What is "hosebird"

Hosebird is the server implementation of the Twitter Streaming API. The Streaming API allows clients to receive Tweets in near real-time. Various resources allow filtered, sampled or full access to some or all Tweets. Every Twitter account has access to the Streaming API and any developer can build applications today. Hosebird also powers the recently announced User Streams feature that streams all events related to a given user to drive desktop Twitter clients.