Citizens in Egypt have been using Twitter, Facebook and other pathways of the Internet to communicate to the outside world, challenging the government of President Hosni Mubarak. Authorities have shut down Internet services, but protesters are finding ways to get information out and organize mass rallies. While Egypt's government has to shut down Internet services, the U.S. State department is using Twitter and other social media service for statecraft and diplomacy.

We're two years into the Obama administration, and many are measuring how President Obama's government has delivered on Candidate Obama's campaign promises. Here's a look at how he's done on technology policy.

The State Department is tightening its embrace of Twitter and other social media as crises grip the Middle East and Haiti, with officials finding new voice, cheek and influence in the era of digital diplomacy.

There was an odd tweet yesterday from Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It reads, "We can't leave the digital playing field to Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. This... shows need for 21st Century Statecraft."

HILLARY Clinton wants to change the face of diplomacy, and she is calling on all Americans to help her do it. The US Secretary of State spoke before hundreds in San Francisco on Friday, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, to share her efforts at bolstering US foreign relations and her vision of expanding US diplomacy using technology and other means.

To head this division, the search engine titan has tapped a former State Department official “Jared Cohen” who is credited with assisting to bring social networking and other Web 2.0 tools to US diplomacy now heading to Google to form a new Think/do Tank called “Google Ideas”. Today that became official.

In July 2010, the Ministry of External Affairs sent its first ‘tweet’ through its official Twitter account, thus pulling India into the age of digital diplomacy. Despite being an information technology powerhouse, India is a late entrant in using tools of e-diplomacy...it is an apt moment to reflect on changes affecting the country’s diplomatic representation abroad. The basic change relates to the backdrop of India’s rising stock in the world.

The July/August issue of PDiN Monitor, the electronic review of public diplomacy in the news by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, focuses on the subject of Digital Diplomacy.