Like a good book, Twitter can take you anywhere. And now it’s even easier to discover literature and follow your favorite authors, critics, magazines and publishers by downloading the official Twitter app on the Barnes & Noble NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet, and the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Twitter also strengthens the bond between writers and fans by helping you interact in real time. Connect your Twitter account to your Kindle account to tweet your favorite highlights, or pose questions to authors like @SusanOrlean and @StevenBJohnson directly from your device via the new @author beta from Amazon. Follow your favorite authors on Twitter and read their latest Tweets on their Amazon Author Pages.

A special @twitterstories about the @penguinusa Twitter Book Club! twitter.com/TwitterStories…

— Twitter Books (@TwitterBooks) February 13, 2012

Whether you want to ask @MargaretAtwood a question or find out what’s on William Gibson’s (@GreatDismal) reading list, Twitter brings you instantly closer to the writers you care about, and also to your fellow readers. Join a Twitter book club to discover new stories with other readers around the world. This month, The Atlantic magazine's @1book140 leads readers in discussions of four graphic novels, and @PenguinUSA kicks off its Twitter book club with The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (@EleanorWrites).

@notginny All three siblings resemble me! I took questions and traits I had and distributed them among the sisters. #readpenguin

— Eleanor Brown (@eleanorwrites) February 15, 2012

The 84th Academy Awards show is almost here and there are so many reasons to tune in, from red carpet fashion to the winners’ acceptance speeches. No matter which part of the gala you’re most interested in, there are lots of ways to have more fun with it through Twitter.

Fun times w/Kermit & Miss Piggy! Excited 2 see them present @ the #Oscars on Sun! Kermit says "it's like coming home" twitter.com/TheAcademy/sta…

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 23, 2012

On the red carpet: This year, you’ll have a chance to be part of the red carpet commentary on the air as well as on Twitter. Use the hashtag #BestDressed and include the names of the celebs you think are owning the red carpet. Both @NinaGarcia and Tim Gunn will be talking about your Tweets during the Oscars Red Carpet Live show on ABC. They’ll give updates about who viewers think are best dressed throughout the pre-show broadcast.

Live-tweeting cast: Watch the Oscars unfold on Twitter through the eyes of our live-tweeting cast tuning in along with you and sharing exclusive Oscars commentary you won’t see anywhere else.

Looking to bring a little extra celebrity and fashion insights to your night? Follow the show along with:

@ninagarcia
@DitaVonTeese
@bravoandy
@MrBradGoreski
@EvaLongoria
@rosemcgowan
@YO_RANDYJACKSON
@honorsociety
@gavinrossdale

Or laugh ‘til it hurts, as you try to keep up with:

@whitneycummings
@paulscheer
@LisaLampanelli
@NickSwardson
@SklarBrothers

You can also use this list to follow nominees, presenters and other Hollywood luminaries.

Follow the #Oscars hashtag to see what the world is saying about the show. Make sure to check out what host @BillyCrystal tweets before, during and after the ceremony. The Academy will be live-tweeting from several accounts including @TheAcademy for a behind-the-scenes look at all the action, @OscarInterviews that will provide insights from the press room and @OscarGoer that will take you into the theater as if you’re attending the ceremony yourself.

This Saturday, four of the most dynamic players in the NBA will take it to the rim in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest—and you can decide who wins by voting with a Tweet.

Tune in to TNT at 8 pm (ET) to vote for the new Sprite Slam Dunk champion by tweeting the hashtag #SpriteSlam with the last name of your favorite dunker. This year, there are no judges for the contest––just fans like you who will determine the outcome by tweeting. Fans will also be able to vote via text message and on NBA.com.

Get a firsthand take on the action by following the Indiana Pacers’ Paul George (@King24George), Minnesota Timberwolves’ Derrick Williams (@RealDWill7), the Houston Rockets’ Chase Budinger (@CBudinger) and Jeremy Evans (@JeremyEvans40) from the Utah Jazz. George and Williams have already started the war of words on Twitter!

@RealDwill7 haha it's official.. Summer bragging rights now!

— Paul George (@King24George) February 16, 2012

From @BlakeGriffin’s acrobatic dunks to the #LinSanity that inspired more than five million Tweets about Knicks guard Jeremy Lin (@JLin7) during the team’s winning streak from February 4-16, Twitter gives you courtside seats to everything happening in the NBA. Follow your favorite teams, players and reporters to find out what’s happening.

Watched blakes dunk over and over again. Almost makes me wonder if me and him even play the same sport. What an athlete

— Dirk Nowitzki (@swish41) January 31, 2012

New versions of both Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android are available today. Both apps bring back high-demand features, including the swipe shortcut, and they also introduce new design and functionality improvements. Here’s a rundown.

Both apps

• Swipe shortcut: Swipe a Tweet in your home timeline to reply to, retweet, favorite or share it, or view the Twitter user’s profile, without leaving your timeline.
• “Find friends”: We’ve added a confirmation alert when you select “Find friends”. This notification more clearly and explicitly messages the fact that when you upload your contacts’ email addresses and phone numbers, you can quickly find which of your friends are on Twitter (that is, if they’ve chosen to be discoverable by email or phone number).

Twitter for iPhone

• Copy and paste: We’ve returned the ability to copy and paste the text of Tweets and user profiles. Just press and hold to copy.
• Link love: The “share” feature used to just give you the option to copy or email a link to a Tweet. Now, if there’s a link within a Tweet, you’ll see the option to tweet, copy or mail that link, or you can choose to read it later. (Select a “Read Later Service” under Settings > Advanced.)
• Pressing and holding links provides similar options, along with the ability to open the link in Safari.
• Direct messages: We updated the design for Direct Messages and returned the ability to mark all DMs as read. Simply tap the check mark in the lower right corner.
• Font size settings: Change the font size under Settings > Advanced.

Twitter for Android

• New devices: Twitter for Android is now optimized to run on Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as on the Kindle Fire (available today through the Amazon Appstore) and the Barnes & Noble NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet (available February 23 though the Barnes & Noble NOOK Store).

You can download Twitter for iPhone today from the App Store and Twitter for Android from Android Market.

Successful small business owners intuitively know how to build meaningful relationships with their customers. They were the first to use Twitter to talk with consumers in real time, and their creativity demonstrated Twitter’s potential as a marketing platform. Today, some of the most effective marketing campaigns we see come from small, local, or Internet-only businesses—like the mouth-watering photos of @VanillaMoonBake’s cupcakes, or the Tweet contests hosted by @glennztees to promote their latest T-shirt designs.


Soon, small businesses based in the United States will have the chance to take their Twitter marketing efforts to a new level. Starting in late March, we will introduce a new advertising offering that makes it simple for companies of any size to grow their businesses using our Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts products.

We’ve partnered with American Express to make it easy for small business owners to advertise on Twitter. American Express Cardmembers and merchants based in the U.S. will be invited to try this new advertising solution before anyone else, and American Express will give $100 in free advertising to the first 10,000 eligible businesses to sign up.

Starting today, American Express Cardmembers and merchants can register to participate in the initial introduction of this new offering via ads.twitter.com/amex. We will launch this new offering more widely later this year.

Sign up here to try this new ad solution.

In December, we launched a new version of Twitter. It’s been available for mobile phones, via the mobile web, Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android, and we’ve been rolling it out steadily to Twitter.com. Now, everyone has access to it. A few of the highlights:

• Click any Tweet in your timeline to expand it to see photos, videos, retweets, favorites, and more.
  
  Twitter.com shortcut: You can quickly close all expanded Tweets by pressing “L” (as in Larry) on your keyboard.
• Connect is your way to keep conversations going. It’s the place to see who has followed or mentioned you, or retweeted or favorited one of your Tweets.
  
  Twitter.com shortcut: Type “GC” (as in “Go Connect”), to jump to the Connect tab.
  
• Discover lets you tap into a stream of useful and entertaining information, customized just for you. When you use Discover, you’ll see results reflecting your interests. These are based on your current location, what you follow and what’s happening in the world.
  
  Twitter.com shortcut: “GD” (as in “Go Discover”) takes you to the Discover tab. If you want to go directly to Activity, enter “GA”.
  
• Embed Tweets on your website by copying and pasting one line of code.
  
• Take a tour of the new experience.
  
• Check out the new Twitter brand pages from accounts like @NPRNews, @Audi and others.

By the way, you can see more shortcuts by typing “?” when you’re on Twitter.com.

Whether or not you were able to watch the #Grammys live on Sunday night, you probably heard about the biggest Twitter moments. Here’s a quick look at how the night played out in Tweets.

• People sent 10,901 Tweets per second (TPS) as Adele won Record of the Year — the peak TPS moment of the night. 
• “Grammys” was mentioned in more than 5 million Tweets on Sunday between noon and midnight PT. 
• The most mentioned artists (in descending order) during that same 12-hour period were: @OfficialAdele, @ChrisBrown, @NickiMinaj, @Rihanna, Whitney Houston.

"Ooh! A bit of snot." - @officialAdele choking up then laughing and wiping nose during her acceptance speech for Album of the Year #Grammys

— Twitter Music (@TwitterMusic) February 13, 2012

At the end of the Super Bowl last weekend, we launched Twitter’s first-ever Ad Scrimmage competition. For a week following the game, Twitter users headed to adscrimmage.twitter.com for a chance to view and vote via Tweet for their favorite Super Bowl ads. And today, the results are in! Congratulations to Samsung’s #votefornote campaign.

Calling all fans of our big ad, there's still time to Believe in Love with a #VoteForNote in the #AdScrimmage! smgm.us/wpP

— Samsung Mobile US (@SamsungMobileUS) February 10, 2012

In decreasing order of the percentage of the vote they earned, these are the runners-up:

• Disney #avengersad

• H&M #beckhamforhm

• Mars/M&Ms #VoteMsBrown

• Kia #KiaBigGameAd

You can view all the winning ads here.

This year’s Super Bowl was one of the biggest sports events ever experienced on Twitter and the ads are a big part of what drives the conversation. There’s more info on the Twitter Ads Blog about the program and the winning campaign.

Last year, we added the option to always use HTTPS when accessing Twitter.com on the web. This setting makes your Twitter experience more secure by protecting your information, and it’s especially helpful if you use Twitter over an unsecured Internet connection like a public wi-fi network.

Now, HTTPS will be on by default for all users, whenever you sign in to Twitter.com. If you prefer not use it, you can turn it off on your Account Settings page. HTTPS is one of the best ways to keep your account safe and it will only get better as we continue to improve HTTPS support on our web and mobile clients.

Read more about how to keep your account secure here: support.twitter.com/articles/76036…

— Safety (@safety) October 18, 2011

This Sunday night the 54th annual GRAMMYs will air on CBS. As with so many other live events on TV, one of the best ways to experience the show is to follow the conversation on Twitter. When the show starts, use #GRAMMYs to see what the world is saying about the performances, the nominees and winners, who’s wearing what and lots more.

We’ve teamed up with over 25 artists across several genres including pop, electronic and indie rock to bring you GRAMMY commentary you won’t see anywhere else. These “couch commentators” will be tweeting what they think about the show as we’re all watching. Check out the list and follow your favorites:

@afinefrenzy, @greysonchance, @steveaoki, @st_vincent, @thewantedmusic, @michellebranch, @mrchrisrene, @piatoscano, @teganandsara, @haleyreinhart, @skylargrey, @karminmusic, @preciousweapons, @erichutchinson, @neontrees, @ChevelleInc, @theglitchmob, @jfkmstrkrft, @crystalmethod, @tranquilmammoth, @graffiti6, @tanlines, @sebby_g, @jasonderulo, @neonhitch, @EricTurner

Finally, our own @TwitterMusic will be on the ground, live tweeting. Coldplay (@Coldplay), Katy Perry (@KatyPerry) and David Guetta (@DavidGuetta) will all be performing and tweeting from the event and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will also be live-tweeting from the theatre as well; he’s @rhcpchad.