In 2010, a French Ambassador posted in the Caucasus explained to me proudly that he was one of the first diplomats from the Quai d’Orsay to run a Facebook account. Two years later, the US Ambassador in Moscow, Michael McFaul, astonished the diplomatic community and Russia by engaging directly with the Russian population. With 55,000 followers on Twitter, he embodied the e-diplomacy revolution.

North Korea has its own version of the iPad—it's called the Samjiyon. Internet access is tightly controlled by the human-rights-allergic regime, so the device is merely another conduit for state propaganda. It comes pre-loaded with games, a multi-language dictionary, and an interesting collection of eBooks in the "foreign literature" section.

With Twitter set to make its debut on American stock exchanges, a critical question looms: Can toppling dictators also be good business? Over the course of its seven-year history, Twitter has gone from scrappy, disorganized start-up to a heavyweight of the social media revolution. In the process, it's become much more than a business. From Tahrir Square to Gezi Park, Twitter has made itself indispensible to activists everywhere, providing a tool to decry abuse, organize protests, and help overthrow bad leaders.

Given revelations of widespread clandestined data collection by the National Security Agency, you'd think the U.S. government would have a PR problem. But that's nothing compared to the tech companies that provided data to the NSA, according to a new study of smart phone users in the U.S.

A controversial internet law prohibiting Vietnamese citizens from posting any content online that harms national security or opposes the state took effect Sunday. The new law, dubbed Decree 72, limits what Vietnamese citizens can post on their online personal pages, including Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Decree 72 does not elaborate on what constitutes a breach.

Abukar Abdulle Mohamed is a busy man. His three phones keep beeping away as he negotiates and shakes hands with a group of mainly middle-aged men. Fifty-four-year-old Mohamed is a livestock trader with more than thirty years experience and has just sold his tenth goat of the day at Hawl Wadaag livestock market in Mogadishu. But he isn’t holding wads of cash in his hands to show for the day’s sales.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs,posted a short piece with six questions about Syria on his Facebook page. 1,100 comments left on the Minister's post until Saturday,30th of August. Some called Zarif on the hypocrisy of criticizing Western intervention as intervention, when Iran has its own presence on the ground.

Digital diplomacy, the hipster cousin of public diplomacy, has been enjoying something of a Golden Age recently, with any (Western) diplomat or minister of any note (and the more forward looking senior officials too) offering digital pronouncements, policy engagement and two-way conversations as a mechanic for gathering support and understanding around often complex areas of foreign affairs.