We’re constantly working to make Twitter search the simplest way to discover what’s happening in real time. To that end, today we’re introducing search autocomplete and ‘People you follow’ search results to twitter.com. In addition to recent improvements like related query suggestions, spelling corrections and more relevant search results, these updates make it even easier to immediately get closer to the things you care about.

Search autocomplete shows you the most likely terms for your query as you enter it — especially useful if you’re trying to follow the hashtag for an event or you’re looking for a certain Twitter account. You can select your query from the drop-down menu even before you finish typing it.


After you enter your search, you’ll find the most relevant Tweets, articles, accounts, images and videos for your query. We’ve also made several other improvements to make your search experience better.

• Spelling corrections: If you misspell a term, we’ll automatically show results for your intended query.
• Related suggestions: If you search for a topic for which people use multiple terms, we will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter.
• Results with real names and usernames: When you search for a name like ‘Jeremy Lin,’ you’ll see results mentioning that person’s real name and their Twitter account username.
• Results from people you follow: In addition to seeing ‘All’ or ‘Top’ Tweets for your search, you can also now see Tweets about a given topic from only the people you follow when you select the ‘People you follow’ view. Viewing Tweets about a topic from just the people you follow is a great way to find useful information and join the conversation.

These updates make search easier on twitter.com, and related search suggestions, search autocomplete and spelling corrections are also available on Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android.

Posted by Frost Li (@frost), engineer, on behalf of the Search and Relevance team

Today we’ve made Twitter available in Catalan and Ukrainian, bringing the total number of supported languages to 30.

These new languages are possible thanks in large part to our community of translators. Twitter has been using a translation community model since 2009. The demand has been so high that we built a console - Twitter’s Translation Center, where users can help suggest translations for the site. With each official Twitter language launch, we saw more and more demand from users to help us translate Twitter into their language.

On May 16th, we opened up the Translation Center to six additional languages. We worked to ensure the quality, consistency and unified voice of our translators were in our tools - via automation. Today, we are making two of those languages available for all users to see and change their language settings to - Catalan and Ukrainian. The translations you see live on Twitter.com are based on translation completion and community approval. In order to use Twitter in Catalan or Ukrainian, please go to your language settings today.

Next week, the top baseball players will be heading to the 2012 All Star Game in Kansas City. The rosters are all set - except for one slot on each league’s team. With just hours left before the two Final Vote players are selected, fans can now make their favorite player an All Star with a Tweet.

Tweet using the designated hashtag for the player you want to see take the field in Kansas City, and MLB will add the Tweet tally to the rest of online voting:

American League team:
Jonathan Broxton (P, Kansas City Royals) - #VoteBroxton
Yu Darvish (P, Texas Rangers) - #VoteYu
Ernesto Frieri (P, LA Angels of Anaheim) - #VoteFrieri
Jason Hammel (P, Baltimore Orioles) - #VoteHammel
Jake Peavy (P, Chicago White Sox) - #TakeJake

National League team:
Michael Bourn (OF, Atlanta Braves) - #VoteBourn
David Freese (3B, St Louis Cardinals) - #FreesePlease
Bryce Harper (OF, Washington Nationals) - #BryceIn12
Aaron Hill (2B, Arizona Diamondbacks) - #FinHillVote

Even other players are hitting the campaign trail to rally the Twitter vote:

Vote Hammel! Get this man in the all star game, he deserves it! Orioles.com/finalvote twitter.com/DODay56/status…

— Darren O'Day (@DODay56) July 3, 2012

Everybody vote to help send Bryce to the All-Star Game. #BryceIn12 #FinalVote

— Gio Gonzalez (@GioGonzalez47) July 3, 2012

Congrats Huston Street on representing the #Padres in the #ASG #deserved. #VoteFrieri for the AL All-Star team. Great pitcher better friend.

— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass45) July 2, 2012

As the Midsummer Classic approaches, be sure to follow @MLB for more news, last-minute roster updates, and even some surprises. You can catch the All Star Game on July 10 on FOX at 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT, and join the conversation with the hashtag #ASG.

As for me, #VoteYu.

Posted by Omid Ashtari, Sports & Entertainment Team (@omid)

Wednesday marks Independence Day here in the United States. Beyond the fireworks and barbecue, July 4th serves as an important reminder of the need to hold governments accountable, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves.

With that in mind, today we’re unveiling our first Twitter Transparency Report. Inspired by the great work done by our peers @Google, the primary goal of this report is to shed more light on:

• government requests received for user information,
• government requests received to withhold content, and
• DMCA takedown notices received from copyright holders.

The report also provides insight into whether or not we take action on these requests.

One of our goals is to grow Twitter in a way that makes us proud. This ideal informs many of our policies and guides us in making difficult decisions. One example is our long-standing policy to proactively notify users of requests for their account information unless we’re prohibited by law; another example is transmitting DMCA takedown notices and requests to withhold content to Chilling Effects. These policies help inform people, increase awareness and hold all involved parties––including ourselves––more accountable; the release of our first Transparency Report aims to further these ambitions.

Here’s the data, which dates back to January 1, 2012. You can also find these tables, along with more information about the data, in our Help Center.





We’ve received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011. Moving forward, we’ll be publishing an updated version of this information twice a year.

Along with publishing our Transparency Report, we’re also partnering with Herdict, which “collects and disseminates real-time, crowdsourced information about Internet filtering, denial of service attacks, and other blockages.” This new partnership aims to drive more traffic and exposure to Herdict, while also empowering the web community at large to help keep an eye on whether users can access Twitter around the world.

These two new initiatives—the Twitter Transparency Report and our partnership with Herdict—are an important part of keeping the Tweets flowing.

Posted by Jeremy Kessel, Manager, Legal Policy (@jer)

Congrats to Spain! Since Poland and Greece kicked off #Euro2012 in Warsaw, the world has watched Europe’s best footballers and teams compete for cup and country together on Twitter. Commentators, fans and athletes around the world supported their teams in song, in face paint and in Tweets.

My colleague @philogb created a visual summary of #Euro2012 in order to understand how people followed the tournament on Twitter here.

This data visualization shows how often people mentioned Europe’s top 16 national teams from the group stages through the final between Spain and Italy. You can see how often all of the teams were mentioned throughout the tournament and look at how mentions compare for competitors for each match. These different perspectives should give you a strong sense of how people reacted during the matches on Twitter. Look, for example, at the big spikes in Tweets that tend to occur during goals.


The final match resulted in 16.5 million Tweets from fans around the world. And during today’s match, total global traffic on the platform peaked at 15,358 Tweets per second during the 4th goal, a new sports-related record on Twitter.

Finally, here are some of my favorite Tweets from today:

Congratulations to Spain for winning the #Euro2012. Now looking forward to #WorldCup2014 in Brazil!

— Pel? (@Pele) July 1, 2012

Its a deal!!! RT.@chefjoseandres: @Mariobatali if i win you cook one day in my place if you win i cook in your place?”

— Mario Batali (@Mariobatali) July 1, 2012

Great! This is amazing! This is for everybody, you deserve it! twitter.com/andresiniesta8…

— Andr?s Iniesta (@andresiniesta8) July 1, 2012

Posted by Miguel Rios, Analytics (@miguelrios)