Agencies All Atwitter

# 2711

If case you haven't noticed it, there is a quiet revolution going on in social media, called Twitter.

Sometimes referred to as micro-blogging, Twitter allows people to broadcast short text messages, up to 140 characters in length.

Best of all, Twitter is free, and easy to use.

You can send these messages out to everyone who is following you on Twitter, or directly, as a private message to an individual account.

To join, go to http://twitter.com

You can access Twitter either from your `home page' on twitter, or via any one of a number of desktop applications or browser addins. I used Twitbin for Firefox.

Agencies, both public and private, are now getting into the Twitter act. They have discovered that they can send out short notices to their followers, directing them to news reports, announcements, or other information.

Recently FEMA held a press conference on Twitter. And agencies like the HHS, Ready.gov, and the American Red Cross now are embracing the technology.

Twitter use by government agencies is still experimental, but it is growing. You can help it grow by following their feeds.

Flubies, including several bloggers you would recognize, are also on twitter. You can follow my feeds (and pick up others to follow) by clicking here.

Messages are called `tweets'. Often, important messages will be `re-tweeted', or passed on, by a recipient to their followers.

In that way, a message that is sent out to a few hundred, can reach thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, in a matter of minutes.

Of particular interest to those following pandemic issues is the BirdFluGov feed. This is the official feed of the HHS on pandemic issues.

To give you an idea of what to expect, recent tweets from BirdFluGov include:

FYI - For information on food recalls incl. the latest salmonella and peanut butter info check out @FDArecalls.

Idaho has a new Pandemic Flu site: http://www.panfluidaho.org/ Check it out

Novel approach to Pandemic Outreach: Comic Book! http://tinyurl.com/dkg4w3 (Note PDF document)

Reminder Next PlanFirst Webcast on Wed at 2pm ET http://tinyurl.com/8h966q. Anyone live "tweeting" encouraged to use #planfirst

Egypt says girl contracts bird flu (via Reuters) http://tinyurl.com/ab9o8q

Below are listed just a few of the agencies that are now `broadcasting' on twitter. I was a skeptic when I began using Twitter about three weeks ago. But no longer.

I'm a believer.