the gauntlet, challenging CNN and its founder, Ted Turner. In a Web video posted earlier this week, Kutcher said he would ding-dong-ditch Turner’s house if he beat CNN to 1 million.

David Bill isn't annoyed when Twitter gets so bogged down with traffic that he can't post a message.