WTF?! A fun little way of tracking news from Scoopler

Scoopler, one of the startups that launched during the real-time search craze of last year, has a new, little way of tracking news on Twitter.
It’s called @wtf. All you do send a reply to that Twitter account with a topic you’re interested in like ‘Facebook’ or ‘technology,’ and the account will start referring you popular stories about that topic. It looks for stories that are retweeted heavily and will alert you about them by mentioning your handle in a tweet. When you want it to stop, you can reply ’s’ or ’stop’ to the Twitter account. @wtf only delivers tweets to you about one topic at a time.
The idea is pretty simple, but it’s different from other methods of tracking news on Twitter. Normally, if you want to follow news, you might follow other accounts that tweet often about topics you’re interested in. Another option is to follow a Twitter search, but it’s usually overwhelming and doesn’t filter for repeated tweets or links.
After Google launched real-time search last year and Twitter finally started improving its own offering, real-time search startups have been retooling their business strategies. Scoopler is pivoting away from its standalone real-time search property, while OneRiot has turned on an advertising network. Tweetmeme earns revenue off advertising on its page and is testing new types of retweetable advertising.
Twitter announced its own ad network last week, putting ads into search results and directly in people’s streams. Once it nails out the details, it will begin serving ads through other startups built on its platform that want to deliver them. This could bring another revenue source to Twitter startups.
Tags: microblogging, real time search, Social Media, Twitter
Companies: Scoopler