enter search terms to see snapshot of related activity in the latest 500 tweets. TwXplorer will break down the most common terms, hashtags, and links for you to filter and drill down further." An API would be awesome.

"some solid rules for when it's cool and when it's creepy to contact a journalist. Here are 10 tips on how to pitch a journalist on social media, largely based on the experiences of Mashable's editorial team. "

"Grabbing the attention and interest of online consumers can feel like a full-time job.... So what’s an author lacking infinite hours in a day to do? Incorporate automation! ... I use it to delegate low-payoff activities and focus squarely on what matters most – building relationships." - Five great tools for boosting the effectiveness of social…

"the lifespan of your link is connected more to what content it points to than on where you post it: on the social web it’s all about what you share, not where you share it!"

"Almost six months after RebelMouse launched, the service is finding a home in the digital journalist’s toolbox."

"A recent study by Facebook analytics service EdgeRank Checker states that posts with hashtags do not have as great of reach than those without."

"Illustrator Steve Lowtwait and writer Michael Smith are telling a fictional story through social media that's centered around a protagonist called "Hawk Funn." They have set up real social profiles on Facebook and Twitter for fictional characters in the story, and they post about the characters' lives just like real people would. If you follow Ha…

"When a crisis like this happens, and you’re in the wrong, the mob is in charge of your brand. " - good advice for handling a crisis, and good techniques for monitoring sentiment

we are headed into the fourth phase of social media... will see streams become primary design elements of operating systems for computing and mobile devices... all media types will be resolved in place, in the stream

The ever-excellent For Immediate Release (episode 638) put me onto 10 things you still need to know about social media / social business, by Olivier Blanchard (aka the Brand Builder), which sounds like every other post you've ever hear of. But it's worth a read...

At last, an opportunity to blog about gardening and EU comms in the same post.

On November 8, MEPs will discuss '10 concrete political proposals' for creating the European public sphere via digital media, developed by IHECS (Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales) and their partners via Socialeuropeanjournalism.com.

Last year, in the runup to the first EuropCom conference, I gave it a bit of a hard time. My cynicism was confirmed by many I knew who went, describing it as a conference about Web2 and social media which allowed little or no participation. Oops.

The subject of Klout has come up a few times on Twitter, so I'm posting this so I can point people toward a few articles I've found useful. Something I can't do in 140 characters. Which proves my eventual point.

"The Filter Bubble", by MoveOn.org foreign policy director Eli Pariser, shows that the forces creating the Brussels Bubble are about to be reinforced by technology, operated invisibly - and with impunity - by a handful of companies.

A few weeks before the Hungarian media storm broke late last year, the BloggingPortal editors were contacted by the (then upcoming) Hungarian Presidency team, seeking ideas for how they could cooperate with the Euroblogosphere. Being a loosely-at-best organised gang of volunteers, it took us a while to respond. To their immense credit...

A while ago I posted the idea that EUROPA could suffer if the EU Institution's limited online communications resources were refocused on social media. While social media offers the EU a great deal, this could be a serious problem, particularly given EUROPA's importance to any EU social media strategy. Commenters seemed to both agree and disagree...

A longer version of an article I published recently in NewEurope

Next week will see yet another physical meeting in Brussels dedicated to exploring the European public space, an irony which appears permanently lost to the organisers of the neverending stream of conferences, seminars and workshops which can be only attended by Brussels Bubble Insiders, and have neither webstreaming nor any online community (Euro…

That's right - curation. Now officially Web2.0-buzzword-of-the-month (not quite sure which one).

One of the topics I've been developing on this blog for quite some time came up at last week's get-together organised by the Belgian IABC chapter: the need (or not) for social media guidelines for EU staff.

A Twitter conversation betweentwo much-followed EU-oriented bloggers over the weekend caught my eye. I won't identify them as you need to follow them on Twitter to see their tweets.It started when one asked whether anyone out there"still thinks that blogging is in any way likely to have an impact ... why should anyone listen to us? We st…

PR firm interns posting fake reviews about iPhone apps for their clients. Ghost blogging and tweeting by just about everyone, including thought-leaders in social media.  Bloggers not disclosing sponsorship. It's just a matter of time before someone poisons the well for EU social media.

Over on the Belgian IABC's web2eu site, Philip Weiss embedded a TED video of Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, discussing the revolutionary impact of social media. It's really so good I thought I'd repost it here and add some observations

Julien Frisch blogged about a very thoughtful post on writing for (y)EU by Steve, a web editor from the EP, who sounds distressingly like me (white, British, 40s and sceptical about the Generation Y definition of 'friend' despite having many) and seems to be coming down from a post-holiday Web2.0 overdose. The key paragraph, highlighted …