Today, we’re taking an important step to make it easier to manage the security of your Twitter experience – we are adding a user setting that lets you always use HTTPS when accessing Twitter.com. Using HTTPS for your favorite Internet services is particularly important when using them over unsecured WiFi connections.

For some time, users have been able to use Twitter via HTTPS by going to https://twitter.com. We’ve made it simpler for users to do this by adding the option to always use HTTPS.

To turn on HTTPS, go to your settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS,” which is at the bottom of the page. This will improve the security of your account and better protect your information if you’re using Twitter over an unsecured Internet connection, like a public WiFi network, where someone may be able to eavesdrop on your site activity. In the future, we hope to make HTTPS the default setting.


We’ve already made this setting the default for a number of clients and activities. In these cases, HTTPS is used whether or not you’ve enabled the “Always use HTTPS” setting:

• When you log into Twitter, so your password stays protected.
• On the official Twitter for iPhone and iPad mobile application.

There are also a few instances where turning on HTTPS in your settings does not force HTTPS. For example, when accessing Twitter from your mobile browser, you need to go to https://mobile.twitter.com to use HTTPS for now. We are working on a solution that will share the “Always use HTTPS” setting across twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com, so you don’t have to think about which device you’re using when you want to check Twitter. If you use a third-party application, you should check to see if that app offers HTTPS.

Five years ago this week, a small team of people started working on a prototype of the service that we now know as Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet.

Today, on every measure of growth and engagement, Twitter is growing at a record pace. Here are some numbers:

#tweets

• 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
• 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
• 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
• 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
• 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
• 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
• 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts

• 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
• 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
• 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees

• 8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.

Our thoughts, sympathy, and support go out to those in Japan affected by Friday’s powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami.

On our Twitter Japan blog, we share tips and resources to help people around the world provide support and share and follow important information. The post is in both Japanese and English. In it you can find which hashtags people are using to communicate about the earthquake, learn about a new section of our mobile website (available for users in Japan) that has the latest information about the earthquake, and discover useful message boards and other sites. We'll be updating this blog post as we discover more tools and useful information.

Yesterday, we also posted additional information on how to help people in Japan and accounts to follow to stay up-to-date on what's going on in Japan on our Hope 140 blog.

Twitter for iPhone is already the third-most popular way to access Twitter (after Twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com) and our official iPad app is the top way for people to connect with Twitter on Apple’s tablet. Today, we introduced a handful of new features that make them even better.

These include:

- Photos. Uploading photos is now easier than ever. There’s a camera button in the toolbar and we improved the image preview, so you can quickly choose a photo from your library or take a new picture.
- Follow your friends. Now you can find which of your friends are on Twitter that have chosen to be discoverable through the contacts on your phone.
- Local trends. See trends based on your location.
- Shorten links. When you want to share a link on Twitter, just paste it into the Tweet box and we’ll automatically shorten it.
- Tweet box design. We redesigned the “New Tweet” screen so it’s now cleaner and simpler.
- Autocomplete. When tweeting on-the-go, speed and accuracy are important. Autocomplete for @usernames and hashtags help you tweet faster
- Direct Messages. The new Direct Message conversation view helps you better keep track of messages.



And one very cool update is iPhone specific – for now. We’ve introduced the Quick Bar that lets you quickly see trends at the top of your timeline. You can swipe the Quick Bar to the left or right to see additional trends.

You can download Twitter on your iPhone or iPad from the iTunes App Store, or visit twitter.com/download.