The most comprehensive list I’ve found so far on Twitter accounts for our Federal Level government officials…from the President down to each member of the House of Representatives.  Here are a few examples…

National Science Foundation: NSF
Environmental Protection Agency: EPA
Department of State: America.gov
Department of Health & Human Services: Food & Drug Administration: FDA Recalls
Department of Agriculture: Food Safety Information Center
U.S. Geological Survey: Earthquake & Tsunami Warning

For the whole list, visit:  http://twitter.pbworks.com/USGovernment

I was recently introduced to an outfit called Klout, a San Francisco-based startup that measures social influence on Twitter.   How do they measure social influence?  I have no idea.  I just I know I want it, and lots of it.

Apparently someone else agrees, because investors pumped $1.5 million into Klout in April of this year.   Launched in 2008, Klout evaluates your tweets and those of your connections using some magical algorithms and pixie dust.

Upon this, they’ve built an API which is now used by several other third-party Twitter tool makers including CoTweet, HootSuite, and  Tweetup.  What do they use it for?  I’m sure I don’t want to know.

When I first was shown Klout, a co-worker was showing it to me and he typed in his Twitter handle… he came out with a Klout score of 31.  Then he typed in another co-worker’s handle…he was a 20.  Then he typed in mine…6.

6????

MF’N 6????

You bet I was pissed.  Who were these Klout Krouts anyway with their stupid made up Social Influence Meter???  Don’t they know who I am???

Of course, I let this stew for a couple days and then returned to the scene of the insult:  Klout.com.  When I checked my score, it was a more respectable 19.  Not sure what happened in the interim, but I did notice that the site had cached an older version of my Twitter Bio so perhaps they had older data.  The newer number was accompanied with my newer Twitter Bio.  Whatever the cause, I was certainly happy to have more Klout.

Anyway, while I was writing this I looked at the Klout website and noticed they have some featured users displayed on their home page…two of which I happen to follow on Twitter.  One is Lee Stranahan, (@Stranahan), a filmmaker, blogger and contributor to the Huffington Post who I met through Jeff Pulver’s 140 Character’s Conference.  Stranahan has a Klout Score of 49.

What’s funny is that on another tab on the same Klout homepage was the Klout Score of the lovely and talented singer/songwriter/vaudevillian Amanda Palmer, (@AmandaPalmer), who Stranahan interviewed very recently (last night I think??) and who also happens to have a much more appropriate Klout Score:

I wonder if writing a blog post about Klout will increase my Klout?

Bloc Jam is a session of improvised music, collectively composed by passerbys on a busy street. For the performance, the side of UQAM’s Science Pavillion came alive with interactive projections filled with colors and moving to the rhythms of music controlled by the cell phones of the viewers. The multi-sensory experience lights up the entire side of a building, a musical score that corresponds with beats dialed in via cell phone, by anyone, and processed through a sequencer.

The large-scale public piece is the result of a collective effort, directed by Mouna Andraos & Melissa Mongiat, in collaboration with Rob Seward and Kelsey Snook.  The underlying telephone portion of the application was built by Michel Vaillancourt using an open source Ruby framework called Adhearsion.

BLOC JAM MUTEK 2010 from florian brucker on Vimeo.

Below are 20 messages.  Some are ACTUAL responses from BP Executives and some are from the FAKE BP Global PR Twitter account.  Can you tell which is which>

1. “We regretfully admit that something has happened off the Gulf Coast. More to come.”

If you want to block anyone just from seeing you online on Facebook IM or Facebook Chat, follow these steps (Accurate as of 6/3/2010):

1.  With your Facebook page open (and logged in).  Click on Account |  Edit Friends.   (Upper right hand corner of the screen)

2.  Click the button that says “Create New List”

3.  A box will open that says “Create New List” and asks you to enter a name.  Type “Blocked IM Friends”.  (You can put anything you want…you’re the only one who will see this name)

4.  Under that box you can type the person’s name or you can select them in the list below.  You can add multiple people.

5.  When you’ve selected the Friends you want to block, click on the button that says “Create List”.

6.  Now that you’ve created a list and added people to it, you need to block that list on Facebook chat.  Do this by clicking the Chat button in the lower right hand corner of your Facebook page.  You should see the name of the List you just created with a green oval  next to it.  Click on that green oval (it will turn gray) and everyone in that group will stop being able to when you are online for IM.  You can turn it back on at any time by clicking the oval again.

You can create other groups like this as well.  I have groups for co-workers, high school friends, etc.  You can also use these same lists when you post just about anything to include or specifically exclude friends (or groups of friends) from seeing that post.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Thursday that it was de-friending South Korea on the popular social networking site, Facebook, while the South conducted a large naval drill in a show of force after the sinking of one of its warships.

The sudden de-friending occurs among increased tensions between the two neighboring countries.

North Korea to Suspend Naval Hot Line With South – NYTimes.com.

My uncle Gerry recorded this song.  He suggested that I get it out quick.

When 21-year-old Bath University student “KJ” fell into the river Avon and drowned in 2009, his Facebook page remained. As news of the death spread, rest-in-peace messages started to appear on his wall.

One of KJ’s closest friends had heard of Facebook’s “Memorialisation” feature, which allows existing friends continued access but blocks new ones and removes information such as contact details.

He wrote to Facebook with proof of death and asked for this to be done.

Friends now continue to write on the wall, even a year after the death.

Facebook’s European Director of Public Policy, Richard Allan describes this as “a new form of mourning”.

BBC News – Virtual life after death.

Tropo just announced a new release today, with some significant new additions for web developers.  If you’re looking to launch any kind of an interactive application that reaches beyond a website, you should check it out.  Tropo now has:

• Twitter Support: You can now assign a Twitter name to your application and customers can interact with the app by simply sending a Twitter message to that name. Check out this post: How to Add Twitter Support to a Tropo App
• International Support: New international phone numbers, speech recognition and text-to-speech.
• SMS Support: One set of code to support voice, SMS and Tweets.
• IM and Chat: The same code will also support most Instant Messaging Clients such as AOL, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

Best of all, it’s complete FREE to develop and test your apps.  When you’re ready to launch into production, it’s just a click away.

Tropo Adds Twitter and goes International « The Tropo Blog.

It was a short and torrid love affair, but another social network has come to an end.

Today I received this message from Tipjoy:

Hello Tipjoy user,

As you probably now know, Tipjoy commenced shutting down operations in August 2009.  As of December 2009, the company has voluntarily elected to wind up its affairs and dissolve Tipjoy.  We are now in the final stages of winding down the company.

Our records indicate that you have a positive balance of $2.66 in your Tipjoy account.

Notwithstanding our the terms of Tipjoy’s’ Terms of Service that you agreed to upon opening your Tipjoy account, we are allowing you to reclaim the above amount from your Tipjoy account.  Due to certain timing and processing concerns and pressures, we must limit this offer to Friday, February 26, 2010.  This email is to notify you that you have until Friday, February 26, 2010 at midnight PST to visit http://tipjoy.com, sign in and cash out your funds.

After this deadline you will have forfeited these funds.

Thank you for your support of Tipjoy.
Best,
Abigail Kirigin
CEO, tipjoy.com

I think I’ll let them keep it.