Twitter client TweetDeck will be removed from iTunes and Google Play on May 7th, according to the latest update on the TweetDeck blog.

Twitter acquired the app in 2011. Back in March, Twitter explained plans to shift its direction including the intention to close the iOS and Android versions of the app and the idea of focusing on its Web app and its Chrome app. The site updated this post last week with more details. Check it out:

TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone will be removed from their respective app stores and will stop functioning on May 7. Our Facebook integration will also stop on May 7.

(Via ZDNET).

Twitter’s music discovery app is finally here so you can join the likes of Moby or Jason Mraz in singing (or tweeting) its praises.

The mobile and web app is similar to the Hype Machine:

Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

Users on iTunes can only hear song previews so log in to Spotify and Rdio to hear full songs. Read more

Twitter is orchestrating a major launch of its newest venture with help from celebrities and a fairly quiet webpage. Twitter is expected to use technology from its latest acquisition, music start-up We Are Hunted, to drive its standalone platform.

Many websites are reporting that the app would launch today, but it appears that the media giant will wait until this weekend to make an announcement during the music festival Coachella. Meanwhile, Twitter has enlisted the aid of pop culture icon Ryan Seacrest to spread the good word:

lovin the app…shows what artists are trending, also has up and coming artists… spinning u now @frankturner

— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) April 11, 2013

Twitter is getting into the music streaming business. The social networking company has agreed to acquire the San Francisco-based music streaming startup We are Hunted, in a deal whose terms were not disclosed.

The company is shutting down wearehunted.com, but the We are Hunted team will continue to create music services under the Twitter brand name.

Here is more from the We are Hunted blog: “There’s no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day. We can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on at Twitter.”

Founders of the Tribeca Film Festival Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal are bringing the moving pictures experience to digital audiences via video streaming and a huge support for Vines. This year is the first year in which the festival have opened up a public competition in search of the best Vine, and De Niro has some positive words to say on the medium despite not being a regular user:

Six seconds of beginning, middle and end. I was just trying to time on my iPhone six seconds just to get a sense of what that is. It can actually be a long time. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand – you can tell a whole story in six seconds. Read more

Computer Scientists from the University of Vermont have concluded that, “Expressed happiness increases logarithmically with distance from an individual’s average location.” In other words, Twitter users are happier the farther they are from home.

The researchers analyzed 37 million tweets from 180,000 users in 2011with public location feature enabled. Most users gravitate between “home” and “work” which accounted for their average location. There was a notable lack of negative words like “hate” when users were further from home at restaurants or beaches. One surprising finding was about laughter (“hahaha”) – it was more inherent when users were closer to home.

Via MIT Technology Review

Residents of Yokohama, Japan may have been a bit surprised today when they saw the city’s official Twitter account broadcasting that “North Korea has launched a missile.” The erroneous tweet went out to 40,000 followers with about 3,000 retweets before the city took down the original tweet and apologized for its mistake.

Global tensions are high due to North Korea’s threat of nuclear weapons and Japan is readying its Patriot missiles to fend off real missile attacks from North Korea. Read more

Dislike your boss? Better be careful how you express these feelings on Twitter, because your tweets could end up getting you fired. FireMe! a new web app from Germany tracks what people say about their bosses on the social networks. Bosses can use it to see what their employees are saying about them (though they can also just check Twitter pages directly if they suspect some ill tweets are going out about them from specific users).

Here is more from the site: “Our goal is to raise awareness about the danger of public online data.
Most people are not aware that, on the internet, once said, you can never take it back. All tweets shown here are publicly available on Twitter. So don’t blame us, instead get responsible.”

Worried about what you’ve tweeted? The app has a tool that will let you check your own Twitter account and will score your Twitter handle based on your tweets. (Via The Huffington Post).

Twitter announced it has chosen to discontinue older Tweetdeck apps in order to focus on its web app client. Tweetdeck for iPhone, Android and Air will also be removed from their respective app stores in May and the apps will no longer work.

Native apps for Mac and Windows will continue to work but will no longer see improvement. The company also quietly stated that it would discontinue support for Facebook integration, but offered little details on when and how.

Read more