Chirp is Twitter’s official conference, and this year is the conferences first. If you couldn’t make it to the show in San Francisco, you can watch the event live above.

Twitter users blessed with the new Retweet functionality, as explained in our visual guide, will be logging in to find that the new beta feature is no longer available. The removal of the new feature comes only days after it was introduced, with Twitter putting the removal of the feature down to numerous bug errors.

A transcript from a developer IRC channel was posted over at TheNextWeb, showing that Twitter developers were still trying hard to mend the bug problem, without giving much away.

However, it’s not all bad news, as the Twitter team promised Wednesday that the feature will be back once all bugs are fixed, but this time to all users.

Twitter’s Status Blog said:

We’re working on a few problems related to the ongoing rollout. These should be resolved quickly and it will be back on for those who had the Retweet feature previously. And we’ll then continue the incremental rollout of this feature to everyone.

The new remake of the Retweet function made way for considerable changes on the website. It allowed users to keep track of how many people had retweeted their status update (and who), as well as saving precious characters. A new tab in the sidebar could show a user three tabs for different kinds of retweets (by the user, by others and the user’s tweets, retweeted). The only downside was the function working only on the Twitter website, not third-party clients.

Be sure to let us know what you think of the new Retweet function (if you were lucky enough to have the beta) in the comments below.

As Twitter Bulletin reported Friday, Twitter has begun selecting people to test the new retweet functionality. The new add-on to the site now allows users to retweet with even more ease. This update has been implemented through a number of intricate changes, such as being able to see how many people have retweeted a certain tweet at-a-glance.

Below is a step-by-step visual guide on how to tell if you have been chosen the beta, and what to do once you are:

1. Upon logging into Twitter, there should be a box signaling your inclusion in the Retweet beta, like this:

If this does not appear and the homepage loads as usual your account has not been chosen for the beta, yet.

2. Once the above has been established, it’s time to get retweeting! First up, look out for statuses with this icon:
What this icon represents is that an update has been successfully retweeted, thus removing the need to write ‘RT @’ at the beginning of an update.

3. To retweet another users message, simply hover over the desired tweet. A link at the bottom right will appear showing the new retweet option. Upon clicking the link, a hover box will appear to confirm if this is the tweet that you wish to be retweeted. The retweeted update will then appear in your timeline for others to share. If other people have chosen to retweet the update, it will then state that you retweeted it originally, and how many others have too.

5. There is now a ‘Retweets’ link in your sidebar. Once clicked, a page appears with three tabs- Retweets by Others, Retweets by You and Tweets by you, Retweeted.

Retweets by Others shows a timeline of the people you are following’s retweets, while Retweets by You show your own, and Tweets by You, Retweeted is a record of what people have retweeted, originally written by you.

6. Another new feature is selecting who to view retweets from. Next to the SMS option on the individual’s Twitter, there is now a small button, which allows you to switch off that individual’s retweets if they are uninteresting etc to you. You will still see their other updates though.

At first, the new changes to the way updates can be retweeted may seem small but actually in practice make a lot of difference. For instance, not needing to type out ‘RT @’ saves precious characters. The changes also enable users to judge much more effectively how far word is being spread about a certain topic they have tweeted.

Currently, the new retweet function will not display correctly (if at all) in third party Twitter client timelines.

Be sure to tell us what you think about the changes in the comments.

Twitter has just confirmed that the rollout of their retweet project has now officially began.

The company have confirmed that the new retweet functionality, which integrates the retweeting experience directly into users Twitter.com account, has now been activated on a select number of accounts.

For those unfamiliar with the retweet project it all started earlier this year, when Twitter announced that it would begin to officially support the popular ‘retweet’ action used on their site. A retweet is when one user republishes another users tweet in order to spread the word or message. Currently this republishing is done simply by copying and pasting the other users message, and accrediting them by displaying ‘RT @username’ as a precursor to the copied message. This action has been favorably adopted by third-parties and now makes up a large part of what Twitter is about, with it now being present in a number of applications, programs and websites.

Unfortunately we are yet to have the new functionality on our accounts, but if you are using the new retweet features be sure to let us know!

[Via TheNextWeb]

Admit or not, we all have our little secret methods of deciding whether to follow someone on Twitter or not. Luckily, the guys over at TechCrunch shed some light on the Golden Ratio theory of following users on Twitter.

The Golden Ratio, or the followers versus following theory is something that most Twitter power users seem to use. When you first join Twitter, you don’t look twice into the details of the person who is following you. But after your followers number increases, things tend to change.

The Twitter timeline tends to get a little polluted with irrelevant tweets after you have more than one or two hundred followers. Not everything in your stream is relevant to you anymore and a filtering system must come into place. That’s where the Golden Ratio theory becomes handy.

Dirty little secrets: deciding who to follow on Twitter might not be the easiest thing to do, but the Golden Ratio method could really help. | Photo: Andy Beez on Flickr

The Golden Ratio method is quite simple: the less people someone follows and the more people are following that person, the user becomes more follow-worthy.

Even though it might not sound as the fairest method to judge whether to follow someone or not, this makes it quite easy to find out which users have the best signal to noise ratio.

So, if the number of followers a user has is greater than the number of people that certain user is following, the TechCrunch guys say that it could be worth clicking through that person’s profile.

But if a person follows significantly more people than the number of users it is followed by, then you should probably think twice before following back.

Do you use the Golden Ratio method to decide which users are worthy of following on Twitter or you have some other mechanism of selecting who you follow back? Sound off in the comments.

Send tweets, good or bad, without fear of being caught with new website- Tweet from Below.

The website is straightforward- simply type in what you want to say and press send. These will the be sent to Tweet From Below’s personal Twitter account, and if using an @ reply, the receiver. No login is required, so no-one will know it was you who sent the tweet.

Although we all sometimes have things we want to get off our chest without people having to know it was you, this is possibly a hotbed of disaster for Twitter, especially if users of the site send @ replies. People leaving bad comments about people they may not necessarily know or spreading falsehoods about a user could lead to lawsuits for both Twitter and the individual who wrote the comment in the first place, as looking at Tweet from Below’s T&C’s, it’s not as anonymous as you’d think:

“Just remember: what you do on TFA/TFB may be anonymous, but we do log your IP address and other identifying information. Don’t make us use it! This site is not meant for harrassment, threats, pornography, crime or other questionable activity, and we will happily ban users who use it questionably or turn their information over to the appropriate authorities.”

Although this site may be meant to be used for just saying what needs to be said, the bad comments will probably be pouring onto Twitter at high speed. This will not end well.

Twitter’s attempt to trademark the word Tweet has been rejected.

As Twitter Bulletin mentioned a few months ago, Twitter submitted an application to the US patent and trademark office in order to claim the word, which describes the action of sending a 140 word message to followers.

It is claimed that the application didn’t go through due to three other firms- TweetMarks, Cotweet and Tweetphoto- all who also use the word and therefore may cause confusion.

However in a recent post on Twitter’s official blog, co-founder Biz Stone stressed that despite Twitter attempting to trademark use of the word, even if the trademark had been granted, they would not stop have stopped applications such as Tweetie and TweetDeck from using the word.

He added: “We have applied to trademark tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of ‘going after’ the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter… However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important”

Although this comes as a blow for the site, it’s not all bad news. Even without the trademark, the word Tweet has successfully made it’s way into the Associated Press’s style guide and into Australia’s Macquarie dictionary, as well as being globally connected to Twitter by users anyway.

Twitter has become known for it’s crazy and crude followers, such as toilets that tweeted people’s bowel movements, and a farting chair. Now a new Twitter account, Twitt Sex allows users to sign up and check out pornographic tweets.

Claiming to be the adult version of Twitter, Twitt Sex allows users to share explicit content on the site, from photos to porn sites, and these tweets will appear in other user’s streams. Currently, the site is in the early stages (only 2 people have accounts and it seems no-one can create one yet), despite their Terms and Conditions dated from August 3rd 2007. More curiously, the T&C’s reference a “twittr.com”, despite older versions of Twitter being known as “Twttr.com”.

Sex has always been a popular topic within communication technology, such as phone sex and various forms of porn sites, but the time it has taken for someone to create an explicit site through Twitter seems slow off the mark, and will possibly now only increase the amount of sexually natured spam accounts on Twitter, despite the official Twitter status blog promising crackdowns. How long it takes before the accounts behind this site are targeted is yet to be seen, but we’re guessing it won’t be long.

Earlier this week over on the official Twitter blog, Biz Stone detailed how the company was moving towards adding true geolocation functionality into Twitter.

The announcement detailed how in the near future the Twitter API will allow developers to add longitude and latitude information to any tweet sent, essentially allowing your followers to exactly pin point you when ever you update. Of course Biz was keen to stress that this planned service, which offers similar functionality to Google Latitude, is strictly an opt-in extension to the existing Twitter website.

Since the announcement, the web has been a flurry with suggestions as to why this move is both good and bad. The various posts suggest a number of advantages such as finding people local to you with relevant interests, down to disadvantages such as harassment from local companies who know you are in the area and attempt to sell you things.

What are your thoughts on the annoucement, is this a service you would use, do you want people knowing your location, and what are your very own geolocation pro’s and con’s, be sure to let us know.

Over the last few days there has been mounting confusion over the legality of using the word “tweet” as Twitter took action against certain third parties who where using the term in their applications, but it seems now the issue has been clarified via Twitter’s own Biz Stone over on the official blog, and the company don’t have a big an issue with third parties using the term as first thought:

“We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.”

So it’s pretty straightforward, if you use the term “tweet” in a negative, damaging way Twitter will not be pleased, but beyond that everything is sweet. Just don’t forget, Tweet™.