UPDATE
The gwibber version with fixed Twitter OAuth is now in lucid-updates Running your update manager via either: System -> Administration -> Update Manager , (or sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade) should trigger the update process.
The easiest way to grab the latest version of Gwibber is to add the ubuntu-desktop PPA (which includes the latest updates for desktop software, including Gwibber)
From command line:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
If you don't want the whole ubuntu-desktop ppa (which you may not - though it can be quite helpful to avoid issues of this nature in the future) you can simply add the Gwibber Daily PPA which will only provide the updates for Gwibber
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwibber-daily/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
After the upgrade you will need to restart Gwibber:
gwibber-service restart
If that method does not work open the Gwibber interface then choose Gwibber->Quit and Launch it again either from the Message Indicator Applet or via Applications->Internet->Gwibber Social Client
Once Gwibber has restarted you will need to authenticate your Twitter account. Open the client and navigate to Edit->Accounts then click Authorize on your Twitter account in order to complete the process.
The Oauthcalypse caught me off guard too - even though I was watching the Countdown to OAuthcalypse I failed to relate that to Gwibber
From the kernel list in the Ubuntu repository -
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ the latest kernel for
12.04 (precise) is 3.4.
These are just names.
At this time, the latest available Ubuntu kernel for 12.04 is 3.8. The mainline kernels are not suggested for installation, except if you are doing tests or you experience a major problem that it can be resolved with a specific mainline kernel. Please read more about mainline kernels here.
Because of the LTS feature of 12.04 many different kernels will be backported from newer versions of Ubuntu and X-stack as well. The 12.04.3 version (that will be released in 22 August 2013) will have 3.8 kernel and X-stack all backported from Ubuntu 13.04 (raring).
As I said, the latest available Ubuntu kernel is 3.8 and you can install it in 12.04 from a terminal. (or a GUI package manager, e.g synaptic, software center).
Open a terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and issue the following commands
sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic-lts-raring
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic-lts-raring
When the installation completes, reboot your system to boot from 3.8 kernel.
Grub bootloader always list the newer kernel first, so it will boot from 3.8 automatically (except if you have installed a newer than 3.8).
Best Answer
Short answer:
no. It is currently not possible to install the Friends app in 12.04.
Long answer:
Gwibber has been rewritten in QML/Qt5 and some of the required packages are not available for 12.04. So could I just manually download and install the required packages? you ask. Theoretically you could, and I tried it, but after upgrading a package for a dependency of a dependency of a dependency and breaking a few system wide dependencies in the process I gave up.
So, theoretically: yes, you could upgrade and install the needed packages.
In reality, no. By the time you figure out all the dependency issues you will get you will pretty much have manually upgraded your Precise system into a Raring one and most likely broken it in the process.