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When the camera switches on in one of the busiest courtrooms in Massachusetts, murder arraignments, traffic and drug cases heard there will become fodder for a new experiment: how bloggers and other citizen journalists can cover courts using new media and social media.

The White House announced this weekend that President Obama would make it clear which tweets were by him and which were by staffers. It's a nod to the coming campaign, as well the fallout from the Rep. Anthony Weiner scandal.

"In their newest study, they show that independent of the content of an article about a new technological development, the tone of comments posted by other readers can make a significant difference in the way new readers feel about the article's subject. The less civil the accompanying comments, the more risk readers attributed to the research described in the news story. "The day of reading a story and then turning the page to read another is over," Scheufele says. "Now each story is surrounded by numbers of Facebook likes and tweets and comments that color the way readers interpret even truly unbiased information. This will produce more and more unintended effects on readers, and unless we understand what those are and even capitalize on them, they will just cause more and more problems." If even some the for-profit media world and advocacy organizations are approaching the digital landscape from a marketing perspective, Brossard and Scheufele argue, scientists need to turn to more empirical communications research and engage in active discussions across disciplines of how to most effectively reach large audiences."

It's an age-old tale: CNN anchor meets girl by harassing her on Twitter; girl refuses to accept anchor's further advances; anchor has a Twitter temper tantrum. On Sunday, Piers Morgan joined thousands of Twitter users in mocking 21-year-old Georgia Ford for tweeting, "'Is Wimbledon always held in London?"

Best Buy hasn't been doing so hot lately, and here's another example that shows why. The retailer has a Twitter account @Twelpforce that uses 3,000+ employees to help run it. So far it has worked without a major disaster, despite the exposure it has with so many employees working on it. But at least one Best Buy manager disagrees, and thinks it's basically a load of crap, reports Chris Morran at the Consumerist.

Timeline of Super Bowl events and Twitter usage for SB 46, by Colle + McVoy

Copycense points us to the bizarre news that the Massachussetts state legislature has decided to ban Twitter from office computers. While Facebook is still allowed, and officials can still tweet via their mobile phones, it's banned on computers. The Legislative Information Services dept is claiming that it's because Twitter is "vulnerable to viruses," but that's fairly bizarre reasoning. Twitter itself is not prone to viruses. Some users may post links to viruses, but that's true on Facebook as well. Besides blocking all of Twitter seems like a sledgehammer approach.

What all this means is that "public or private" is more complicated than it seems. Twitter and its ilk aren't going away, and the answer to responsible use isn't to shut teens out of public life. Many teens are indeed more visible today than ever before, but, through experience, they're also developing skills to manage privacy in public.

Parents fearing the public nature of Twitter must understand teenagers have become adept at managing their privacy online

If your organization fails to invest in socially responsible measures, or even if anything about your business - such as a faked viral marketing campaign - is perceived to be phony, you will be found out. You will be tweeted about, and a Facebook Causes group will be created against you. As many corporate casualties have discovered, the result of such a campaign can be catastrophic to your firm's reputation and ultimately to its bottom line. Therefore, to avoid a public relations or financial disaster, integrity needs to be part of the DNA of every organization - not just to secure a healthy business environment, but for the organization's own sustainability and competitive advantage. It's worth noting here that I believe the word "integrity" is preferable to the expression "corporate social responsibility," as the latter puts too much emphasis on the notion that corporations should do "good" in the world and be "good" citizens out of some moral or ethical imperative. Of course, that is absolutely true. But what's new - and what organizations need to focus on - is the idea of integrity, as driven by transparency. Without it you cannot build trust, and trust is essential for competitiveness in this new environment. To put it bluntly, regardless of the moral arguments, there are now some hard, bottom-line business reasons for baking integrity into every company.

How important is Twitter in the political revolutions sweeping the Middle East? That was the topic of discussion on stage at the CTIA mobile and wireless convention today in Orlando, Florida and two very different, very strong opinions were voiced. "I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that sending a tweet is the equivalent of activism," said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, "but it's another tool people can use." Kenneth Roth, executive director of of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's most respected human rights organization, framed things very differently though. He said on stage (above) that mobile technology in general would make it impossible today for something like Nazi Germany to unfold again the way it did historically.

I was inspired by C.C. Chapman's post about how Ragu hates dads. He pointed out that the Ragu sauce Twitter account was out there spamming the heck out of dad accounts on Twitter. So, I looked around. I wondered, "Just how many other grocery shelf products are botching their chance to capture our attention on Twitter?"

Maeda acknowledges that he now understands that social media can only take you so far in redesigning leadership. All those great hopes for leading by blogging, tweeting, and emailing proved inadequate to the gritty business of persuading an actual living, breathing constituency to follow his direction.

Twitter Inc. is in advanced talks to buy TweetDeck Inc. for around $50 million, people familiar with the matter said.TweetDeck is one of the add-on programs that help Twitter users view and manage short messages carried by the service, which are known as tweets.

"At the time of publication, Burger King had not yet reclaimed control over its Twitter account. One Twitter user noted that the Burger King hack may not really be such a bad thing overall as it elevates Burger King into the national conversation, even if it is for a horribly embarrassing incident. Any publicity is good publicity, right?"

The White House loves Twitter, and Twitter loves the White House. How much? Last year, they grew their audience by over one-third, adding another 650,000+ followers to their 2M+ base.

Guy Adams is The Independent's Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Olympics so far, he has carved out a nice spot on the how-much-NBC's-coverage-sucks beat. Now his Twitter account has been suspended-supposedly because NBC had it cut off after he complained

The Baltimore City Fire Department plans to implement new social media guidelines after Chief James S. Clack said he found that firefighters and officers were "crossing the line" by posting inappropriate or sensitive information online. The social media website Twitter has become a forum for griping about City Hall policies in 140 characters or fewer - the maximum allowed in postings. The new policy comes after fire personnel have written a number of heated, politically charged barbs aimed at the department, Clack, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the City Council over a recent budgetary decision to close three fire companies in the city

He likens today's Facebooking, Tweeting, Flickr-ing, FourSquaring generation to our grandparents' generation. Imagine a small town where everyone knows everyone else: comings and goings, who's having babies, who's cancer is in remission, who's family is coming to town for Thanksgiving, and who's family is not (and therefore should have an invitation extended). We want people to know where we are, what we're doing, and whether we need help. It's more than just a megalomaniacal existence, it's a need for community. A virtual community, if you will.

Catherine (HerBadMother) talks about Twitter, Air Canada, the importance of wheelchairs, troll backlash, and what to do with privilege that comes with being a high profile mommy blogger.

Sorry Packers fans, I gotta break it to you: The real winner of this year's Super Bowl was Twitter, proving again that social media can deliver record audiences. The faceoff between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers marked the biggest Super Bowl since 1987, according to Fox.