Twitter hands over Occupy protester's tweets | Internet & Media. Twitter caved to a court order and handed over the tweets of an Occupy Wall Street protester rather than face a stiff fine. Twitter reportedly surrendered to Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino tweets sent out last year by protester Malcolm Harris. Twitter had long resisted a prosecution subpoena demanding the data. Reuters was first to report on the news. Harris was arrested during an October Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. He argues that the protesters were led to the bridge by police, so they could be arrested on charges of obstructing traffic. Prosecutors want to use the tweets, which have been removed from his Twitter account, to discount his argument.
Twitter had until today to hand over Harris' tweets . For its part, Twitter has argued that the subpoena violated its terms of service and that the company is committed to "defending those rights for our users. " Harris' tweets will remain sealed until an appeal can be heard. How Cops Use Social Media, SMS to Fight Crime. A limited study of 50 convicted burglars in the U.K. reveals what most of us knew already: if you tweet or post a Facebook status about your vacation in Cancun, a criminal in your hometown may target your house for a break-in. He or she may even use Google Street View to case the joint.
But law enforcement is fighting back, solving crimes using the same social media that makes it easy for people to become victims. The Boston Globe reports in today’s editions that the Boston Police Department has had “amazing” results with its use of social media and its Text-A-Tip campaigns. One of the biggest lessons for cops on social media? Try not to sound like cops. “We’re police; we like to tell people things and sound very official,” BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll told the newspaper. That has meant the department has taken a more casual tone in its blog posts and on its Twitter feed, which The Globe reports has more Twitter followers than any other local law enforcement agency in the U.S. 7 Ways Universities Are Using Facebook as a Marketing Tool. Social media use by universities has become ubiquitous. When earlier this year, researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth asked a representative sample of U.S. schools whether they use some social media, 100% of them said they did.
Four years ago, just 61% of them said the same. Facebook is the most prevalent social media tool in higher education — 98% of the universities in the study said they had a presence there. "Prospective students, parents, current students, alumni — one common area in which they are all present in one way or another is on Facebook," says Kevin Morrow, the executive director of public affairs at Syracuse University.
For this and other reasons, schools are pretty much unanimous in their use of Facebook. How they're using the tool, however, varies greatly. "The book hasn’t been written," says Michael Kaltenmark, director of web marketing and communications at Butler. Here are seven ways schools are leveraging Facebook. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Croatia’s iSTUDIO wants to revolutionize the way we monitor social media. A few years back, Facebook was just a procrastination tool where people would spend their whole days logged in and buying friends on Friends for Sale. Not that it’s much different from today, but if you wanted to open a social media agency specialized in fan page management back then, people would say that you’ve lost your mind.
Especially in Croatia. Daniel Ackermann and Tomislav Grubišić decided to ignore all of that; they got some money together and founded the iSTUDIO, one of the leading social media marketing agencies in Croatia today. In these two years, they’ve gathered up quite a team of 16 people who are working with some of the biggest clients in the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region.
I asked Filip Topol, project manager at iSTUDIO about the company. iSTUDIO was founded by Daniel and Tomislav. One of their first clients was Jutarnji List, a daily newspaper which is a part of the EPH media group, one of the biggest Croatian media companies. Why the Geeks are Ruining Politics. U.S. Appoints New Chief Technology Officer. President Obama has appointed Todd Park as the new U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) on Friday. Park previously served a three-year tenure as the CTO for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While there, he helped launch HealthCare.gov, a website that allows American citizens to compare public and private health insurance plans available to them based on their zip code. Alex Howard, a journalist who covers the intersection of government, the Internet and society, calls Park's appointment as CTO "extremely exciting. " "This is some of the best personnel news to come out of Washington and the federal government under President Obama," writes Howard.
President Obama created the role of CTO when he first took office. Watch Todd Park's presentation on "how open data can improve America's health" below, courtesy O'Reilly Media: Park is replacing the president's first CTO, Aneesh Chopra, who held the position for three years until he stepped down in February. How To Unite Nations With Social Media. The United Nations is a huge organization: 193 member states and six major organs. As you can imagine, running the UN's social media networks is no walk in the park.
But the international organization is incredibly active on social media, using it as a tool to spread knowledge and information about its mission, goals and accomplishments. So how does the UN, a very complex organization, manage such an active online presence? We sat down with Nancy Groves, social media manager at UN headquarters in New York, to find out. Groves is part of the Secretariat, the UN body charged with carrying out the day-to-day work of the organization. "We're very involved in social media," says Groves, whose previous job was working as a UN librarian. Educating people about the UN's work, a mystery to many, is a top priority. But not all the UN's content makes you feel warm and snuggly inside. "We have to cover a broad range of work," says Groves. Groves's team gets a lot of questions from followers. Sweden Lets Citizens Run Its Twitter account. With Twitter now a well-established as part of the Internet landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to make a splash with a truly innovative marketing campaign using the service.
The country of Sweden may have managed that with a new project that sees a different citizen take over its official Twitter account every week. “No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world,” says Thomas Brühl, the CEO of the country’s tourism agency VisitSweden. Curators of Sweden is certainly an interesting idea; a variety of Swedes, including an editorial writer, a founder of an advertising agency with his own farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking trucker lesbian are all lined up to take over the account in coming weeks. Listen up, folks! …he’s tweeted about everything from touching personal news… Just got word that my grand-grandmother passed away tonight, just days before her 100th birthday. Municipal Wi-Fi: Let them browse while they eat cake. SINCE Wi-Fi's birth over a decade ago in a forgotten corner of the radio spectrum many municipalities have tried to create city-wide networks for public use.
Some have notched up limited successes. Google famously covers its hometown of Mountain View, California, with freely accessible hotspots. Much of Estonia, particularly the capital, Tallinn, is famous for having near ubiquitous free-access points not just in most hotels, bars and cafés, but also in supermarkets and hospitals. However, many bigger urban areas with more ambitious plans, like Philadelphia, Chicago and Taipei have not done nearly as well. Earlier this week the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, went a step further.
Its authorities announced that starting in April all restaurants, cafés, bar, pubs, and clubs larger than 120 square metres will need to provide wireless Internet access for free or "for a reasonable fee". The Diplomat. What Social Media Users Think of U.S. Politics. Two-thirds (67%) of adult social media users in the U.S. voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, although only half (51%) would vote the same way if they knew what they know now. Market researcher Lab42 polled 500 social media users on all things politics. The findings, presented in the infographic below, reveal top issues, candidates and news sources for social media users. When it comes to the 2012 election, almost half (46%) of respondents didn't think it would be bad if most members of congress were defeated in the upcoming election.
Why Uncle Sam might be ready for Hadoop in the cloud — Cloud Computing News. How Political Campaigns Can Turn Social Media Support Into Votes. During the last presidential election, the use of social media in political campaigns was revolutionized. The Obama campaign gathered followers through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Today, all candidates have learned the organizing power of social media. However, a “Like” on Facebook, a YouTube view or a re-blog on Tumblr may not directly affect the ballot box. Each campaign must answer an important question: How do we turn a digital following into real-world volunteers? Social media campaigns for candidates should be focused on getting volunteers in the campaign office door, on the phones and out in the community. 1. By sharing a candidate’s beliefs and goals via social media, candidates can connect with existing supporters and reach out to voters who aren’t yet convinced.
People who have never been part of a campaign often don’t know the day-to-day activities at a campaign office, and social media is a way to share that experience. 2. With social media, engagement is key. 3. The Supreme Court, big data and 1984 — Cloud Computing News. The CIA Open Source Center Tracks the Pulse of the World Through Facebook & Twitter. The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency has a crack group of analysts tracking the Internet, including tweets and Facebook messages, that takes the pulse of the world. Located in McLean, Virginia analysts at the CIA Open Source Center are known as the "vengeful librarians" according to a report from the Associated Press. These librarians are tracking up to five million tweets a day from places like China, Pakistan and Egypt. It is sometimes disconcerting to know what the U.S. intelligence complex is doing, right in your backyard. McLean is a beltway city in Northern Virginia that is best known for Tysons Corner, one of the shopping hubs of the East Coast. On the outskirts of the city limits there is also the George H.W. Open Source Center Set Up After 9/11 The CIA facility was set up after a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. The Green Revolution in Iran in 2009 was when social media like Facebook and Twitter really came to the forefront of the center's analysts.
Social Media: The Three Big Myths. Today, Facebook has more than half a billion active users; Twitter users send more than 140 million tweets per day; and other social media outlets boast millions more logging in every day. That's an enormous marketing forum, and organizations of all types have invested a fortune into using social media to acquire customers. But does that approach actually work? Not in the way you might think. Recently, Gallup conducted research with more than 17,000 social media users -- evaluating everything from the latest mobile social media apps to old-school word-of-mouth. We discovered groundbreaking new insights into how people interact with social media and into its effectiveness as a marketing tool. These findings debunk three big myths regarding social media: that it effectively drives customer acquisition, that social networkers are all the same, and that social networking is an online-only phenomenon.
Myth: Social media initiatives drive customer loyalty and acquisition. Survey Methods. The CIA Open Source Center Tracks the Pulse of the World Through Facebook & Twitter. Can Facebook lower unemployment. How digital media will affect the 2012 Presidential Election (infographic) The debates are rolling out and rumbles of the 2012 Presidential Election are growing into much bigger conversations. But where are those conversations occurring? “JFK is considered the first television President. Next year’s victor may well be determined by the impact of Facebook and Twitter,” said Jordan Bitterman, a Digitas senior vice president, in a statement.
According to a study by Digitas, 63 percent of social media users expect candidates to have a social media presence. On top of that, 88 percent of social media users who are also registered voters have mobile phones. Both of these content avenues will play a roll in getting a Presidential candidate’s message across and the candidates know it.
Indeed, all of the major declared Republican candidates have a presence on Facebook. But it’s not just young voters who are ingesting digital content. Check out the infographic: [Photo via The White House/Flickr] Track political tweets with PolitickerUSA. 17 November '11, 11:42pm Follow Following politicians on Twitter can be as boring as watching paint dry on some days, but a new app pulls together tweets from both parties, and shows a whole host of trends about what they’re tweeting about. PolitickerUSA is a simple app that displays tweets from every politician that uses the Twitter platform. At the very least, the service is the best social list of every U.S.
Senator and Representative on the web. You can watch tweets fly by in real-time, or you can filter them by your favorite politico. One Nation, Under Tweets PolitickerUSA is extremely well designed, and splits politicians on the homepage by their political party affiliation. Where PolitickerUSA gets really interesting is with the trends that it puts together into a cloud, based on mentions of words and phrases in the politicians’ tweets. You can check trends by party, or by individual politician. . ➤ PolitickerUSA. Open Government. Britain unleashes gov.uk, its Google for government.
More often than not, government internet projects are synonymous with low ambitions and high spending: vast, sweeping schemes that make only minor tweaks to the status quo, cost the earth and end up leaving citizens drowning in a quagmire of bureaucracy. What’s the best way of challenging that stereotype? Step forward Britain’s brand new gov.uk, a service intended to smash those perceptions, help get citizens the information they need — and save money for tax payers. The site, which went live overnight, is simple in the extreme: instead of a complicated nest of subject areas and atoms of information — the approach that typiied the previous one-stop shop, Directgov — it is a Google-like search bar that takes you directly to the information you need.
Canny autosuggest options mean that keywords can be useful, while larger subjects of interests are clearly pushed without. This is not unusual in and of itself. This change is only just beginning, and it hasn’t come without some friction.