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If you didn't hear, yesterday Charlie Sheen joined Twitter. Today he very well may reach 1 million followers (as I type he's already passed the 900K mark). How did it happen?  Why all of a sudden did he wake up and decide it's Twitter time? And how was it that Charlie Sheen went from non-Twitterer to hardcore Twitterer overnight?  Short answer: he got a lot of help from a team of experts at Ad.ly, a small Beverly Hills start-up that focuses on celebrity endorsements via Facebook and Twitter.

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.

After years of leaving photos and videos to third-party services like Twitpic and Yfrog, Twitter has finally launched its own version. "A native photosharing experience will be rolled out to 100% of users over the next couple of weeks," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told the D9 Conference. The service means that photos and videos will be directly connected to tweets. They will be viewable on Twitter.com without having to leave the site. Twitter will also "surface the most popular videos and tweets" in a new section of the homepage, Costolo said.

Twittamentary explores how lives meet and affect one another on the fast growing micro-blogging phenomena that is Twitter. Twitter users have contributed stories on a single theme: How Twitter has affected your life and the lives of those around you. What's your Twitter story? The documentary is directed by Singaporean filmmaker and Tweeter, Tan Siok Siok

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?"

Bloomberg's new social media policy encourages reporters to use Twitter - but with stipulations. It might seem like an obvious move for a news organization these days, but some traditional outlets, including Bloomberg, have managed to hold off until now. Dan Fletcher, the new social media director for Bloomberg, told employees about the new policy in an internal memo, which we received from an anonymous source close to the matter. "While the policy is meant to extend broadly across all social networks, we're encouraging reporters and editors to get started with Twitter," he said. "Twitter is easy to use and has become a valuable news source for millions of users. It's the best way to help readers discover the work you're doing and monitoring conversations within your beat."

The Utility of Twitter Lists As the negotiations progressed, it was helpful to monitor a Twitter list of Congress members in order keep up with their feelings about the proposed deals. After the final votes were cast, a stream of tweets from members came pouring through, providing an instant window into how they voted and why they voted the way they did. (thanks CSPAN)

Today, the amazing folk behind the Sesame Street twitter account treated us to an updated version of the much beloved story, The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover. The updated version is There Is a MONSTER at the End of This twitter Conversation. The result, as you will soon see, was something very special, indeed.

"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?"

"Twitter-using Cardinals are going to have to shutter their devices when they all convene to select a new Pope to replace the outgoing Benedict XVI. The 117 Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming Papal Conclave will be barred from tweeting the moment they sit down to make the decision. Like a sequestered jury, the Cardinals will be prohibited from have access with the outside world - and this of course includes Twitter."

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.

"Twitter is a great communication channel and as such, you do find a lot of self-promotion and name dropping. But there is so much more to Twitter. The comment got me thinking, would the critics feel the same if they could see more innovative ways to use it?"

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?"

I've been capturing the Twitter Public Timeline since late 2009.  I have now nearly 6 million records, each one containing the message, of course, but also the name of the user and their "Followers" and "Following" count at that point in time.  I started doing scatter plots of this data and was amazed at the detailed structure evident in the data, that illustrate some interesting ways in which Twitter is being used.  No single graph can show it all, so I'm giving you a series of charts, each one showing an area of the Following/Followers phase space 10ox larger.

Journalist and NYU fellow Nir Rosen probably didn't know he was putting his career in jeopardy when he hit send on Twitter yesterday. After all, it was just one of 600-odd tweets he'd sent since joining the social networking site.   Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson. Where was her buddy McCrystal.   It was probably something the war correspondent would say over a dinner party with buddies. Everyone likes a good joke at the expense of Anderson Cooper, right? The problem is the Twitter dinner party includes the whole world.

An anonymous user created a Twitter account, @superinjunction, with the apparent purpose of posting six tweets about the subjects of various injunctions; including actors, a soccer player and a chef. Now, according to Forbes, the Twitter scoop is "forcing British lawmakers to think about whether such a thing is still feasible in the age of social media, and if it is, how to enforce it."

Is there a bright line between what you say in "real life" and what you say on social media sites like Twitter? If you are a public figure, a journalist, or an employee at a corporation, do your tweets reflect on your organization or are they merely personal opinions best ignored? Is a tweet "newsworthy" or is it something you say in the privacy of your own internet? Derek Andersen of Startup Grind thinks I'm "clueless" (and apparently every other author at Forbes) because I blogged about a tweet that one of EA's product managers made about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. In the tweet, Kevin O'Leary called the franchise "tired." To me, this was an interesting display of rivalry.

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

Suspended British journalist who criticised NBC's Olympics coverage is restored to Twitter, but the backlash shows the social network's growing pains

Nelson Mandela's health scares send Twitter into overdrive, but South African officials made savvier use of social media to keep the world informed on the global icon's latest medical woe.