Evgeny Morozov, a noted specialist on the use of new communications technologies to promote democratic values, has a new book titled "The Net Delusion: The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom." In it, he argues that hype about "Twitter revolutions" and the enormous potential of the Internet to promote open societies and roll back authoritarianism is naive and overblown.

Although still a relatively young technology, social networking is already a global phenomenon. In regions around the world – and in countries with varying levels of economic development – people who use the internet are using it for social networking. And this is particularly true of young people

"If the church is not on their mobile device, it doesn't exist," he said, likening social media to a "new digital continent" waiting to be evangelized.

The Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs was on Thursday given the prestigious India eGov 2.0 Awards 2010 for the most innovative use of social media and Web 2.0 tools in government. The event was held in the evening at the Hotel Claridges in Central Delhi.

Up until last year, according to a report in the New York Times, the US State Department was still doing things the traditional way: through diplomatic cables, official communiqués and government to government transactions involving diplomats travelling to other countries to negotiate agreements.

Peace talks beginning today in Washington between Israelis and Palestinians will prompt the use of the new accounts to communicate events and news from the talks. Although Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office has had an official website for some time Netanyahu apparently realizes the benefits of using social networking sites to get his message across more widely.

Hear the words “Foreign and Commonwealth Office” and you might think of fusty old English ambassadors sat behind oaken desks reading leather-bound books. It turns out they’re more likely to be tweeting a link to their latest Flickr photo set these days.

Twitter has had a phenomenological influence on the international news media in the post-Iranian elections period in June 2009 onwards. Through the continuous 24 hour- cycle of tweets, the micro-blogging site was challenging the censorship applied by the Iranian government on all news media covering the confrontations following the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . After years of state monopoly and censorship twitter and other social media sites and applications are making governments more concerned over news.