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Anthony Weiner gets a new handle on Twitter

On balance, there may be worse things in life than sending someone pictures of yourself in your underpants.

However, there may be fewer more ill-advised things, especially if you've never met the recipient and you happen to be a politician held in some regard.

For his intimately twittered transgression, Anthony Weiner paid a certain price and that price was what, in some media, is defined by the word "disgrace." It seems odd that this word might be damning, as it is one so often used to describe politicians.

Some might have imagined that Weiner would seek a quieter, more contemplative life after events which saw the Democratic Representative for New York resign in 2011 for his socially networked unseemliness.

A decent amount of time has passed, however, and Weiner seems to be girding his loins for a run at the mayor's office. With this perhaps in mind, he has returned again to the place of alleged disgrace, Twitter. … Read more

Securities regulators balk at employee social-media privacy

Securities regulators are advocating for special exemptions to new and pending state laws that prevent employers from snooping on employee Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent U.S. securities regulator that seeks to protect investors, is asking lawmakers in around 10 states to amend their legislation to allow financial firms to peak at social media accounts when employee misuse is suspected, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The fear seems to be that brokers could use their social media accounts to spread information that would influence stocks, and that misdeeds would go unchecked without … Read more

Bill Nye, LeVar Burton in first White House Vine

What do you get when you combine some celebrities with serious nerd cred and a few incomplete sentences? The first official Vine from the White House, of course!

Bill Nye the Science Guy, LeVar Burton, and uh, this other woman took a quick 6 seconds to welcome us all to the White House Science Fair in a Vine tweeted out from the official White House Twitter feed today.

Students from across the country were invited to the White House to share their creations -- from marshmallow launchers to robots to 3D-printed widgets -- with the president and others. Some projects also got the Vine treatment. … Read more

Twitter reportedly bags huge payday with 'milestone' ad deal

Twitter's been hammering home its value as an advertising medium, and Madison Avenue is apparently nodding in agreement. The company has reportedly nailed a multiyear deal with Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Financial Times.

It's a big deal -- a really big deal, which the FT describes as a "milestone" -- and one which undergirds the argument the social media giant has been making to advertisers still sitting on the fence about whether to sign on the line which is dotted. According to the report, which … Read more

Six social network 'phones' we'll never see

At last, the Facebook phone has been unveiled, except it's not really a phone, it's more of a suite of apps with a launcher.

Social networks have been able to infiltrate most aspects of our lives so far without having to entangle themselves in the messy business of designing or making a hardware product, so why start now?… Read more

Twitter partners with Comedy Central to host laugh fest

If you've got time for quick joke, Twitter will be the place to be next week.

While there there's already plenty to laugh at on Twitter, the microblogging site is partnering with Comedy Central on a five-day laugh festival that will occur almost entirely on Twitter, according to The New York Times. Comedy legends such as Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner will be joined by young comics in tweeting jokes and posting video clips on Vine, the app Twitter launched in January that allows users to share six-second video clips.

Utilizing Vine's brevity, comedian Steve Agee will … Read more

How Twitter #Music plays to the company's most important asset

Twitter #Music provides people with a striking, and follower-inspired way of listening to music, but don't be fooled by its true purpose. This isn't just about music.

Twitter #Music is about augmenting its follow graph, an important asset that sets Twitter apart from Facebook and others, with explicit data on what members care about.

Twitter's follow graph is a phrase the company uses to describe the map that plots who follows whom. It's a hybrid of a social graph, or a chart of how people relate to other people, and an interest graph, which diagrams how … Read more

TweetDeck mobile and AIR apps to go dark on May 7

The end is nigh for several TweetDeck applications.

The Adobe AIR and mobile versions of the Twitter-owned, power-user-beloved tool for maintaining columns of tweets will cease to exist and stop functioning entirely on May 7, the team said Friday.

TweetDeck first announced in March that it would be shuttering its apps for iPhone, Android, and AIR to solidify its focus on browser-based versions of the service. Not surprisingly, Facebook integration is also going the way of the dodo on May 7, which means TweetDeck will go back to being a Twitter-only service.

"Doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience … Read more

Amazon's new series is decided by you

CNET Update has the power:

Amazon has released pilot episodes for 14 shows, and is asking for feedback from viewers to decide which programs are worthy of continuing. Amazon's dive into original programming comes just as Netflix launches its third series.

Amazon's not the only one with eyes for television. Twitter partnered with BBC America, but details so far are limited to this tweet.

Also mentioned in this tech rundown:

- TomTom dives deeper into the GPS sport watch business

- Review of the updates to the LinkedIn app

- Yahoo launches Mail and Weather apps

- Google launches app One Today for donating to good causes … Read more

Social media as breaking-news feed: Worse information, faster

Early this morning, the public Facebook page called Binders Full of Women apologized for posting Boston police scanner chatter that erroneously identified a missing Brown undergrad as a suspect in this week's Boston Marathon bombings. The Binders Full of Women feed author subsequently deleted the post. Earlier, in the midst of multiple other posts about the unfolding Watertown, Mass., manhunt and shootout that started last night, the author defensively noted that any misinformation must be excused because, "I am NOT a journalist, and I am only relaying information from the [Boston Police Department] scanner and news sources." … Read more