US military using Facebook, Twitter to counter Taliban propaganda, reach new audiences

June 1st, 2009 APNEWSBREAK: US military tweetsKABUL — The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

June 3rd, 2009 Who could have ever imagined the social networking sites would play the front-runners in real time journalism? For quite some time now the military units are employing the social networking tools as weapons for information warfare. This has been pushed further with US forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A) being pushed to use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to break news from the front lines.

January 2nd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistani officials have detained a senior Taliban leader in North West Frontier Province capital Peshawar, Dawn newspaper reported on its website Saturday. Ustad Mohammed Yasir was reportedly a spokesman of Taliban chief Mullah Omar after the fall of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001.

March 5th, 2009 After it's failed attempts to acquire Twitter, Facebook has come up with new strategies. It has incurred a number of changes to the homepage/newsfeed.

May 1st, 2009 White House joins FaceBook, Twitter, MySpaceWASHINGTON — OMG. The White House is joining the popular social network sites of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

November 25th, 2008 Facebook offered to buy Twitter for $500 million of overvalued Facebook stock, Kara Swisher says. Twitter rejected the offer for several reasons: And they can be, At Facebook's real valuation, $5 billion or so, the offer only amounted to $150 million (not bad for two-year old company with no revenue, but a far cry from the billion-dollar dream) Twitter has high hopes for its own secret revenue model which will be announced next year.

July 25th, 2009 LONDON - Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook are now being seen as tools of communication between Scotland's clans, with Scottish chiefs being told to use them to increase their ranks in the 21st Century. The gathering of chiefs on July 24 at Holyrood, heard Robert McWilliam, president emeritus of the Council of Scottish Clans and Associations, as saying that it was the best way of communicating with young people.

July 8th, 2009 Incoming Alaska governor to tweet less than PalinANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska's incoming governor isn't the tweeter that Sarah Palin is. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell says he "may or may not" use a new Twitter account his staff established for him this week.

March 5th, 2009 Social networking on the internet is fast becoming the sole or most important reason for people to come and spend time online. With the increasing popularity of Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, and newly twitter, the live interaction and real time exchange of knowledge is increasing day by day.

March 26th, 2009 LONDON - A US Defence Department report has said that China is developing "disruptive" technologies for nuclear, space and cyber warfare, resulting in the shifting of military balance in Asia which would have implications beyond the region. The Pentagon report criticises Beijing again for showing no transparency in reporting on its military spending and security policy, but welcomed the rise of a peaceful, stable and prosperous China.

May 15th, 2009 LONDON - While most ladies her age prefer to sit quietly, 103-year-old English lady Ivy Bean loves to Twitter, something that has made her the oldest user of the social networking site. Bean, a great grandmother, decided to join Twitter after she got bored of using Facebook, where she had made 4,800 friends.

May 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's tech-savvy administration has taken another leap into cyberspace with the roll-out of 'White House 2.0.' linking it to social networks MySpace and Facebook and hot micro-blogging service Twitter. 'Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the administration is communicating with the public,' the White House blog said Friday announcing the additions to the recently launched official Flickr photostream.

August 10th, 2009 Facebook buys social media aggregator FriendFeedSAN FRANCISCO —Facebook is buying a Web service called FriendFeed that gives users a view of what their friends are doing on all sorts of social media sites, including Facebook's rivals. In an interview, FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor said the two services will eventually merge, though FriendFeed will operate separately for now.

September 11th, 2009 Twitter keeps it simple with new terms of serviceSAN FRANCISCO — Twitter Inc. keeps it simple, even when it comes to updating the legalese in its terms of service.

August 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is planning to ban Facebook, Twitter, and other social media at US Department of Defense sites. The prospective ban isn't due to fears that troops might divulge secure information over the sites, or to worries about bad PR.