This week sees Google add Google+ Hangouts to YouTube, Twitter users more likely to impact brands than any other social network, tech inspired words like retweet and w00t make it into the Oxford dictionary, new service Twylah makes it possible to create brand pages for Twitter, 44% of companies track employees' social media use in and out of the office and is football gossip ruining Twitter?

Google adds Google+ Hangouts to YouTube

In what is being seen as a drive to boost Google+ numbers and interaction levels, Google owned YouTube has been kitted out with a 'Hangout' icon underneath every video. Mashable notes that this is the first step towards Google+ members being able to activate hangouts around content. This means that we can now watch cats being silly with our friend, without them having to be in the same room. Life is complete.

Twitter users more likely to impact brands than any other social network

The Next Web reports on a recent study which found that active Twitter users are three times more likely to amplify the influence of that brand than a Facebook user would. For people who are active on Twitter daily don't stop there: 72% publish blog posts at least once a month, 70% comment on others' blog posts, 61% write articles for third-party sites, 61% write at least one product review a month. In short, the content on Twitter doesn't just stay on Twitter. How can brands use this information? For one brands ought to not treat Twitter like any other social network. It is a social network populated with influentials who are active online participants in internet culture, and should be treated that way. Use Twitter wisely and there is no limit to where your content could go.

Retweet and w00t makes it into the Oxford dictionary

The Oxford English dictionary is updated and a couple of tech inspired words are included in the 400 new words that have been added. These include 'retweet', 'cyberbullying', 'sexting' and 'woot'. No doubt social networking sites have contributed to create a language on the net, which has in turn trickled into offline conversation. We wonder what people would have said 100 years ago - when the first edition of the dictionary was published - to the latest additions... Rather splendid we say.

Retweet Pronunciation:/riːˈtwiːt/

verb:(on the social networking service Twitter) repost or forward (a message posted by another user). Noun:a reposted or forwarded message on Twitter

Meet Twylah, your brand page for Twitter

One thing that Facebook - and soon also Google+ - has that Twitter hasn't is brand pages. Instead brands have to use the same account template as the rest of us. Not great for marketing your brand... Enter Twylah, a new service that lets you create one page that sums up what you're about. Automatically selecting 20-odd of your most popular tweeted topics (you can exclude any of you so wish) to give potential followers an instant summary of what you tweet most about.

This is a great way to find out who your latest followers are and if you want to follow them back. Check out The New Web's review here.

Social media in the workplace: 44% of companies track employees' social media use in and out of the office

A new survey finds that 71% of the companies asked claim to have actively blocked social networks. This is a very high figure and quite odd considering how integrated social media is in people's lives these days. The same study also finds that 44% of the companies' surveyed say they have polices in place for use of social media that cover both in AND out of the office. While we agree that you as an employee are part of your company's DNA and that anything you do and say online could indirectly implicate your employer, we're wondering if this is taking it a step too far. Should your boss be allowed to "tell" you what you share and tweet in your own time? Truth is that most organisations will benefit from networked employees with possible lead generation, new opportunities, access to 'influencers' and more being brought to the company; so why is it that such a huge portion of companies are still actively restricting this?

Yumalicio.us makes food blogging made easy... well nearly

If you're an avid cook and want to share your creations but can't be asked to set up a blog on the topic, here is the social network for you. Yumalicio.us lets you share images of your dishes, add a short description, follow other users and leave comments. Negative points are that you can't add the whole recipe on the site and there isn't a mobile app for it yet so you still have to take the photo and upload it to your computer before loading it to the site.

Is football gossip ruining Twitter?

The football season is back and fans across the UK rejoice as they take to Twitter to talk about the games. That said the social network has been filled with tweets over the summer with transfer rumours and the saga of Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas' move to Barcelona. As a result of this ShinyShiny asks if football gossip is ruining Twitter, and if so what can be done about it?

It is annoying when a specific topic clogs your Twitter feed for a longer than necessary. Things that I can think of right now: X Factor, Celebrity Big Brother and ... Justin Bieber.

ShinyShiny offers two solutions to the football conundrum (and potentially all other listed above)

1) Create a Twitter especially for fans, whether it be football, X Factor or the Bieber.

2) Use technology to block subject-related tweets. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could simply block out any noise around a subject you have no interest in! I am currently choosing to not go on Twitter during times of #CBB and #XFactor as I have no interest in either, and my feed is flooding with tweets related to the reality shows when they're on... Would be nice to be able to filter out so that I could still see the cool things people are tweeting/sharing even during times of bad TV.

What's your view on this? Let us know in the comments below.

German state dislikes Facebook's 'Like' and bans it among data protection violation claims

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein tells all state institutions to close their Facebook pages and remove the 'Like' button from their websites. Otherwise they face fines. The reason? Apparently Facebook builds profiles of both users and non-users with data collected by the Like button, which, if true, violates German and European data protection laws.

Check into events with Foursquare

One of the first location based social networks, Foursquare adds new features that allow check-ins at events, like concerts and cinemas, instead of just the actual venue. Currently only available in the US and only on the iPhone, Foursquare has partnered with ESPN, MovieTickets.com and SongKick to realise the new features. If you're using Foursquare are you looking forward to this feature coming to the UK?

Starbucks to launch its first Facebook game challenge

Yep, it's soon autumn holiday season in the US which means pumpkins all around. In a new creative push coffee giant Starbucks US is launching a Facebook game - a first for Starbucks - that asks its 24 million plus fans to compete to bring the holiday themed Pumpkin Spice Latte to their cities one week ahead of the official release date.

FA cup match airs live on Facebook

Friday's "first-kick" extra-preliminary FA Cup game between non-league teams Ascot United and Wembley FC was streamed live on Budweiser's Facebook page, the new sponsor of the cup. The 90-minute live steam reportedly had a 'viewing' audience of over 20,000 Facebook members which is a pretty decent first time figure. There are no reports of how much it cost Budweiser...

Don't worry. It's hypothetical.

Unless our daily social media intake suddenly starts to get rationed, which in light of recent events isn't that hard to imagine, then it's not a decision anyone would have to make any time soon, but what if you did have to choose just one, FOREVER?

Granted some people prefer LinkedIn to Twitter and claim it's much more than just a business network and an increasing number of users are getting to grips with Google+ and ignoring Facebook, but I think if we monitored everyone's time 1984-style, then most people would still log onto Facebook and Twitter over the rest. On the whole anyway. Plus I'm REALLY sick of Facebook vs. Google+ posts.

So imagine the scene, Zuckerberg in one corner of the ring and the big, blue, faceless Twitter bird in the other (which in actual fact is called Larry). Who's going to win?

Now although there have been thousands of versus posts pitting these two against each other since Twitter was first launched, the truth is they're extremely different in many, many ways.

So instead of comparing specific features, let's just have a look at some of the main concerns and wider topics:

Round One: Privacy and Settings

This may seem like a bit of a dull one to kick us off, but the issue of privacy and how we can change settings to have more control over our personal information and everyday content is a pretty contentious issue.

Facebook has come under fire countless times in the past over issues of privacy, with many getting increasingly frustrated that every time a new feature is rolled out, all users are forced to automatically opt in. The most recent uproar has been the introduction of facial recognition to people across the globe. There were some concerns when it first came to the US last year, but it wasn't until European countries noticed the changes that things started to really heat up, with German officials claiming it's far too intrusive and asking the social network to remove the functionality altogether.

Having said that once you figure out all of the changes, Facebook's settings page is pretty comprehensive, just a check list of what you do and don't want everyone to see.

Twitter is different in many ways as it's very much an open network. Obviously you can protect your tweets so they're only visible to your friends, but less and less people seem to be taking that option. You can't @ people who don't follow you if your account is locked, which most people don't find appealing because they wouldn't be able to spam celebrities anymore. Sigh.

As far as settings go though, Twitter does let you control everything you need to.

Winner: Tie

Round Two: Photos

Facebook has always been about the photos for me, incessantly taking them, tagging them and browsing through them. The recent "lightbox" effect seemed a little strange at first but actually makes viewing pictures much more appealing and they can now be uploaded in a higher resolution too.

Twitter has always been a handy platform when it comes to sharing photos with your followers, especially considering a lot of photo apps allow you to share straight through to Twitter via your mobile. However until now you'd have to store all of these photos within another service, like Instagram of TwitPic. UNTIL NOW. Over the past few days Twitter has been rolling out a new photo gallery functionality which displays all of the photos anyone has ever added to Twitter, whether that's through an external service or via Twitter's new photo tool - a tiny picture of a camera underneath the "What's happening?" box.

It's hard to tell whether the photo gallery has been received well by the "Twitterverse", there are obviously those that always hate change, but the way it's been integrated into the current look and feel of the site is really slick, so only time will tell whether it'll make people more inclined to share, whether it'll make people less inclined to use third party apps, or whether it'll make no difference whatsoever.

Winner: Facebook, but Twitter was very very close.

Round Three: Friends and Followers

This section is really what you make of it.

If you follow thousands of people on Twitter without thinking and you're still friends with those you hated in school on Facebook, they're both going to be too overcrowded and, well, suck.

Both platforms have the ability to make lists and group your friends, and although that may not be as intuitive as Google+'s circles, it still makes much more sense if you can be bothered to sort through everyone.

The way Twitter handles lists seems much easier in my eyes, and you can then even manage your account through an external tool like TweetDeck to see a column dedicated to that particular list, which many would argue is the most effective way to use Twitter.

When it comes to the content your friends and followers share, that's again down to who they are, but on the whole I think we can all agree that Twitter is often more focused on current affairs than Facebook (unless you're following Kim Kardashian of course) and it's much easier to see the things that interest you with the search functionality and trending topics in the sidebar. In comparison Facebook seems largely more focused on personal news and sharing, but again it really all depends...

Winner: Twitter

Round Four: Usability

Facebook likes to add new features and things every now and again to confuse us, but overall it's fairly easy to get to grips with, particularly if you ignore all the fluff down the left-hand side, like apps, groups and pages - oh, just me?

Twitter does seem much more simple to use, particularly since it became "new Twitter" and did away with the old and dated design.

Winner: Twitter

Round Five: Apps and External Tools

Twitter has a whole host of third party applications that let you manage your Twitter presence, like HootSuite and TweetDeck. There are also all kinds of apps that let you share information and connect with your followers, from fitness tracking apps to photo apps. Of course after the recent photo gallery addition, photo apps are tied into the Twitter offering now more than ever.

It's much the same story with Facebook, but with more of a focus on social gaming, with apps like Farmville going from strength to strength.

Winner: Tie

Winner?

Although there are lots of areas in which both platforms would tie and it's very much down to personal preference, it seems Twitter would win. In the final round Larry would knock Zuckerberg to the floor with his wing. Just.

Briefly exploring each of the areas above has proved more than ever that although each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, they can both be very much what you make of them and I think a large part of that comes down to who you're following and who you're friends with.

So which would you choose?

[Image via]

So as of 10pm last night Colonel Gaddafi had been shot by his own people. As well as being arrested by foreign forces, holed up in a hotel in the north of Tripoli and having absconded and left the country. When it comes to the truth you take your pick. All of the above were rumours on Twitter and all from reasonably creditable sources. All were heavily retweeted too.

No I admit I don't know where Gaddafi is, but I am sure starting to have issues with Twitter. Not the technology, just like Blackberry Messenger and the riots you really can't blame the medium for being chosen by those who choose to break the law, rather the people who use Twitter.

I can't imagine why people would wish to tweet news they know isn't true. Maybe in Gadfaffi's case presenting him as dead bought him a few hours to be whisked out of Tripoli. As for the rioters, saying things are kicking off in Kilburn might mean that there are few less police out in Dalston. However I think that most of the people are tweeting wrong information aren't that sinister. They are just misguided fools having fun at our expense.

As for retweeting information that hasn't been verified, I guess most people on Twitter (myself included) have done this. However after the riots, like a lot of other Twitter users, I am lot more wary of doing it.

Also those who plea for others not to retweet rumours need to be clear as to what 'rumours' are. What 'verifies' a story? When the BBC runs it? News organisations have got things wrong before. Some, ironically take a lead from Twitter...

I guess Twitter really is just a reflection of its users and if there are people who get off on making up news and retweeting hearsay then there's little the technology can do to stop it.

Over the past few months what once was a very real breaker of news has shifted to become much more of a field for rumour, unsubstantiated facts and more all presented as gospel truth. In many ways it undermines the credibility of Twitter as a news source and makes me feel less inclined to go there for updates. It is saying something but these days Sky News seems to be a better bet.

Okay we've been horrified at the violence of the riots in Birmingham, London and Manchester, but should we be just as horrified at people tweeting about it? Well not just tweeting about it, but encouraging it on Twitter or Facebook?

The police say yes, and have just arrested a 16-year-old in Glasgow for starting a public Facebook page called "Let's Start a Riot in Glasgow".

Nothing actually happened in Glasgow despite the posts from Alexander McQuarrie from Cessnock, though he was made to shut the page down. He has been charged with a Breach of the Peace.

Essentially we're punishing people who are stupid here - stupid enough to publish something illegal - rather than people who have actually done anything. Do you agree with that?

And then, what about freedom of expression and all that? Could you charge rap music under the same laws?

Reports circulating on Twitter suggest that Scotland Yard has threatened Twitter users with arrests if they are caught "encouraging violence" on Twitter.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavannagh said that Twitter users who were found to be inciting violence or looting could come in for police attention.

"Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh confirmed officers were looking at the website as part of investigations into widespread looting and rioting." according to the Telegraph.

It doesn't seem like the best way to restore confidence in the police whose failure to provide adequate information to the family of their victim Mark Duggan caused the protest in the first place.

Also - Twitter is an invaluable source of information to those affected by the riots - unmatched by TV or traditional news sites in being able to provide immediate and very localised information. It's genuinely useful to scared residents in a way that the media and the police aren't.

And then there was the phone-hacking scandal - which didn't exactly leave the Met smelling of roses, nor give us great trust in their ability to deal with sensitive information.

Err also, there will be several milllions of tweets on the LondonRiots hashtag so they might have a hard time finding the offending ones.

It reminds us of this story: After Duncan Bannatyne threatens to break someone's arms: Should we only tweet things that are true & responsible?
and whether people should be held responsible for what they say on Twitter.

So says Silicon Valley guru Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, who was one of the first investors in Facebook. The theory is that the twin pillars of social are now so strong that it is almost impossible for anyone to come up with a start up to challenge them. So all those social start ups are a waste of time and won't be getting any of Roger McName's cash.

I think this is an over-generalisation (there are clearly opps in the business social arena), but it is something that I have been thinking for several months now. It seems the only way for a social start up to make any money is simply by being bought by Facebook. Take location-based services. FourSquare had a big head start and loads of media coverage, but Facebook Places seems to have taken the wind out of its sails (in the UK at least).

Also Twitter and Facebook are so ingrained in our lives now that they won't be disappearing in a MySpace/Friends Reunited style.

The gaping flaw with McNamee's theory is that he has a downer on Google. It is early days for Google+, but it clearly has the potential to develop into a mainstream social platform.

Besides, if you passionately disagree with him, it is worth noting that he doesn't always get it right. As WallBlog reports

'Worth noting that McName is also a former Palm investor and once said of the Palm Pre: "You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later."

It has been top of the news agenda in the UK for the past week, but News of The World hasn't been trending on Twitter, since well, the scandal properly broke last Thursday.

Tweeters watching the flood of tweets on the #NOTW hashtag have questioned why it hasn't appeared in the list of UK trending topics, while lesser stories like
the transfer of footballer Jonathan Woodgate made the trending list. See our little Tweetdeck experiment below that shows that there were more tweets about #notw than about Jonathan Woodgate (you know how the length of the little scroll bar shows how long the column is? It's longer on the Woodgate column, proving that there are fewer tweets in it. It's easy to tell that from watching the columns and seeing which updates faster - but I can't video-grab my screen unfortunately.)

There were more tweets about Victoria Beckham's new kid than either of them, but that's to be expected we suppose.

Being Twitter - conspiracy theories have abounded - is Twitter in the pay of Murdoch and suppressing the hashtags?

But no - Twitter trending topics aren't the most popular topics on Twitter, they're the fastest accelerating topics - a tweak Twitter made last year to stop Justin Bieber topping the trending list all the time.

The likelihood with #notw and Rupert Murdoch is that there has been a steady stream of tweets about those topics for a long time. But it won't be until the number of tweets rockets off that #notw or another Murdoch-related hashtag will make the cut into the trending topics list.

The same issue cropped up with Wikileaks last year, when it failed to trend despite being the huge story on the internet.

Maybe Twitter should reform their process again to take account of long-running big stories. Here's their blog post explaining the Wikileaks thing last year anyway.

What alternatives are there to Twitter? The micro-blogging site is the go-to site for breaking news, celeb gossip and inappropriate photos of politicians (we're looking at you Anthony Wiener).

But could it be in two years time that the Twitter model will be out-moded and we'll want more specific, tailored groups of people to share with? Certainly Anthony Wiener should consider that. But tech guru Robert Scoble thinks that's what we'll all want.

He thinks that tailoring and relevance are big trends in social networking and pointed out a few Twitter rivals that offer that more tailored experience. He kicked the debate off on Quora, asking about trends in social media. While we're thinking about trends I'd also add the obvious point that mobile is super important for any new social network, and they don't want to just have a presence there- they want to be really using it and that probably means some location element. And photographs are another big deal. We eat them up. It's likely successful new social networks will have some strong photo element.

1) Katango
Not out till later this summer, Scoble has tipped this mystery start-up for success:
"This service, coming out this summer, looks at Facebook and finds interesting social circles in it. It is mind blowing. I wish I could say more."

2) With
A new app from social media innovators Path, With uses photos as the basic fabric of the interaction. Tag people in photos in places and a network is built up... It ties into Facebook and Twitter currently. Very mobile friendly.
here

3) Color
A service that uses location-sensitive photos to connect you to other people nearby. It's having troubles... but Scoble rates the idea, and so do I.

4) Instagram
It has proved its credentials with a tiny team and a simple idea. Could the service start to leach users away from Twitter and its clunkier photo-uploads?

5) Facebook
Let's not overlook the obvious. The biggest player in social media is still getting bigger. And constantly innovating. Their upcoming changes seem to focus on mobile - a platform where Twitter currently scores because of its simplicity, a reformed Facebook could still outflank and crush its smaller rival.

News today that a single tweet has lost a PR company its biggest client got us thinking about other tweets that have cost their authors dear..

Redner Group lost their account with games manufacturer 2k yesterday after threatening to withold game samples from critical reviewers. The tweet from the @TheRednerGroup account read: "too many went too far with their reviews. We r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom."

Though the tweet was quickly deleted, 2k terminated their contract in a day. Oops. They're far from being the only ones.

Here are five other tweets that got their writers into big trouble:

1) The man who threatened to blow up Nottingham Airport on Twitter - and then got arrested. Paul Chambers was taken to court for making what he described as a joke. The anti-terrorist police didn't see it that way.

2) The intern at UK furniture brand Habitat, who used popular but unrelated hashtags on the Habitat Twitter stream to draw more attention Habitat offers. Tags included #iphone and #iran - bringing criticism on the company for profiteering off the Iranian protest crisis

3) The Twitter user who outed the alleged holders of British Super-Injunctions - is in some serious trouble when they work out who s/he is.

4) The American senator Anthony Wiener who posted a picture of his (covered) erection on twitpic.OOPSIE.

5) Courtney Love - she's already been sued for libelling a fashion designer on Twitter, but now she's gone and done it again and has another lawsuit pending thanks to a tweet about her ex-lawyer.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Think first, tweet later...

As foretold by the grapevine, Twitter has started the rollout of a new photo-sharing service where users can post photos directly from the site. Until now they have had to do so through third-party applications such as Twitpic and Yfrog.

Photo service
Twitter confirmed the photo service on Wednesday, at the D9 conference in California. The company will roll out the new service over the next few weeks, in collaboration with photo hosting site Photobucket. Users will also be able to access the new service through the Twitter mobile phone app.

Those who prefer to continue using third party apps will be able to do this, according to reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, as Twitter will continue to support them. It does however remain to be seen if the external photo apps will survive the change. If it's easier to share photos with Twitter's built-in app then people will probably migrate towards it, unless external providers can add something attractive to the mix, such as Instagr.am with its retro filters.

Search system overhaul
Twitter also said it will be overhauling its search system to deliver more relevant tweets.

"Often, users are interested in only the most memorable Tweets or those that other users engage with," the company wrote on its blog. "In our new search experience, we show search results that are most relevant to a particular user. So search results are personalised, and we filter out the Tweets that do not resonate with other users."

In addition, Twitter has removed duplicates from searches, meaning you won't get the same result twice if someone has changed the wording on a re-tweet. The company says it will continue to improve the quality of searches over the coming months. This includes bringing the new relevance-search to mobiles.

Follow button
Yesterday also saw the announcement of a new external Twitter 'follow' button. It's not a big change, but it should make it quicker and easier to follow sites and people directly from their domains around the internet. In the past, you had to click through to their Twitter stream to do this, which was fiddly, but now you will be able to follow people with just one click.

You need to be logged into Twitter for it to work, or a login window will pop up. Businesses will be happy about this change, as following them on Twitter will no longer take you, the customer, away from their site.

Want to add the new Twitter Follow button? Click here for Twitter's dedicated Follow-button page.

Tweetdeck may be the one that has just sold to Twitter for $40 million
- but there are a couple of reasons why you should consider rival HootSuite. And not just to be different.

Key advantages of using HootSuite for Twitter

Built-in .owly link shortener which provides in-app click analytics
Useful for: tracking the success of content and real-time analytics.
Compared to Tweetdeck: sure you can include link-shorteners on Tweetdeck, but the analytics is less immediate.

Team Collaboration - access for multiple people to the same account
Useful for: when you have a handful of people contributing to one account
Tweetdeck: of course if you give everyone the same log-in you can do this on Tweetdeck, HootSuite just gives you a bit more control over multi-person accounts.

Access to different social media accounts: Facebook, Linked-In etc
Useful for: Those multiplatform accounts, when you want to get content out across different platforms quickly.
Tweetdeck: does this too, but one upside with HootSuite is that your .owly account will measure clicks across all platforms and aggregrate useful info from all over, good if you need to present a report about the reach of your content to clients.

Support for many accounts
Useful for: managing 5+ Twitter accounts - probably if you're in social media for work, rather than just pleasure. Downside - you have to pay for this.
Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck is good at this too.

Scheduled Updates
Useful for: lots of reasons, but especially if you want to optimise content because there are certain times of the day when content does better than others.
Tweetdeck - not yet available.

Conclusion
- if you're a social media professional then this is a handy way of managing multiple accounts and the easy-access social analytics is a real asset. We also love the scheduled tweets functionality.
If you have cash to spend on Twitter, then the HootSuite professional package is really useful.

More on HootSuite Features

[thanks @tammielovesyou for the HootSuite pep talk]

I guess it's one-nil to free speech and the power of the internet, but uncovering an alleged affair at the bottom of the super-injunction vs Twitter court case just makes it seem a bit tawdry.

MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to publicly air the worst-kept secret of recent months - that it was Ryan Giggs who took out a super-injunction to prevent any media outlet commenting on an alleged affair with Imogen Thomas from Big Brother.

Giggs was preparing to sue Twitter for revealing his identity, a move which persuaded the MP to step in. Hemming said that it would not be practical to imprison the 75,000 Twitter users who had named the player.

While the Daily Mail took the opportunity to point out how it tarnished Giggs' reputation as a family man - others pointed out the social value of the first occasion where Twitter had a role in breaking a super-injunction. That the social network had helped to expose the injunction Trafigura had taken out to smother details of the chemical disaster it caused in rural India.

The Giggs case raises lots of questions:

Can super-injunctions now be broken with impunity on Twitter?

Is Twitter now unbridled? Or will it suffer a backlash from angry British judges and the powerful law firms whose expensive work it has undone?

Will super-injunctions die off for good?

Has the nature of privacy for all of us changed completely in the internet age?

Is privacy just not compatible with the internet? Should we just get used to that?

Forget that super injunction account. The Taleban are the hot new must-follow tweeters.

They're updating the faithful on @alemarahweb apparently. The Guardian say:

"Their Twitter feed, @alemarahweb, pumps out several messages each day, keeping 224 followers up to date with often highly exaggerated reports of strikes against the "infidel forces" and the "Karzai puppet regime".

The vast majority of tweets are in Pashto (sadly Google Translate doesn't work for Pasto yet) but they broke into English in recent weeks.

BoingBoing claimed that the Taleban tweeted about Justin Bieber but we checked all the way to the bottom and sadly that's just lulz. Unless I just don't recognise the Pashto for Bieleber.

[via Guardian]

Twitpic, the picture uploading service for Twitter, has just announced that they will make a profit by selling photos uploaded on it to newspapers.

An update to TwitPic's Terms&Conditions laid out the new deal:

"by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic's (and its successors' and affiliates') business.."

Just to recap - that means they can sell your photos to newswires and news agencies, and you won't get any money from it (cf: "royalty-free").

It doesn't stop you selling your pictures separately, but the papers might already have got a copy through TwitPic and their picture distribution partners WENN.

Should you switch to a service that doesn't take your content? Yes- if that's a problem for you, though if it's mostly pictures of your cat that end up on Twitter then you probably don't need to.

TwitPic has become synonymous with putting pictures on Twitter - "oh, let me just TwitPic that" but there are several other services that do the same thing.

Flickr dodges the problem of course by having a suite of options for licensing content under the Creative Commons.

You can change your picture uploading service by signing up to a new one, syncing it to your twitter account, then changing your default on your Twitter apps - by going into Settings, or possibly Advanced Settings.

Here are five we recommend:

1) YFrog simple service

2) Twitgoo

3) Lockerz - aka plixi, aka tweetphoto.com - a strong contender and compatible across nearly all devices.

4) Mobypicture

5) img.ly

Legal experts warned that Twitter has made super-injunctions redundant, and there may not be any point in future ones if the naming of celebrities in tweets continues. It seems that either super-injunctions - or Twitter - could go down as the crisis comes to a head.

People on Twitter have been tweeting about super-injunctions and who has taken them out, since the words "super-injunction" first appeared in a newspaper. See - Does Twitter make super-injunctions redundant?

A twitter account set up to break the super injunctions and last night had 25,000 followers, right now - 9am Monday, it seems to have 1.. we expect the account will be swiftly removed...

It seems to got a reaction from one of the celebrities named in the tweets to get the mainstream to notice. A tweet suggesting that Jemima Khan had taken out a super-injunction to prevent some photos being published received this rebuttal from the celebrity: "Rumour that I have a super injunction preventing publication of "intimate" photos of me and Jeremy Clarkson. NOT TRUE!". It sparked a front-page story in the Daily Mail.

Now Jeremy Clarkson and Jemima Khan are both trending in the UK and tag #superinjunction is full of ironic comments as well...

RT @ratbanjos: Simon Cowell has never done a poo. Morrissey is scared of bees. Helen Mirren has killed 3 homeless men. #superinjunction

Despite the jokes, it could be dangerous territory for Twitter - the establishment, especially the legal establishment may well decide to favour the laws they have made in the face of Twitter making a mockery of them. We've seen it before in the Twitter Joke Trial case...

The Twitter Joke Trial: What Does It Mean For Freedom Of Speech

As the Mail thunders: "The move exposed the total inadequacy of court rulings which gag the press - but have no effective control over what is published online."

But the legal repercussions for Twitter could be huge. How on earth could they control what users tweeted? Would users stand for it? What about users in different countries to the super-injunction.

Say there's a person in work you politely follow on Twitter, because - well - you have to. It gets annoying if they decide to live-blog their breakfast.

You can't really unfollow them, but you don't want to read all about their jam either. Targeting exactly that problem, Twitter are testing out a new feature that would let you mute people you follow so you can keep them on the radar, but don't have to read every tweet.

The "hide" feature is now live for a small percentage of Twitter users . The company did not indicate a time-table for when it's rolling out to all users, but the sooner it happens, the better.

[via SocialBeat]

Apparently people who are more active on Twitter have shorter relationships, and uh, are more likely to masturbate.

Are we surprised?

It's all science. The data has been compiled by dating site OkayCupid. Their users answer a lot of questions about themselves and their behaviours to help the site judge their compatibility with potential dates. The site then correlates that very detailed (though anonymised) data to produce really interesting graphs about sex.

They've just knocked out another set, which include two interesting pieces of info about people who use Twitter a lot:

First - active users of Twitter tend to have shorter relationships

Is it just that our attention spans are so short we're always craving new updates and get bored sticking with one person? Are we just naturally hyper and can't hold down relationships? Or do our partners just get fed up hearing about the new memes and dump us for someone who isn't glued to Tweetdeck..

Second - regular tweeters tend to masturbate more

UM. Enemies of Twitter could say that this proves that the service attracts narcissists. We'd hazard a guess that people who have time on their hands to sit around tweeting about stuff also have time to, well, do other things with their hands.

Related:

Stephen Fry has said he will risk prison to protect people's right to banter on Twitter. He waded into the ongoing appeal of Paul Chambers, the man who faces prison under terrorism charges because he tweeted his anger about the closure of Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster.

In January 2010 Chambers tweeted: "Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" a comment that has been described by Fry as an "example of Britain's tradition of self-deprecating humour". According to Paul, it was made in jest out of frustration when the airport was closed due to snow, but the police thought differently and in May 2010 he was found guilty of sending a menacing electronic communication and fined £385 plus £600 in costs.

The case has big implications for what people can and can't put on Twitter which is why celebrities like Fry have wanted to be involved in the campaign.

Fry attended a benefit gig for Paul last week at the Bloomsbury Theatre which was held so that Paul would not have to drop his appeal due to legal costs and spoke out, saying "This [verdict] must not be allowed to stand in law," adding that he would continue to repeat Chambers' message and face prison "if that's what it takes". Other celebrities in attendance were Al Murray, Rufus Hound, Katy Brand and Father Ted writer Graham Linehan.

It was made evident by speakers at the event that this was not a night of celebrating the original tweet with Al Murray re-naming it as "Save Paul Chambers from his own stupid destiny event" but that it was borne out of a communal feeling of wanting to protect our right to freedom of speech, civil liberties and to try and make the courts differentiate between what is a terrorist threat and what is a harmless tweet.

What do you think about the case? Would you stand-up and retweet Paul's original twit even if it could have you thrown in the slammer? Would you go to prison for Twitter?

Via BBC

Twitter is improving they way you can find people to follow in your area of interest by using "emotional search".

Announced in a blog post yesterday - Twitter explained that not only can you now search for people who are influential on a particular topic - you can also search for how they feel about it.

That's not going to be relevant to everyone but on polarising issues like "Proposition 8", Sarah Palin or even just Manchester United - people would generally prefer to follow people with similar viewpoints.

Another big innovation is that a search for "hip-hop" will now return everyone tweeting about hip-hop rather than just people with "hip-hop" in their name. This makes themed search much more useful.

The cute bit is that you search for this stuff with a smiley (see screengrab above) -- so "Sarah Palin :(" would return you the profiles of people who often tweet about Sarah Palin but largely in a negative capacity.

Then Twitter parses the text of everyone's tweets and uses them to work out whether the emotions they attach to words are overall positive or negative.. You can also search for tweeters based in particular city or in a given radius of where you live..

The Twitter blog explains it all

[via pskf]

A social media agency are crowdsourcing a cookbook on Twitter - and all recipes are to be 140 characters - or less.

That's including the name of the recipe. Here's their recipe for Roast Beef:

"Rst bf - Rb beefw/ salt,ppr&olvoil. Sear in r/tray on hob, tfr 2 oven 240° 4 20min, rdce heat 2 190°, 30min pr k 4 rare, rest, crv #Tweetpie"

Short and sweet huh. Though I have to say that I got stuck on "crv" for a few minutes. (Carve, of course).

Here's Risotto:
"Risotto-Sftn onino, garl & celry in olvoil+rice, tn up heat+splsh wine, stir,+stock, stir, rpt till cooked+butter & parmsn, srv #Tweetpie"

The book - Tweet Pie - will be sold in aid of FoodCycle, a charity that redirects edible surplus food thrown away by food retailers, to create nutritious meals for people affected by food poverty.

It draws on the existing Twitter tradition of Twecipes - where friends share very short one-tweet recipes with other. Like with so much else on Twitter, the art is in getting a lot of information across very succinctly.

Here's the risotto one:

Tweet Pie was created by social media agency Umpf for UK cooker manufacturer Belling.

Umpf compared a few more traditional Roast Beef recipes for length and found that Delia's recipes were far and away the longest: her Roast Beef entry being 872 words, with Nigella's the second longest at 787 words.

To enter, tweet a recipe including the hashtag #Tweetpie and the best will be published in the book out later this year. A full glossary of Twecipe terms, hints, tips and Twecipes from the experts is also available at http://www.belling.co.uk/twecipe.

Unfortunately the hashtag takes 9 letters out of your recipe. Watch out for that...