With eight tweets and more than 700 followers, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is now Tweeting about court decisions and other news.

The Associated Press covered the story, as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News in this article, “Pa. Supreme Court to go on Twitter” by John P. Martin.

You can find the Supreme Court’s Twitter feed here: @SupremeCtofPA.

Photo of the mural on the wall of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chambers by Ruhrfisch on Wikipedia.

Watch How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media on PBS. See more from Metrofocus.

Govloop blogger Scott Burns was on a panel discussing the use of social media by New York City government. He gives us a glimpse into that discussion with his blog post: “How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media” from October 17.

The panel included New York City’s Chief Digital Officer, people from the MTA and the New York City Council, as well as representatives from Microsoft and GovDelivery. If you are interested in social media strategy, measurement, as well as its limitations, this video offers a wealth of information straight from the city’s agencies. You can also find New York Public Media’s Metro Focus coverage of the event here.

Dave Levinthal just published the article “K Street suffers from Twitter jitters” in Politico, where he talks about how lobbyists face a world increasingly using social media.

Members of Congress and their staff are communicating more and more via Facebook and Twitter. So too, many of the companies and organizations that hire lobbyists are employing social media platforms in their communications strategies.

Levinthal’s article explains how lobbyists prefer face-to-face meetings over video conferences or Facebook updates as a way of getting their message across to lawmakers. He also stresses that lobbyists are eager to keep their clients’ information from being broadcast in all directions over social networks.

The article quotes Patton Boggs Chairperson Nick Allard in order to highlight the dilemma: “I’m sure when lawyers or lobbyists used the telegraph for the first time, they faced this kind of issue …  But you cannot be a Luddite and a lobbyist. Luddite lobbyists go out of business.”

What communications will lobbyists embrace in the face of social media? Don’t miss Politico’s analysis.

Photo of the K Street street sign by Ben Shumin on Wikipedia.

Government Technology featured “The Top 10 Government Facebook Pages” on October 14. Govtech’s lists the top Facebook fan pages based on number of people who “liked” them. The top spot surprised me.

Mashable’s Aliza Sherman wrote “4 U.S. Government Agencies Getting Social on YouTube” on October 13. This article reveals how four government agencies are using YouTube.

Code for America lists the cities they will be helping in 2012 in their blog post, “Meet Code for America 2012” by Jennifer Pahlka from October 13. Eight cities are listed, but none from Ohio. Maybe next year…

You can now watch streaming video feed from the U.S. House floor on your mobile device. HouseLive.gov is beta testing the process, which uses Silverlight, Flash, and HTML5. It should be compatible with your Android device, or on an iPhone and iPad.

Alex Howard of Govfresh wrote a great blog about it in “HouseLive.gov embraces open format to bring live video to mobile devices” on October 11.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s blog made the announcement about it here: “House Floor Now Streams to Your Mobile Device via HouseLive.gov” by Don Seymour.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is soliciting comments for possible regulations concerning exceptions to its rules regarding disclaimers on internet communications, hoping to glean insights to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technological advances available to practitioners of campaign finance.

In its draft Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FEC invites comments addressing the ways that campaigns, political committees, and others use or may soon use the internet, mobile devices, and other technologies to disseminate and receive campaign and other electoral information. The Commission is also interested in possible modifications and technological alternatives to the current disclaimer requirements, and data or experiences “in purchasing, selling, or distributing small or character-limited advertisements online.”

The FEC anticipates any final rules would not become effective until after the 2011-2012 election cycle.

TechPresident’s article “How Campaigns’ Use of Facebook Data Might Change the 2012 Election” by Nick Judd explores the role Facebook may play in the 2012 presidential election.

The social media platform not only provides a good civic space for broadcasting political messages, but Judd discusses how services like NGP Van can use Facebook friend lists to find precisely targeted audiences for campaign messages.

In “The Week Ahead in Congress,” Donny Shaw  from Open Congress gives us this week’s agenda for U.S. Congress and the legislation that is being considered.

From Govloop: Christopher Whitaker discusses the ten app winners in round two of the contest where people write helpful apps using open government data from the city of Chicago. “Chicago Apps Contest Round II: Community Apps that bring the civic awesomeness”

From the Washington Post: Marjorie Censer writes about a new government contracting trend in here article “Federal agencies turn to contractors for social media help.”

The American League of Lobbyists website posted a new Lobbyist Certificate Program opportunity – “Effective Communications: Congress and the Media – A Lobbying Certificate Program Session with Media and Issue Ad Experts.” The session will discuss how to use social and traditional media effectively and  how to get a high return on your efforts.

From the Evansville Courier and Press: Ellie Price describes IN.gov’s use of QR codes to bring traffice to government websites in “Indiana to take smartphone plunge.”

I saw this item on Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law blog.

YouTube is now the place to watch the latest political videos with its new YouTube Politics Channel. According to YouTube’s blog, “The new YouTube Politics site will feature the latest campaign ads, parodies, gotchas, and speeches, offering you a 360-view of the election.”

YouTube Politics follows in the footsteps of other Google projects that touch upon politics and elections, such as YouTube News and YouTube Town Hall. Of course since it is YouTube, you will be able to follow each candidate to see how they are doing by seeing their stats – how many video views they have had, how many subscribers, and the quality of the comments they receive.

YouTube’s blog offers this announcement in honor of the event: “YouTube.com/Politics: Tracking the 2012 election campaign through online video” and here is Politico’s coverage of the launch: “Google to Launch YouTube Politics” by Jennifer Martinez.

Indiana’s government website, IN.gov, now boasts 1 million registered users – people who receive emails, text messages, and RSS feeds from the site. IN.gov links to 82 state agency websites and there are 1600 topics to which anyone can subscribe.

Govtech.com reports today about the landmark in the article “1 Million Users Register for Indiana Digital Updates” by Sarah Rich. The article says, “According to Indiana, the state is the first in the country to reach 1 million registered users through GovDelivery.”

It is easy to see why In.gov is such a success. The site is clean, nice-looking, and easily navigable. You can readily find social media links, a subscription menu, transparency information, links for offering suggestions and sending email, and even a QR code.

I couldn’t help but be impressed with the degree to which Indiana’s Office of Technology has done its homework. They have analyzed the usage of the website by monitoring whether the agencies are releasing information regularly for each subscription topic and whether anyone is subscribing to the feed. If not, the topic is removed. They have determined the program has saved them over $200,000 in costs by reducing the need to print and mail information.

State and local governments, take note!

Business experts gave their evaluation of the effectiveness of government apps in Nextgov.com’s article “Government apps: Learning from industry” by Joseph Marks. The article highlights some apps you may not have heard of – an informational app from the Smithsonian, a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder app from the Veterans Administration, and a baby naming app from the Census Bureau, and many others.

Marks discusses the experts’ criteria for their grading, the growth of government use of mobile apps, and some current trends  to watch.

Here is an interactive infographic showing the results of the grading.

More about U.S. Congress and Twitter from techPresident: “New Survey Finds Republicans Tweet More Often, But to Whom?”

Definitely worth a look:  Campaigns and Elections magazine is hosting the 2011 CampaignTech Conference November 10-11 in Washington D.C. “Explore the craft of digital politics and advocacy in the changing landscape of the political online world.” The conference boasts an impressive speaker list. Here is the registration information and their blog. (Thank you, George Ticoras for pointing this one out to me.)

From Luke Fretwell on govfresh: “NAGW honors top government websites.” Here is the National Association of Government Webmasters 2011 Pinnacle Award site. I am excited to say an Ohio city received an award – the City of Montgomery, Ohio won in the “population less than 50,000” category!

You can now see all of the Tennessee governor’s proclamations on the Secretary of State’s website. Here is an article from the Tennessean about the news.

From Federal News Radio: The article “GSA launches YouTube-inspired contest for how-to videos” offers exciting news. It says, “The General Services Administration is giving away $5,000 dollars to social media mavens, who create videos to help people understand federal benefits and services.”

Neighborland is a New Orleans project of Civic Center that was founded by Candy Chang, Tee Parham, and Dan Parham. It harnesses the power of crowdsourcing in order to improve and reinvent their neighborhoods.

The site says: “We love New Orleans. We want Neighborland to be a fun and effective way to make our city a better place.”

Here is how it works:

• Citizens of New Orleans can go to the Neighborland website and fill in the statement –  “I want ____ in my neighborhood.” The idea is to offer something that would make your neighborhood a better place.
• Then they can start a discussion online and campaign for support and votes.
• Hopefully they get enough support to keep the discussion going and figure out how to make their dream a  reality.

Ideas include requesting more bicycle parking in the French Quarter, more transit options to get to the airport, and the opportunity to recycle glass.

Luke Fretwell from Govfresh interviews Co-founder Dan Parham in the article “Here Comes the Neighborland” from July 26.

You can keep up with the lastest news from Neighborland on Twitter and Facebook.

Cities everywhere, take note!

Today, we get two views of the U.S. Congress and its use of Twitter.

Politico published “Survey: Congress uses Twitter more than millennials” by Tim Mak, which says members of Congress have taken to using Twitter more than American people between the ages of 18 and 29. They say 81% of Congress uses Twitter, while 75% of millennials have adopted its use.

An Associated Press survey, which provided those figures, made the comment that in their estimation, members of Congress could better use the social media platform as an opportunity for genuine interaction with that demographic and less as a social media megaphone for their messages.