Picture on June 20 2009, posted on TwitPic by madyar http://twitpic.com/7wjz2

Here is a short selection of Twitter messages about the situation in Iran at this time:

• TehranBureau : People reportedly attacking police near Laleh Park and pushing them back, first injury transferred to Khomeini Hospital near the clashes
• Mirriaam : they beat & arrest every one with green wristbands or cloth
• iranpirooz : I saw a very elderly man crying for victory and freedom in kargar street Tehran
• TehranBureau : From Tehran: they’re killing people here
• iranpirooz : Near Paiga Basij in Tehran – police and militia are loading trucks with arrested young protesters – source VOA
• iranpirooz : Iranian Militia were acting like wild animals against protesters – most inhuman beatings I have ever seen. God help us.
• TehranBureau : crowds from ferdosi sq to enghelab sq to azadi and fatemi
• TehranBureau : some forces are refusing to attack the people, but basij and special forces are attacking people
• Mirriaam : 2 chopper r spraying hot water on ppl
• iranpirooz : Crowd are shouting “DEATH TO KHAMENEI” in streets
• Mirriaam : Heavy clashes on azadi street, chants of death to khamene’i,The street is full of rocks and fire
• Mirriaam : police using tear gas, water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters in Tehran,They are beating “ppl” in Enghelab St not only protesters
• TehranBureau : basij is even attacking young girls and women
• iranpirooz : Protesters have attacked Paiga Basij (Basij Military Centre)
• iranpirooz : Many helicopters seen in Tehran
• Mirriaam : Houses in alleys open doors to injured protesters,hallway is full of beaten people
• TehranBureau : forces dressed as civilians are beating on people and using tear gas to keep them from entering the square, they are being dispersed into … lower streets
• TehranBureau : reports from Azadi square and that whole area say very brutal clashes taking place
• TehranBureau : Gunshots continuously heard from Ghasr-ol-dasht street
• TehranBureau : Got A Call: Many People Injured By Police and Militia Near Tohid SQ.
• TehranBureau : Eye Witness: At Least 20 injured Protesters transfred to Loghman Hospital in last 30 [now 50] mins.
• Ashavan : People are not backing off. I hear shooting…around teh block. But people are coming back to the street. no one cares.

The Consulate General of Israel in New York is on Twitter, and will hold a Twitter news conference this afternoon.

Consulate General of Israel in New York

Nearly 15,000 Sailors chosen at random have been asked to share their thoughts on telework and technology through the first Navy Telework and Technology Survey, available now through mid-January.

The survey, which is being conducted by the Navy Personnel Research, Studies, and Technology (NPRST) division, asks Sailors to voluntarily provide their opinions regarding teleworking and their use of various technologies that might be used to telework. Telework is an important component of the Navy’s life/work balance efforts that are being promoted by Task Force Life/Work.

Key technologies being explored in the survey include handheld devices such as cell phones, iPods, and digital cameras, as well as traditional computer-based technologies such as the Internet and social networking. As part of the survey, respondents may choose to participate in the first Navywide survey through cell phones, which expands on a recent text message survey conducted with Navy recruiters.

“Surveying Sailors regarding their use of text messaging and other technology is cutting edge, innovative, and exciting research. With text messaging we are able to collect meaningful data in a flash,” said Dr. Paul Rosenfeld, head of the Institute for Organizational Assessment at NPRST.

NPRST exists to help the Navy better recruit, select, classify, train, manage, assign, and care for its people by employing a unique blend of innovative scientific and functional expertise. NPRST investigates, develops, and validates new technologies, methods, and business processes to improve the readiness, performance, and quality of life of Sailors and Marines.

US Navy

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai / Bombay last week have resulted in many mentions of Twitter in the old media, because the people on Twitter covered the attacks as no media outlet could. Dozens of people in Bombay and worldwide were watching television, listening to radio and looking out their windows and reporting what was going on. All of the news about the attacks was aggregated in one place.

We saw a similar phenomenon with the most recent Los Angeles wildfire outbreak. People reported what they say on Twitter far faster than the old media could report.

What makes Twitter a successful news reporting tool, or security tool? What would interfere with that process?

Because of the costs to Twitter, most of the world cannot access Twitter via SMS from their cellphones. They must have Internet access. If you’re at your desk, that also means electrical power for your computer. So, success is first predicated on having electrical power and unfettered access to the Internet.

The Mumbai attacks demonstrated how many people use Twitter for news. They also showed how the medium can be abused by spammers, rumor mongers and others who are not involved with the meme. With up to 100 Tweets a second on a topic, good information can be lost in the volume of messages and false or useless information can proliferate rapidly.

How many times was the completely false claim made that the Indian government wanted to shut down Tweets about #mumbai due to security issues? Hundreds, at least.

Sitll, the hashtag #mumbai, just like the tag #lafires, served to aggregate the related Tweets quite well and the Twitter Search services kept the stream current.

Hurricane Ike showed both the promise and the problem with Twitter. #ike brought us lots of information from people on site experiencing the hurricane. Then, they lost power or Internet connection, or, in one or two cases may have been injured or killed. The reporting was partial due to the limits imposed by electrical service and Internet access.

Were I a government agency, I would be looking for good Twitter management tools. The API is available from Twitter so I could contract for a tool to be designed and programmed. That would take a number of years and cost far more than budgeted. Or, i could find a couple of existing tools and see if they could be used in concert.

The search tool is the most obvious. It will generate an RSS feed so there are two options for the user. What a governmental agency should be able to do is monitor a Twitter search, hashtag or other, and then extract the Tweets that convey desired information. You might need several people monitoring, or you might be able to create a search that weeds out the garbage. It depends on what you are looking for.

Another thing that could be done is the creation of your own Twitter network. Since Twitter allows users to restrict Tweets to only select people, an agency could create a number of Twitter accounts and interlace all of them using the restriction parameter. Facebook and Flickr can do the same thing, so with a little work and planning a network could be created for both messages and photos that would be invisible to the general public. It wouldn’t be secret but it would be invisible to nearly everyone.

That would give an agency a robust network for important messages, pictures, etc. that have to be seen by a number of people in realtime or near realtime. Imagine firefighters shooting pics to Flickr and those pics would be available to command almost instantly. A soldier Tweets his position and the location of an enemy force without speaking or using the radio.

If nothing else, monitoring Tweets about an emergency may provide additional data. “I can see fire on xxx street” tells firefighters something. “I hear shooting by the library” does the same for police. There will be issues, false reports, etc., but they are all issues that already happen with our emergency services.

If nothing else, government agencies should consider the value of having hundreds if not thousands of people reporting to them during an emergency. Twitter will describe the state of mind of the people the emergency is affecting. It might even be a good idea for a governmental agency to fund Twitter enough to enable the SMS messaging system worldwide.

The deputy commissioner of police argued that the terrorists, who were holed up in two major hotels and became involved in floor-by-floor firefights with police, were gaining tactical information from TV. Using powers under Section 19 of the country’s Cable Television Networks Act, he ordered a blackout of TV news channels.

“Transmission of various clippings/live relay/coverage of the actions being taken by the police against the terrorists in South Mumbai is causing impediment in the police action … thereby endangering the lives of the police personnel as also of the hostages,” the order stated.

Cable and satellite channels went off air for nearly half an hour before the order was rescinded.

Media chiefs present at a meeting between the MIB, the Indian Broadcasting Federation and News Broadcasting Assn. hit back by accusing the government information departments and ministerial interfaces of failing to keep up with developments in the media industry.

They said it was unclear which officials had authority to speak to the media, that government and media had never agreed to procedures for coverage of national emergencies, and that the Press Information Bureau is set up to handle print rather than broadcast and online media.

Through blogs, file-sharing and social networking functions on the Internet, dozens of eyewitness reports, some coming from within the two besieged hotels, delivered information faster than conventional media and challenged some of its reporting. Twitter, a user-generated service that delivers text message-sized “tweets,” for instance, reported that there was still gunfire inside the Taj Mahal long after Indian media had said it was finished. Others transcribed lists of casualties from the hospitals faster than mainstream media could access it.

Variety
By PATRICK FRATER

Kodak, devoted to the digital future, has a new Twitter feed. Take a look at @kodakidigprint.

A Twitter friend, @marismith, has just returned from a long vacation RVing across Alaska and the Canadian west. She discovered 1200 e-mails waiting for her.

I got thinking about that number. In the old days, a couple of years ago, we would have been talking about phone messages. 1200 messages? Nope, no way. People would call and realize that you were not home and either leave a message or wait until you got back.

She was gone four to six weeks. Being a bright and educated user of the Internet, I’m sure she had her e-mail set to reply an “out of office” message.

Without knowing a thing about her situation, my guess was that she had a lot of spam. With the best filter, I still get 6-8 spam e-mails a day. I also have Google alerts, and daily e-mails from job hunting sites.

I’m on a couple of military mailing lists, so I get a bunch of press releases from Iraq. Bloggers’ Roundtable generates a few more e-mails each week.

I get the odd e-mail from family and friends, but if I were on vacation they’d know not to e-mail me. I get social media notifies for friends and followers.

Someone signed me up for the Pajamas Media morning summary, feh. I’m on the HARO list for 3 e-mails each weekday.

Sadly, examining the preceding, most of my e-mail comes from lists and not people. [frown]

OK, so to the 1200. Find the obvious spams and delete. Find the e-mails from the various lists and delete those that are too old to be useful.

Mari gets 30-40 e-mails a day. I get about half that. She’s got 120-240 e-mails that she will want to spend time on, my guess.

But none of this would have happened if she only had an answering machine.

A collection of remarks on Twitter from right after her speech.

• Little known fact: Sarah Palin is weak sauce indeed. All she did was regurgitate std GOP blather. Not a single new idea in the whole speech.
• i dont like sarah palin. she has no more experience than obama, and she would suck as prez, which she will be cause mccain’s gonna die soon.
• Initial reactions to Sarah Palin’s speech: this woman’s bitterness and her scowl indicates, I think, that she has never had an orgasm
• Bottom line: I do not want to live in Sarah Palin’s America.
• That’s… if you write fan fiction, please write me some of that. I’d love to read Sarah Palin/Cindy McCain femslash.
• 1st impression of Sarah Palin is that’s she’s a prime bitch. Good thing I had no plans to vote Republican anyway.
• is disgusted by what Sarah palin has to say and her horrid way she sounds.
• Currently trying to resist the urge to vomit after listening to sarah palin’s speech.
• Rude sarcasm, that sums up Sarah Palin’s speech in two words and does it justice.
• Sarah Palin’s “speech”? Just a string of cheap shots, nothing more. What an amateur!

Hurricane Gustav was far less a threat than many expected, this past week. It presented the new media, Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0, with the opportunity to strut their stuff. Community building, networking, two-way communication, citizen journalism and more were on display.

Rick Sanchez led the way over at CNN. On Twitter, Rick is @ricksanchezcnn. Using Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and other New Media tools, Rick covered the hurricane with up to the second reports from people in New Orleans and elsewhere in the affected region. He was also able to respond to questions and concerns on the spot. I was one of many who had their “tweet” read on the air during that time.

Twitter is an unusual product that has exploded into the Internet in 2008, though it has been in existence since March, 2006. It is similar to text messaging on cell phones, only the message is limited to 140 characters. A variety of third parties have joined with the Twitter people to create a variety of interfaces, programs that allow you to have Twitter running and updating on your screen just as you would AIM or another Internet messaging program. There are also interfaces for a number of cellphones enabling you to twitter from your phone.

People were doing just that in New Orleans and other places where Hurricane Gustav hit.

Companies and groups were also using Twitter, and very effectively. Home Depot, @TheHomeDepot , was able to let everyone know which stores were open, or, newly reopened, and which stores have been resupplied. The Red Cross, @RedCross , sent out updates on their relief efforts, safety tips and encouragement. Sprint Nextel Corp.’s “Public policy PR guy” John Taylor, @jbtaylor , kept the world current with Sprint’s activities concerning the storm, and general information on how telecoms handle events like Gustav.

Twitter traffic about Hurricane Gustav got so heavy that a “hashtag” or unique identifier was created so that the Gustav traffic could be found via Twitter Search. #gustav became the identifier for all Hurricane Gustav tweets and the entire list went up here.

Two other New Media sites were created for Gustav. The social network site Ning was used by Andy Carvin, @acarvin , to create a place to aggregate all the Gustav information flying around the Internet. He, and the people who worked with him, also set up the Hurricane Information Center Wiki. The Ning site was for tweets, e-mails and other up to the minute information. The wiki was a collaborative effort to put all the static information in one place.

Both site were very active and today contain a tremendous amount of information about Hurricane Gustav, the people it affected, the places it affected and how others world-wide helped and are still helping.

Rick Sanchez of CNN was not alone in working with the New Media while in Old Media. A number of reporters also were on Twitter and posting pictures to sites like Flickr where they could be seen by all. The Chicago Tribune had @GustavReporter also known as James Janega and several associates in New Orleans and they produced for both Old and New Media.

The hurricane was also blogged by many people, including some world-class experts. Brendan Loy made his place in Internet history with his outstanding blogging during Hurricane Katrina and continued it with Gustav. Dr. Jeff Masters continued his hurricane blogging with Gustav. Many others, weather experts and weather amateurs, contributed to the information and dialog throughout the period.

Hurricane Gustav allowed New Media to strut its stuff. It did not replace Old Media, but it gave Old Media an up-to-the-minute information stream and feedback that it had never worked with before. It was communication in its truest sense, media, companies and organizations and information consumers / providers all working together in real time to assist, inform and reveal the disaster that was Gustav.

Here’s a sample of the tweets:

• When will Barry promise a chicken in every pot?
• this is supposed to be uplifting?? i’m depressed.
• This speech is making me really really really not like Obama. He hates the free market
• Obama: Big government is the answer. We’ll even buy you boots!
• dude, I like you, just please don’t raise my taxes!
• Obama doesn’t speak for this military family. HE can explain his position and Clinton’s to my Gold Star Daughter. No way, no how, NOBAMA
• People around me are crying and sobbing
• There seems a disconnect from Obama to the audience because they are so damn far away from him….unlike on the stump
• This is not what I was hoping for. Harhar.
• sorry. I don’t find Obama moving or inspiring. Just another speech
• Did Barack just announce support for Drill Here Drill Now?
• Payouts to the auto companies. Detroit breathes a sigh of relief.
• Uh, ok. so he’s for good schools, clean water, and more jobs. Lots of fluff, no substance. But it sounds good.
• There’s a Jed Bartlet speech in here somewhere in those last few lines
• Appealing to xenophobic undercurrent of dependency on “oil from the Middle East” is popular but wrong. Most US oil comes from non-ME sources

TWITTER

#dontgo is the Twitter broadcast of the House Republicans action to pressure Pelosi and the Democrats to return to deal with an energy bill.

Day three and the media is beginning to notice that the Republicans are serious.

Patrick Ruffini explains the situation, and, rightly I believe, suggests that this may be a turning point for the right in this country.

The Democratic majority went into recess for five weeks today over the objections of the Republicans. Many Republican Congressmen are refusing to leave.

CSPAN has been shut off. The lights turned off. The sound system was down until they managed to discover the password to turn it back on.

A number of Republican Congressmen are on the floor of the House of Representatives, calling for action on energy policy. The only media broadcast is coming from Twitter and Qik messages sent by Blackberry.

• We are fighting to give the american people a vote on drillig for more oil! Rep. Mike Pence
• Congressman Michael Burgess of Texas here. We are trying to keep the House of Representatives open to force a vote on energy production.
• I’m Adam Putnam of Fl, on the House Floor to stand up for more American energy! Congress can’t go home without solving this!
• Cong Virginia Foxx speaking now – says Speaker Pelosi telling America “Let them eat cake”
• Cong Bill Sali speaking now
• I am Roy Blunt, the GOP Whip, and it an outrageous move the Democrat Leadership has adjourned the House for 5 weeks.
• Cong Ted Poe now speaking – just give us a vote to drill here drill now
• Now Cong Tom Price of Georgia – congress has gone on vacation while America is suffering w high gas prices
• Am Congressman John Shimkus of Illinois. We need American Energy and American Jobs. We are fighting for a vote on supply.
• Min Whip Blunt speaking now describing our bill to drill here drill now to get us through the next 10 to 15 years till we can get new tech
• Cong Mike Rogers says every day Pelosi wastes America sends 50 million to Putin 200 million to Saudi Arabia 180 million to Hugo Chavez
• This Cong mike rogers. Please stand up for an american made energy!! For our national security and our economic security!! Your voice counts
• Cong Rob Bishop says we have to solve energy problem for poor Americans who cannot afford 4 dollar a gallon gas

Twitter is one of a number of new apps appearing on the Web that increases conversations versus the traditional post and comments model of blogging. Sometimes these apps are called microblogging.

Twitter works very similarly to text messaging on a cellphone. It has a 140 character limit per message. The users have a modest profile to complete, and you build a list of users that you are following and a list of users who follow you.

At present, there is no advertising. Your tweets back and forth are limited only by the ability of the servers to handle the traffic. Some users treat it as a variety of RSS feed, while others use it for pure, or impure conversations.

I see Twitter as a beta app right now. The app is developing a new area of cyberspace and is having some growing pains. They’ve just gotten funding from Bijan Sabet and Jeff Bezos which should help in the long run.

They have some operating issues. Volume and speed seem to be the crux of the problems, which is to be expected given the huge popularity of the app. The API for Twitter is available and quite a number of developers have written reader and feeder type apps to work with Twitter. Unfortunately, when Twitter makes an upgrade or corrects a bug, it affects the symbiotic apps.

I would suggest a certain amount of patience as Twitter grows. A work in progress is just that, expecting anything more is a failure on your part, not theirs.

Twitter is making progress on a daily basis, rather than rolling out occasional, ponderous version 12.0.1. That makes using Twitter interesting as features are up and down, improved and stabilized. It’s an experiment in something new, so hang in there.

The Mars probe has its own Twitter account, @MarsPhoenix. Here’s what NASA says about the latest findings:

About 80 percent of Phoenix’s first, two-day wet chemistry experiment is now complete. Phoenix has three more wet-chemistry cells for use later in the mission.

“This soil appears to be a close analog to surface soils found in the upper dry valleys in Antarctica,” Kouvanes said. “The alkalinity of the soil at this location is definitely striking. At this specific location, one-inch into the surface layer, the soil is very basic, with a pH of between eight and nine. We also found a variety of components of salts that we haven’t had time to analyze and identify yet, but that include magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride.”

“This is more evidence for water because salts are there. We also found a reasonable number of nutrients, or chemicals needed by life as we know it,” Kounaves said. “Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the amazing thing about Mars is not that it’s an alien world, but that in many aspects, like mineralogy, it’s very much like Earth.”