Diplomats in all parts of Canada's Beijing embassy are being encouraged to learn how to use China's version of Twitter. The embassy launched a "weibo" microblog account on Chinese Internet portal Sina.com in June 2011. But internal Foreign Affairs documents show that not all Canadian diplomats rushed to type out 140-Chinese character updates when the account went up.

"If somebody thinks that 140 characters is the diplomatic solution to solving the world’s problems then we’ve got a big problem. Twitter really wasn't created for diplomacy. Twitter’s not even created to have a conversation," he said.

For Olympics organizers who pride themselves on putting on a carefully choreographed — obsessively controlled, some would say — 17-day show, the bursts of Twitter activity are like gamma rays escaping from a solar flare. They're impossible to stop and spellbinding to behold.

The London 2012 Games have been touted as the first Olympics to live fully in the age of social media. After all, the organization's Twitter feed has nearly 1.4 million followers...But a rash of scandals and news related to Twitter has put a new mark on the face of these games. And, as they say, it ain't pretty.

The following list of current, ongoing, and planned Department of Defense Science and Technology Strategic Communication (SC) programs was taken from the 2009 Strategic Communication Science and Technology Plan compiled by the Defense Research and Engineering Rapid Reaction Technology Office.

The opening weekend of the London 2012 Olympics saw medals, shocks, world records and controversy...The London Games have been dubbed the most social yet, with the organizers encouraging the athletes and fans to use social media. Here are the highlights from the opening weekend.