It is very easy to overlook this method of communication as nothing more than an egotistical exercise designed to feed into an over-inflauted sense of self-worth. However, because the channel was designed with very little structure, it is very easy to repurpose the Twitter feed into anything that involves the sending and receiving small amount of textual data. Through the robust nature of the application programming interface (API) of Twitter allows developers to create different communication methods outside the traditional textual exchange. Twitter creates a bridge for the user to broadcast information to a large group through the posting of website address or the post can direct followers to others media sources offline.

An interesting twist to this channel is how the channel has been used by government officials as a mechanism to communicate with their constituents back home and with the outside world. Several of the members of Congress were “twittering” during President Obama’s first speech in front of a joint session of Congress. The discussion on the channel ranged from the mundane (“I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg,” – Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo)) to the esoteric (“The Aggie basketball game is about to start on ESPN 2, for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching Pelosi smirk for the next hour.” – Rep. Joe Barton (R – TX)). However, why this story may have caught the attention of the mainstream media is how Twitter is shining a spotlight on the legislative process.

It would seem that much of the information being received about the system of the American government is being filtered through modern mass media. The level of awareness of the American citizen has regarding their government becomes minimumalized through the lens of the media. Therefore, it seems relevantly appropriate that the channel of microblogging can be used by government officials to address their constituents to their message without external forces recrafting a message and/or creating a new bias on top of the information. It is the minimalist nature of microblogging that forces the writer to be concise in her or his word choice and development of message (“tweets”).

When it comes to the crafting of the laws that affect the citizens of the United States, representatives and senators write a complete thesis regarding the rationale for the creation of a laws and how the laws is expected to be implemented. Typically, the paperwork supporting laws and the protocol involved in presenting those laws can be thousands of pages. Speaking points supporting or opposing those laws can be dozens of pages. Twitter has a limit of only 140 characters. Those using Twitter as a mechanism of communication to constituents are dealing with layers and layers of reductionism.

In direct contrast to this reductionism is the idea of the American Government being mostly transparent. “Open sunshine laws” exist in one form or other throughout the legislative branches at the local, state and national level. These laws make sure that the public can see the transactions that occur with the chambers of law. It was through the open sunshine initiatives that public services such as C-SPAN were created to give the general public a view of the national decision making process. A citizen is able to see committee meetings, the discussions and debates regarding bills and other business of the government. These “performances” are choreographed in advanced and are formalized within the confines of the political machine to allow for the maximum distribution of information. On the other hand, microblogging is an informal channel designed for minimal information exchange.

In the area of information exchange, the formal bureaucracy that is the United States Government can make it difficult, if not impossible, to find the correct information or expert a specific field. It takes a keen understand of the interworkings of the government to access vital information. Exposure of individual elements of the bureaucracy through a microblogging service can help an average citizen connect to a specific agency designed to deal with that citizen’s concern. This microblogging service does not need to be completely open. But, it could be a hybrid system within an intranet aspect (e.g. lacon.ia) combined with a public interface.

The Obama administration has been more adaptive to newer communication technology when compared to previous presidential administrations. The website www.change.gov was created as a useful public interface that citizens could express issues that they felt was important. With Barack Obama now officially in office, the White House could develop a microblogging service designed to interact with the general public. The public communication would allow for a transparent view of national government that would support the requirements of open sunshine laws.

Open sunshine initiatives and laws should be assisted by services like Twitter as those services tell when certain events are occurring (e.g. an important vote on a motion) or can add to the openness of a meeting by creating a backchannel that tells what individual members of the meeting are thinking or doing. Typically such laws are designed to prevent political corruption through the careful examination of the proceedings of the legislative body. Any examination of a legislative body must include an open and clear record of that legislative body. To be an effective mechanism of openness and transparency in the government, electronic services that catalog government communication must be indexed and easily searchable to access the relevant information for the average citizen.

Organizations like the “Open House project,” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have worked to collect as much as information as possible to create an electronic record of the dealings of the American Government. Many of these groups search online and through electronic intranet system to expose the inter-working of the American government. Twitter communication adds to this record as the information gathered from these communication can provide insight into the thought process of the representative or senator when they vote on an issue or discuss a policy issue. The question to ask regarding Twitter, open sunlight laws and the electronic gathering of this information is “will it be possible to effectively sort through the information or does all the information become noise lost in the static or is there a middle ground between information and static?”

About the author. Shane Tilton is an Instructor of Electronic Media at Ohio University in Zanesville, Ohio, USA.

The first site/network that I logged into was the new revitalized site associated with Geeks Radio. Geeks Radio is a thematic Internet radio station designed to play “music for your inner geek.” I love listening to Internet radio station associated with a playing to a specific genre. I remember the old CS Radio, which was ran by fans of Counter-Strike. There is also Radio KOL, connecting to the “Kingdom of Loathing.” What makes Geeks Radio different from other Internet radio station is really the strong sense of community. There is an active social network associated with the station, fans connect through Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and there is a strong connection on microblogs to the radio’s main website.

Speaking of music, the other network I’m playing in is blip.fm, which allows users to channel their inner DJ and tweet their songs over Twitter. It seems kind of cool to use music over Twitter to express feelings, thoughts and points in a much clearer way than could be expressed in 140 characters.

I love the community aspects of the site, as you can see what your friends are listening to.

That’s all for now, I’m going to trying to stay warm.

According to the White House website, it seems that Obama’s team is focusing on ensuring “the full and free exchange of ideas through an open internet and diverse media outlets.” The centerpoint of this is protecting network neutrality and protecting the individual’s right to privacy with regards to companies’ ability to breech individual’s rights.  The rest of the subpoints dealing with the free exchange of ideas deal with content management and distrubution, as opposed to a focus on the political structure of the Internet. Protect the openness of the Internet, encouraging diversity in media ownership and protecting children while preserving the first amendment all tend take the free exchange of ideas outside the realm of ivory tower of Washington D.C. and into the hands of those who do produce and control the media within the World Wide Web.

If we are to look at Obama’s choices of technological focus through the social filter, it would seem that Obama wants to remove more of the barriers to connection to the Internet. Hopefully, this will include a renew committment to municipal high speed Internet and wi-fi. The digital divide issues still affect people. There are still several area around my regions that only have dial-up, if any Internet access. These must be a prioity to insure that the nation can catch up with the rest of the connected world.

The argument that the rest of the American digital public needs a form of digital ID in order to protect their online interest has rightly been criticized by some as a waste of resources and a failure to recognize how cyber criminals work. I would make the argument that these recommendations fail to address the need to education the general public on how to protect themselves and the organizations that they care about/work for/whatever. To address the broad policy issues without address how these recommendations would be foolish. The only point of educating the public is a plan of creating a education plan though the National Science Foundation (NSF).While the NSF has done great work in the past and present in educating the role of science to the American public, I do not believe that the NSF is up to the task of this size. If the NSF is the only federal organization reponsible for educating laypeople who may or may not be computer literate, this project will be huge failure. I do not have a great recommendation on who else currently could help the NSF. The report does mention private-public partnerships. I believe the government should create a new operational organization to help the general public deal with the issues caused cybercrime and the influx of new technology.

The focus of education must go beyond the infrastructure of the bureaucracy of the U.S. Government and must approach the general public. If it stays in the ivory tower of Washington D.C., it will hurt us all.

I would be very curious to see what would happen if the students were all graduate students, as opposed to undergrad, and see how the reporting would be different. My best guess would deal less with the actual tech and hardware and more about the culture behind the show. The tech reported from many of these shows seem to be nothing more than glorified press releases and instructional video talking about the product. I would be more interested in seeing more of the personalities and how those people interact with these new products.

For the last three posts, I have been dealing with microblogging (specifically Twitter) and how information that an individual posts on these microblogging site can be used against them in the form of identity theft and data fraud. However, it is equality as important to maintain a presence on large social community like Facebook and Twitter to show people you are a.) an actual person and not a robot, b.) someone who has talents that can be used & c.) a “people person.” As much as it pained me to use that last phrase, it really takes some “social capital” to be able to communicate with a wide array of people (like those present in an open social network like Facebook or Twittter).

It would seem that this could be pretty for months to come. Therefore, it is important to use inexpensive resources to deliver your message and maintain your reputation in your field. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can help you with this mission.

The question of “do identity thieves twitter?” seems to be yes after this threat hit the network. Even though it was using the oldest phishing trick in the book and I hope nobody fell for this trick. But, I believe this is a scary point in the microblogging phenomenon. I gotta believe this is the first step in more sophisticated attacks on identity in the Twitter network. Because it is really easy to post information in this format, we can accidentally expose information that could be a treasure trove for social engineers and identity thieves. This would expand the damage that can be caused by black-hat Twitterer from harmless to harmful.

The purpose of this post is not to scare anybody. The purpose is to create awareness about this situation and I hope people will be more careful about what they say on a microblog.

I have to preface all of these statements by saying that Twitterkins is Paul F. Tompkins. He seems like a nice guy and technical whiz.

First, it’s pretty obvious that spam has appear in the Twitterverse and other microblogging communities. The question that comes to mind is why spam when the spammer has nothing to gain. Could it represent something viral? Could it make the spammer feel that they are control of the network by feeding it information or misinformation? Could it make the spammer feel that he or she lead the network to another source that could make the spammer money? Being a sociologist, I can not speak on motive. I can argue that it depends on the type of community, the information being shared and where the links used by the spammer take the community member.

Second, let’s approach the second question asked by Mr. Tompkins, “do identity thieves twitter?” I would focus on the term “identity thief.” According to the wikipedia, an identity thief is anybody that uses fraud to “stealing
money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else.” So, yes there are identity thieves in the harmless sense on Twitter. I can interact (and have had conversations) with the characters from the West Wing, Studio 60 and Mad Men. I doubt that the actor or actress who plays those characters are typing the Twitter posts. The benefit to those playing the characters on Twitter is that they get to play the characters they see on television. Mr. Tompkins is a famous cable show and someone could want to “play” PFT. Others have done research on being a “fakester” by adapting another persona. I have not research on this subject nor read deeply this research. The question I have is “is somebody using Twitter for a more harmful purpose (stealing money from others, causing harm)?” I doubt it, but I can’t speak for certain.

1. Microblogging will continue to 
evolve: One of the biggest stories of the past month has been the 
Denver plane crash and how one of the passengers Twittered during 
the crash. This lead to a series of headlines punning of either 
Twitter or crashes. I don’t believe Twitter will survive at the end 
of 2009 unless the Twitter crew can find some way to monetize the 
system. However, thanks to systems like the Laconica microblogging 
software and the Bootcamp initiative, there will be communities of 
microblogs connected by a superstructure of the universal profile 
supported by OpenID.
2. Cybereducation and cyberliteracy 
will begin to connect the levels of the American education system: 
With Margaret Spellings leaving and Arne Duncan becoming the 
Secretary of Education, I got to believe that there will be a long, 
hard look at (and possible elimination of) No Child Left Behind. I 
also believe that Duncan represents a future in cybereducation 
either in the form of more distance higher education to areas 
under-served by the current higher education/digital divide issues 
or through a reorganization of the primary/secondary/post-secondary 
education system in the United States.
3. There will continue to be 
questions in the binary levels of the Internet: Many of the 
academics that I listen to talk about binary issues, which are the 
differences between private life/public identity, online/offline, 
high-tech/lo-tech, public service/private utility and 
connected/unconnected. I realize as more of the issues emerge in the 
world of the Internet, there will continue to be a struggle to 
define our existence in this arena and what will be the methods used 
to help deal with the changes caused by the development in this 
environment.
4. This year was defined by the 
ability to connect with others, being able to clearly deliver a 
coherent thought and trying to persuade others with your message: I 
wish I could add more to this point. I’ll simply say that there have 
been a great deal of worldwide mediated platform that people could 
connect and express themselves in front of a worldwide audience. The 
channels of communication were use to clarify points that were left 
out for the media’s presentation of events (U.S. Presendental 
Election, Prop 8 Protests, Olympics, et al.)

Well, this should be the last post for 
this year. I wish you and yours a happy rest of the year. I gotta 
stop now, it’s my turn to play cards.