Twitter heats up Facebook rivalry with download option

Twitter is letting users download an archive of posts to make its site more alluring as competition with Facebook.

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Twitter the social-networking company that features 140-character status updates, is letting users download an archive of posts to make its site more alluring as competition with Facebook escalates.

The move is designed to make it easier to view tweets by month or search for certain words and phrases, the San Francisco-based company said today on its blog.

Twitter is adding tools to help it win Web surfers and advertising dollars from social-networking rival Facebook. The archiving feature comes a week after the company unveiled color filtering for photos uploaded to applications for Apple iPhones and Google Android phones. The move may help it compete with Facebook's Instagram, which earlier in the month had made it harder for users to display their photos on Twitter.

Starting today, some people can request their archive of tweets by pressing a button in Twitter's settings. The option will become available to all users in the coming months, the company said.

Facebook began to encourage its members to relive memories on the social network last year, when it introduced the "Timeline" profile for viewing photos and events from the past.

* Bloomberg News