A little over one month ago, Jewish Twitter received a conspicuous new member: Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren (@AmbassadorOren). On his feed (which, he told me, he mostly writes himself), Oren shies from controversy, instead thanking various U.S. dignitaries for visiting or hosting him, linking to op-eds he’s published or speeches he’s given, and wishing folks a happy new week on Saturday evenings.

Diplomacy is usually a nuanced game that can turn on a word and a handshake preferably delivered in private. But no one, it seems, ever told this to Michael A. McFaul. Since his arrival in Moscow as the United States ambassador, he has engaged in frequent back-and-forth sniping with the Russian Foreign Ministry on matters of extraordinary international import like missile defense and the uprising in Syria all within the highly undiplomatic and public arena of the Internet, mostly on Twitter.

All the panelists repeated the mantra at least once or twice each time they spoke: “social media is a TOOL.” Nevertheless, the very first question from the audience was a not so much a question but a statement about the failings of social medial as a substitute for personal contact in diplomacy.

On Thursday, May 17, 2012 I attended the discussion on “Digital Diplomacy: A New Era of Advancing Policy” at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and on Twitter at #DigiDiplomacy. Carnegie had already posted video and audio of the event by early afternoon.

And earlier this year, Ray urged dialogue to address the differences between Harare and Washington...Ray struck a unique connection with Zimbabweans by openly engaging them on Twitter [@charlieray45] and Facebook on a range of subjects.

The Marine Corps decided their own public diplomacy strategy in Afghanistan (though they call it psyops, and other refer to it as propaganda) needed to be evaluated by a third party. They hired the Rand Corporation to review their programs, and then ...published the results, good and bad, for the world to see. Some takeaways...

The majority of U.S. embassies now use Twitter, a sign of the aggressive push by the State Department to bring diplomacy into the social media age. According to a new analysis from the Sunlight Foundation, 121 U.S. embassies have Twitter accounts and 54 do not.

But the rapid-fire pace of social media helped to quickly undercut the official line on what had happened just hours after the agreement was announced, spurring journalists worldwide to follow up. Experts said it was the first time that the digital world has had such a strong sway. In the past, "it might have taken days or months. It wouldn't have taken minutes," said Nicholas Cull, a USC professor of public diplomacy.