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Government + Twitter
UK Government Hires Tsar Of Twitter
[...] Currently government deputy chief information officer, Andrew Stott will take up the newly created position which will be based in government communications and the Cabinet Office. Stott,53, will work across government departments to encourage better use of the web to communicate with citizens and will also chair the Government's Knowledge Council. [...] Digital engagement means Web 2.0, of course, and to show that Stott is fully engaged with the tech zeitgeist, the government announced that the public can follow him on Twitter. Twitter.com/DirDigEng. At the time of writing, he has 590 followers, is following one person, and has tweeted twice. [...] The UK Cabinet Office has created the new role of director of digital engagement , and appointed a Twitter-using CIO. But critics say the government is very behind when it comes to using the web. [...]
UK Government Gets A Guide To Twitter
[...] Government departments should spend less than one hour a day managing their Twitter streams, and should respond to direct messages, according to the guide, which is online for any other organisation to use, and was written by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at Lord Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). [...] Twitter use by Government departments should speak with an authentic voice on their day-to-day activities, and provide useful links, perhaps gathering smaller communities that are interested in a par particular part of a department's work, said Watson, the former Minister for Digital Engagement, who stood down in a reshuffle in June. [...] And it's worth worth a look for anyone with a corporate urge to get on Twitter, not just UK government departments. [...]
EFF Sues US Department Of Justice Over Twitter Searches
[...] Privacy watchdogs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have sued the Department of Justice and five other government organisations for cloaking their policies for using Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to investigate citizens in criminal and other matters. [...] The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Berkeley's Samuelson Clinic have sued the Department of Justice and five other government organisations for cloaking their policies for using Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to investigate citizens in criminal and other matters. [...] Although the Federal Government clearly uses social networking Websites to collect information, often for laudable reasons, it has not clarified the scope of its use of social-networking websites or disclosed what restrictions and oversight is in place to prevent abuse, the groups said in the suit. [...]
Climate Camp Uses Twitter To Seize London’s Blackheath
[...] Blackheath in South London has become the site of Climate Camp, a thousands-strong protest against government inaction on global warming, which has been organised by Twitter and text messaging. [...] For their part, the Motropolitan police is using technology, with its own Twitter channel, and plans to photograph and identify all attendees on the demonstration, despite a poll by charity Christian Aid which found that 33 percent of people feel this is a breach of their privacy. [...] The swoop took walkers and cyclists to locations round the city, including the headquarters of oil companies BP and Shell. Early rumours suggested the camp might occupy London's city Airport, but it was kept secret, despite pleas from the police. The protesters took routes sent to them by text message, and photos were posted on Twitter. [...]
Google Twitter Buyout Rumours Persist
[...] A Google-Twitter acquisition would mark the second major IT deal in this period. IBM and Sun Microsystems are reportedly finishing negotiations for a mega-buyout, with IBM acquiring Sun for as much as $6.5 billion (£4.4bn) in cash. The deal would allow IBM to position itself as the 800-pound gorilla with regard to open-source Linux and Java software for Web application development, data storage, government systems and telecommunications. [...] Twitter has been taking steps to make its search feature more robust, starting with the 6 March transfer of its search bar from search.twitter.com onto its main site. A Trends menu, where users could see the most talked-about subjects among Twitter users, was integrated into the search function at the time. [...] When it comes to a potential Google-Twitter deal, Byrne said, What I would expect is to see two affiliations. a deal in which Twitter's search results are included in Google's search results, and a deal in which Google starts posting search-based ads on Twitter's search site. [...]
Twitter DDOS Attack Coincides With Iranian Election Ceremony
[...] Although Twitter has not commented on the potential source of the attack, the micro-blogging site was an important tool for anti-government protesters in the recently contested Iranian elections. The company's chief executive Evan Williams recently told the BBC that the company had been proud of its part in giving opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a voice and the decision to delay maintenance work during a critical period for the election. [...] Cluley also questioned why someone would want to take down Twitter. The question on my mind is - why would someone want to attack Twitter I can't imagine it's a commercial competitor of theirs, but it could be someone with a political or financial motivation (blackmail), or a teenager in a back bedroom with access to an awfully large botnet. . [...] In a blog posting, Twitter confirmed that it had been hit by the DDOS attack but that it had managed to recover its site despite the fact the attack was still ongoing. [...]
Cisco Warns Enterprises To Control Facebook And Twitter Usage
[...] Cisco has warned that the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in enterprises, requires much greater governance and oversight than is currently practised. [...] Earle said that with no standard practice for governing use of Facebook, Twitter and other consumer services, IT departments heads find themselves clashing with employees who are using these tools because they prefer they not use them. These are two ends of the same problem, Earle said. [...] In a new study Cisco has warned that Facebook and Twitter use in enterprises requires much greater governance and oversight. [...]
Twitter @anywhere Follows Facebook Connect
[...] The idea of allowing people to access relevant, real-time information from the Twitter network wherever they surf is a bit different than I've seen done with Facebook Connect, and it promises to open up the Twitter experience to people who as of yet may not have seen a reason to visit, register and participate. . [...] Yahoo said it will use @anywhere to let users authorise Twitter data sharing with their Yahoo ID in a way that empowers them to consume their Twitter feeds on Yahoo and to share Yahoo content to Twitter . [...] For example, while both permit easy sharing of content to one's networks, Twitter @anywhere seems poised to do more distribution of content across the web. A lot of details remain to be revealed, but it seems Twitter is interesting in engaging people where they surf, not just on Twitter. [...]
How I Harness My Twitter Stream
[...] I hit the Web and found a Perl script called twitter-followers-to-opml, which talks to Twitter, fetches a list of the RSS status feeds of your followers, and spits the list out into OPML, which you can use to populate your feed reader. [...] I imported all my Twitter friend feeds into Google Reader and tagged them all twitter, so I could read them at once. Before I left the office yesterday I marked all the items in my Twitter folder as read and came into the office today to find over 1,000 new, auto-sorted tweets waiting for me. [...] For the past few months, I've been using Twitter, the microblogging service that you may well be sick of hearing about. Right off the bat, I was attracted to Twitter because the 140 characters per entry that Twitter allows add up to about as much blog as I'm capable of mustering at most times. [...]
Twitter Makes A Profit Thanks To Google And Microsoft
[...] Microsoft kicked off this movement 21 October by announcing that it would index Twitter tweets on a special site called Bin Twitter. Google's Mayer said the company would also serve users Twitter content, but said it would take a couple months to come to fruition and declined to provide other details. [...] Google's data deal with Twitter came to light 7 December when the company said it was indexing tweets and other content in real time. Google also integrated Twitter data into its Friend Connect service and Google Search Appliance. [...] Still, questions persisted about how much money Twitter was making from those deals because it was the closest tangible thing Twitter that pointed to a viable revenue stream. charging companies for access to its Firehose API, which corrals the millions of tweets that stream into the site daily. [...]
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