Turkey’s political decision to blackout Twitter

Will the revolution be tweeted in Turkey even though the prime minister has decided to block the microblogging service Twitter? It sure looks like it. However, it seems to have backfired big time as this Twitter map of the hashtag #TwitterIsBlockedInTurkey shows: Well that's backfiring. The whole world is watching, Turkey. #TwitterisblockedinTurkey http://t.co/mexOESV7Qd— Occupy Wall

Calgary Police’s Twitter account displays #SMEM best practices during #yycflood

During the floods in Calgary, Canada, this weekend, the social media manager of Calgary’s police did a fantastic job answering questions, diffusing rumors, using social media to pull in additional information from citizens, point people to volunteer opportunities, and to activate officers to work extra shifts via Twitter. It was important to get information into the

“Sede Vacante” replicates real-life events on the Pope’s Twitter account

Pontifex_SedeVacante, a photo by inesmergel on Flickr. On February 28, 2013, pope Benedict XVI, stepped down and vacated his chair – literally. The pope who had just recently started to tweet also vacated his Twitter account. This symbolic gesture had an impact on the Internet community. While people were still watching the pope emeritus arrive

New article out: “Connecting to Congress: The Use of Twitter by Members of Congress

Abstract: How do political elites, such as the Members of the U.S. Congress, decide to use innovative forms of Information and Communication Technologies, such as social media applications? Communication between elected officials is guides by outdated rules and regulations that are focusing on paper mailings. The apparent lack of formal guidance and outdated rules are

The social media dance around the VP pick

On Friday night the news broke, that the Romney campaign was planning to reveal the vice-president in a live TV covered event at 9:05am the next day. Within a few hours however, all major news-outlets stated “Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan”. There was no question mark, no speculation. Only these plain statements – quoting sources

@Twitter Political Index

The next 100 days count – and Twitter is counting our sentiments and online interactions to gauge the potential outcome of the presidential campaign in the U.S.: Today, Twitter launched a new site called the Twitter Political Index. According to the Twitter blog, the @gov team is analyzing the +2 million tweets every week to

Twitter transparency report released

Twitter released its first Transparency Report highlighting the number of times they received: government requests for user information, government requests to withhold content, and DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders. The report shows that the U.S. government has asked Twitter 679 times to reveal user information since January 2012, followed by Japan with 98 and

New Pew study on Twitter use statistics in 2012

Pew Internet & American Life Project released a new study on the use of Twitter in 2012. Here is the summary directly from their website: As of February 2012, some 15% of online adults use Twitter, and 8% do so on a typical day. Overall Twitter adoption remains steady, as the 15% of online adults

New IBM report: Working the Network – A Manager’s Guide for Using #Twitter in Government

Here is the executive summary of the report: Twitter—a microblogging service that allows for short updates of 140 characters—has grown to over 540 million registered accounts as of early 2012.News organizations, corporations, and the U.S. government have adopted this new practice as an innovative form of interaction with their stakeholders. Many government agencies maintain at

What a Twitter map can and cannot tell: The Gates Foundation Twitter network

The Twitter network below was created by Marc Smith, Social Media Research Foundation. He used it in a recent workshop on Social Media Network Analysis that I organized here at Syracuse University on January 19-20.  I picked it up and posted it here on my Social Media in the Public Sector blog, because it relates