Some big names in social media are using their online networks to draw attention to the problem of malaria's devastating effects in much of the world, all part of a UN initiative:

Today, United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, announced the formation of a Social Media Envoy group chartered with inspiring and activating social media audiences throughout the year in support of malaria control. The Social Media Envoys are dedicated to utilizing their social profile to keep online and offline media audiences focused on the movement, milestones and resources required to achieve the Secretary-General’s goal of providing all endemic African countries with malaria control interventions by the end of 2010.

“In our efforts to reach the Secretary-General’s 2010 goal of universal bed net coverage, and to reach the longer term goal of near-zero deaths from malaria by 2015, it is critical that acceleration continue in the malaria control movement,” said Ray Chambers, United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria. “Social media content and user driven syndication have proven to be exceptional media assets in generating action behind, elevating awareness of, and increasing resources for global malaria efforts. With our malaria-related objectives within sight, this influential group of Social Media Envoys will help us exceed our awareness goals throughout the year.”

The Social Media Envoys have agreed to take one social action, such as a tweet on Twitter or wall post on Facebook, in support of malaria control each month for 12 consecutive months. The first organized social action from this group will take place on World Malaria Day, April 25, 2010. The Social Media Envoys have been selected by the Special Envoy for Malaria due to the influence, size and engagement of their Social Web and broadcast audiences.

The "Social Media Envoys" for malaria include Cory Booker, Anderson Cooper, Guy Kawasaki, Ryan Seacrest, and Biz Stone. Mayor Booker, for one, has already fulfilled his quota for this month, tweeting out to his million-plus followers, "Every 30 seconds a child dies of MALARIA, this is a statistic we plan to change" -- with a link back to the press release announcing the social media envoy program. (via @KateatState)

Credit: U.S. Army

The Defense Department high-ups have announced a new policy that creates the assumption that U.S. military personnel will be able to use U.S. military networks to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, what have you, as the New York Times has reported.

That's good news for folks who believe that social media can serve as a lifeline, outlet, and connector for soldiers and other fighting men and women. But the new Pentagon policy that removes default social media blacklists doesn't necessarily mean that, in practice, those in uniform will be unrestricted in how they choose to use tech, at home and while out in the field. In announcing the policy (on Twitter, natch), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Price Floyd boiled it down to this: "What does DoD social media policy mean to you? Ideally more access, and broad DoD policy cover supporting SM which we currently don't have." Note the "ideally" in there.

In other words, it isn't at all a given that what the Pentagon executive suite in Arlington pronounces about social media trickles down to the various branches of the military -- not to mention the various sub-units and sub-sub-units of the armed forces. But what the new DOD embrace of online tools does do is to lay out a grand principle that the men and women of the military will, likely, have to fight to defend.

Credit: Cory Booker/Facebook

Not for nothing is Newark's Cory Booker considered the second most "social" mayor in the country.

Booker -- an active, frequent, and creative Twitterer -- has argued, quite convincingly, that social media can help the city of Newark confront its considerable "reputational problems." Via Twitter, Facebook, and fake feuds with Conan O'Brien, Booker has been aggressive about pushing out into the world an alternative narrative about the city he leads.

Credit: Cory Booker/Twitter

Booker's latest social media move: getting in front of a story that broke late yesterday about a former Deputy Mayor Ronald Salahuddin had been indicted on extortion and bribery charges in the context of city contracts he awarded.

The story has gotten little play, really, and where some mayors might have chosen to enjoy its low profile, Booker has gone another route: drawing attention to the corruption episode and using it as what we might call a teaching moment. "Big violation of my and public trust today regarding one of my former employees," Booker tweeted out at 4pm EST yesterday to his 1,077,000 Twitter followers -- or four for every actual resident of Newark. "Stay tuned."

Later in the evening, Booker tweeted out a pointer to his Facebook page, where he had posted a high-def two minute video on the Salahuddin corruption charges and what they meant for Newark. (Booker has 20,000 Facebook fans.) The middle of the clip is a segment from a press availability Booker gave on the indictment. But bookending that footage is Booker, looking directly into the camera, offering what comes across as a more human and more personal response to the unpleasantness of his former aide's indictment.

"I hope that was helpful," Booker says of the news footage. "And what I really want to say to residents of the city of Newark and supporters of our city is that we cannot let anything make us cynical or jaded. That we have to believe in who we are, and in the greatness of Newark and the collective. There are going to be tough days." But, he says, as he wraps the Facebook video, "I believe in us."

W. David Stephenson is a government/enterprise 2.0 consultant, with particular interest in homeland security and disaster response.

Initial news out of Haiti after the earthquake came primarily through cellphones, gathered and disseminated by social media such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, and agencies such as the State Department have used Twitter and Facebook to spread news about the response. A survivor pulled from the rubble after 65 hours treated his serious injuries using a first aid app. on his iPhone .

As vital as these technologies’ critical role in sharing information is, there’s an equally important but less understood factor that no other communications medium offers: mobile devices plus social media  promote exactly the kind of ad hoc collaborative behavior that experts say is vital in disaster situations...

It seems appropriate to briefly interrupt today's radio silence to take note of the historic fact that President Barack Obama has tweeted for the very first time. Repeat, President Barack Obama has tweeted for the very first time. Those of you reading along in the privacy of your own homes, please make spirited "wooo, wooo, wooo" noises at this point.

Now, some of you are thinking, first time? What tha? What about the hundred-plus tweets on the @barackobama account? Seriously though, it should surprise just about no one that all of those postings under Obama banner during the campaign, transistion, and early presidency weren't actually typed out by Barack Obama. This is what staffers were created for. There is, in fact, a good chance that when you get an email from any politician asking for your support or thanking you for your contribution, he or she didn't write that either. Please break it to the children gently.

Of course, much was made during the campaign over the fact that John McCain described himself as a computer illiterate. But anyone running a presidential campaign -- or country -- is as much a CEO as anything else. And the expectation that a campaign principles are behind each and every online interaction can begin to seem like a unfulfilling target for a hunger for political authenticity. Whether or not a Obama or McCain "tweeted" or texted or blogged himself always seemed to be more an easy way to encapsulate a way of thinking about a candidate's approach the relationship between people and politics than being actually significant in and of itself.

But enough chatter. The big news today is that, while on a visit to the Red Cross mission control center for Haiti, President Obama pushed "enter" on a tweet. If anything meaningful can actually be made of the episode, it is perhaps that it shows how utterly central Twitter, text messaging and other social media has been to the Red Cross's relief efforts when it comes to Haiti. The Red Cross is reporting, for example, that their text messaging program (text HAITI to 90999 to add a $10 donation to the Red Cross to your mobile phone bill) has already raised a remarkable $13 $22 million.

But Obama's first unstaffed Twitter post isn't exactly a demonstration of the President's mastery of the nuanced art that is good tweeting. If the Red Cross's Twitter stream is to be believed, what Obama posted was a tweet written by someone else noting that "President Obama and the First Lady are here visiting our disaster operation center right now." So where we once had other people tweeting for Obama, now we have Obama tweeting for other people. We're getting closer...

Liberal Democrats, who make up a small minority of the British Parliament, are more likely to feel positive about social media's impact on politics than their counterparts in either the Labour or Conservative Parties are, a finding that echoes a sort of working assumption in our corner of the world that the Internet is more friendly to insurgents than incumbents.

That's one tidbit in a new report on digital political engagement by Members of Parliament in the UK, put out by the Hansard Society with support from Microsoft. The study generally focuses much more on quantity -- the raw numbers of MPs using email, blogs, IM, and the like -- than the quality of what they're doing online. But the Hansard researchers drew out some compelling evidence on the political use of tech from a pool of legislators that is about two and a half times the size of the U.S. Congress.

Other tidbits on how MPs breakdown in their affection for an use of online tools: Welsh MPs are more enamored with connective technologies than their peer group, while MPs from Northern Ireland see web-based campaigning as a net negative. Women MPs are more likely to use social networking, 35% to 20% of their male counterparts. Age is predictive of social media adoption -- just 18% of those MPs born between 1940 and 1960 do any kind of online social networking, compared to 38% of post-1960's babies -- but length of service is an indicator too. A full 40% of those MPs who took office in 2005 or more recently use social networking, while just 5% of those elected in or before 1986 do, a finding that, says the report, "is only partially explained by age."

You can check out the full report here.

For at least an hour yesterday, Twitter was brought low by a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" in what might be ready as either a strike at how the communications platform was used to organize and publicize Iran's post-election protests this summer, or a more direct hit at how officials at the U.S. State Department called on the San Francisco-based company to bypass a planned downtime to aide Iranian protestors. The website of the Iranian opposition group Green Wave of Freedom was similarly hacked.

The attack, it seems, involved redirecting the DNS records of Twitter.com to point to a homepage that, according to the BBC, read in English translation, "USA think they controlling and managing internet by their access, but they don't, we control and manage internet by our power." (One way to think about how DNS redirects work is to think of tweaking phone company records so that instead of, say, 867-5309, ringing at Jenny's house, it rings at Susie's. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone commented on the episode on the company blog by writing that, "Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed.")

For a time during the attack, Google's search result for Twitter, reported TechCrunch, seemed to even more directly tie the DNS action to the contact this June between State Department Policy Planning Staff staffer Jared Cohen and Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey where Cohen, it seems, encouraged Dorsey not to go through with a scheduled maintenance period during the Tehran protests. "In the name of God," read the Google search result squib, "As an Iranian this is a reaction to Twitter’s interference sly which was U.S. authorities ordered in the internal affairs of my country…"

The Hillary Clinton-led State Department's technology-empowered 21st Century Statecraft Initiative has been getting a lot of press attention lately, and the State Department has attempted to frame the new approach to global engagement as coming from an open-ended desire to foster conversations and collaborations. During the June Twitter affair, a State Department spokesperson said, "We are proponents of freedom of expression. Information should be used as a way to promote freedom of expression."

It's clear that at least some of those who don't appreciate America's aims in the world see its involvement in social media as something potentially very political indeed. Twitter -- and the State Department -- might want to take it as a badge of honor that their nascent efforts are able to elicit such a targeted response as yesterday's episode. That said, if outfits like Twitter are going to be major players on the world stage, they might want to think about doing a better job of protecting their DNS. (Photo credit: Dalantech)

An interesting little practice we just noticed at play on the State Department's DipNote Twitter feed: since several different folks regularly tweet on behalf of the institutional behemoth, they try to put a more personal face on things by letting us know which of the State Department's 50,000 or so staffers is "on duty" at any one time.

"Smart power meets smart design." How's that for killing two messaging birds with one stone?

Secretary Hillary Clinton's State Department and its new media team, led by Clinton presidential campaign veteran Katie Dowd, has just launched a revamped State.gov website. Driving the redesign was the idea that the State Department's online presence could do a better job of handling the more, well, boring part of its responsibilities -- assisting travelers with passports, circulating travel advisories -- while also boosting the profile of the more exciting elements of its mission: namely spearheading U.S. foreign policy around the globe.

Gone are the old pro forma website verticals like press information, career postings, and resources for kids and other young one. Now, State.gov's site navigation draws attention to the ambitious policy thrusts that Secretary Clinton would like to make the centerpieces of her tenure at the department. Headlining the site now are tabs for Economics & Energy, Arms Control & Security, Democracy & Global Affairs, Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs, and similarly weighty topics. And, reflecting Clinton's rather remarkable public embrace of all things social media since she's become Secretary of State, the site gives prime homepage real estate to both Twitter and the department's frequently updated DipNote blog.

"Secretary Clinton has long recognized the power of the Internet and its embodiment of the fundamental democratic principals of our nation," Dowd tells techPresident, echoing a recent push by the State Department to embue digital technologies with political meaning under the banner of 21st Century Statecraft. "She is devoted to growing worldwide public engagement, with State.gov serving as a vital component of this effort."

Now maybe Clinton can have a word with her old colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee about their website -- which looks like it hasn't been polished since 1998.

A message from Secretary Clinton about the new site:

So, who else pictures Air America's Ana Marie Cox and the Huffington Post's Jason Linkins knocking back whiskey shots as they annotate the White House Flickr feed? In this latest installment, White House photographer Pete Souza -- and his penchant for composing every shot where some natural obstacle is framing the images' principles -- comes in for special mocking. The pair also don't make much of the idea bandied about that somehow having someone paid to photograph the president creates a new level of transparency. You do get to see the fancy gowns and dapper suits people wear to parties, though. (Not really safe for work, unless you work somewhere swearing is encouraged.)

Here's Cox and Linkins' commentary on the shot above, taken on the White House's South Lawn:

Ana Marie: People tell you there's a photograph out there of Michelle hula-hooping, and you think, no, that's not possible.
Jason: But there is.
Ana Marie: That is the age in which we live.

More here.