Notice anything different?

If you’re looking at this on a reader, you won’t be able to tell.

But if you’re reading this on my blog, it should be obvious something’s changed.

As of today, I’ve joined the BlogHer ad network. You can tell by the ad in the far right-hand column. In the future you may see a second small BlogHer ad here as well.

After two-plus years of blogging purely to keep up with the times and share a career’s worth of accumulated wisdom about writing, journalism and freelancing, I was ready to explore turning my little enterprise from a nonprofit to a money-making venture – to develop an alternative revenue stream as they say.

When it comes to ad networks, bloggers have a lot of options.

BlogHer wasn’t an obvious choice for me. Although I’m a mom and a blogger, I’m not a mommy blogger, a fact that kept me from investigating BlogHer and similar networks for some time.

But when I did, I found a lot of compelling reasons to join. The BlogHer network has 2,500 bloggers, not a huge number, which gives WordCount a chance to stand out. There aren’t a lot of other BlogHer blogs covering freelancing or the media business, another opportunity for me to shine. BlogHer has grown beyond its initial mommy blogger roots: the company recently announced an initiative with The White House Project to get more women to run for office in 2010.  With more than 20 million unique visitors a month, it’s getting noticed: BusinessWeek included the Belmont, California company in its February 2010 list of America’s Most Promising Startups. Writing in Forbes, in November 2009, CBS anchor Katie Couric included BlogHer cofounders Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins and Elisa Camahort Page in a list of the most powerful people in new media.

I also picked BlogHer because it maintains a newspaper-type editorial code when it comes to bloggers accepting free gifts and junkets. At a time when many bloggers think it’s OK to take free stuff and write positive things about the companies that gave it to them – with or without acknowledging the relationship – I appreciate that BlogHer holds contributors to a higher standard. You can read the entire editorial policy here.

Have I sold out? You could say that. Am I OK with it? It took me a while, but yes, I am. Do I expect to make lots of money? Not at first. I see it as the latest step on my journey as an journalist entrepreneur.

(Updated with additional info @ 2:11 p.m. 9/23/09)

To say Matt Mullenweg loves WordPress is to state the obvious.

Mullenweg created the widely used blogging software and runs Automattic, the San Francisco company that offers it as a free platform or a software app you can use to run a self-hosted blog. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com for this blog.)

Mullenweg was in Portland last weekend to spread some of that WordPress love around at WordCampPortland, one of many conferences for WordPress disciples that’s cropped around the country in the past few years.

Work obligations kept me from going in person. But I listened to Mullenweg over a live stream that WordCampPortland organizers set up so anybody could feel like they were part of the party no matter where they were – except for the beer. Unfortunately nobody’s managed to live stream a keg, but given enough time I’m sure Portland’s developer community will figure it out one day. But I digress. As of Sept. 22, WordCampPortland organizer Aaron Hockley was still working on getting a recording of Mullenweg’s talk and the rest of the live stream online. Check here for more info.

Mullenweg, 25, has obviously talked about WordPress a million times because he’s one smooth presenter. In fact, if you followed my tweets at #wcpdx, you probably read me say Matt Mullenweg is the Justin Timberlake of blogging: funny, smart, cute and a natural in front of a crowd. Again, I digress.

In an extended Q&A session with the WordPress faithful at the two-day meeting, Mullenweg touched on a number of issues of interest to writers who blog and bloggers who write. Here’s a quick summary:

Blogs as websites – More people are using blogging software such as WordPress as a content management system. That’s a fancy way of saying they’re using a blog as a Website. When Mullenweg asked for a show of hands, about 90 percent of the people at WordCampPortland indicated that’s how they use WordPress. The number of freelance writers using blogs as websites might not be as high, but my guess is it’s large and growing. Here’s an example of what a blog doubling as a Website could look like, this brochure site for pianist Jane Coop.

Word and Wordpress – I write posts in the editor built into WordPress.com. It works for me. But I know other writer-bloggers who prefer Microsoft Live Writer or another editor. I didn’t realize until Mullenweg mentioned it that it’s also possible to write posts in Word. Possible, but messy – unless you use a tool on the WordPress editor to delete a lot of extraneous code Word adds when you copy and paste text into the WordPress.com editor. You’ll find instructions explaining how to fix that in a post on the WordPress.com Support forum called Microsoft Word. Thanks to fellow freelance writer @JaneLangille for finding that and sharing it with me.

One-button upgrades – With a little coding, it’s possible to upgrade your self-hosted WordPress blog to the newest version of the software with a touch of a button. True confessions: I didn’t take notes fast enough on this topic. If there’s anyone out there reading this who caught this part of Mullenweg’s presentation or knows more about this, please leave a comment and I’ll update this portion of the post with the info. Update: The latest version of the WordPress.org software allows for one-click upgrades. See explanation from @verso below.

You can hear from Mullenweg on WordPress and related subjects in an interview he did on the local Strange Love Live podcast radio show between WordCampPortland sessions.

Never been to a WordCamp? You can read first-hand accounts of two people’s experiences here and here (caution, technical language ahead), then check out WordCamp Central’s upcoming events to check if there’s one scheduled for your area soon, or here to organize your own.

You’ll probably see more from me about WordPress in coming weeks as I move this site from the free Wordpress.com service to the hosted WordPress.org service. Actually, I’ve hired someone else to do the heavy lifting – thanks Ron! – but I’ll be doing a fair amount of work as well. Cleaner design, same content.

Got your own WordPress love story? Do share.

Tribes, marketing guru Seth Godin’s 2008 book, is all about the groups people identify with. Godin posits that the Internet helps make it easier for individuals to be leaders and form tribes with others who share their interests, be it for work, faith or fun.

It’s got me contemplating my own tribes. There are the obvious ones – my extended family, the parents of children my kids go to school with, friends I went to high school or college with.

Then there are the writing tribes I belong to. When I worked at a daily newspaper, the other reporters were my tribe.

When I went freelance, not only did I lose my full-time paycheck, I lost my tribe. Instead of being part of a pack of 300, suddenly I was on my own – at least that’s what it felt like at the time.

It’s partly the reason journalists – anybody really – feel discombobulated after losing a job. Suddenly the tribe you’ve identified with for as long as you held that job has vanished.

But as Godin points out, the Internet is the perfect tribe-making tool because it makes communicating so easy. First it was through email listservs, then IM and chat rooms on online services like AOL, then the Web, blogs, and now the ultimate tribal circles, social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn and so on and so on.

Today, I’m part of several writing tribes. Knit them together and they’re the buddy system I lost when I left the newsroom. They’ve become intrinsic to my professional identity.

My tribes:

Freelance Success – A subscription-based writer’s community with a weekly newsletter and pay-rate database. For me and many of the hundreds of professional writers who pay the site’s $99 annual fee, the best part is the message boards, which are active, civil and cover topics such as magazines, corporate writing, blogs, travel writing and books.

#EditorChat - A weekly online chat on FriendFeed.com hosted by Motley Fool finance writer Tim Beyers and business feature writer Lydia Dishman that takes on all manner of subjects writers and editors care about. #Editorchat happens Wednesday nights at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. The latest discussion covered the types of work or household tasks freelancers outsource to buy themselves more time to work – or would if they could afford it. Earlier discussions have covered the New York Times’ decision to have columnists teach online classes, writing for content aggregators and hyperlocal news.

Twitter – Writers use Twitter many ways – to connect with sources, promote a story, showcase a blog. Another is to synch up with fellow writers. I follow several hundred writers and editors and am followed by a like number. We use it like a mini-message board, to share tips, answer quick questions or exchange atta boys. If you’re a writer, follow me at
@MichelleRafter and I’ll follow you back.

Portland digital media scene – A collection of writers, bloggers, podcasters, software developers and other media types with one thing in common – living and working here in Portland. This is probably the most loosely defined tribe I’m in. Portland’s media tribe hangs out at the Green Dragon on Fridays for Beer and Blog, goes to WordPress user groups meetings and WordCamp Portland (the next one’s Sept. 19-20 at Webtrends), and congregates at Mediabistro.com cocktail parties (which, BTW, somebody needs to resurrect – Mediabistro, if you read this, I’m happy to volunteer). The area’s digerati coalesced in the biggest way ever when more than 150 locals got together at the Digital Journalism Camp in August to listen to panels on hyperlocal news, new revenue models, podcasting and more.

UPOD – A Yahoo group for experienced freelancers led by Los Angeles freelancer David Hochman that I tune into via email.

Online News Association – This trade group for professional journalists who specialize in digital media has benefited from the demise of traditional (print) media in the past year, witnessed by a major uptick in membership. The group holds an annual convention – this year’s is in San Francisco Oct. 2-4 and I’ll be there – regular online and in-person classes, an online journalism awards competition, member discussion forum and offers other benefits and resources.

These tribes have become the places I look for help, bounce ideas off people, blow off steam when I’m frustrated with a story or editor or visit when I just want to talk.

As more people work freelance – not just writers but all kinds of freelancers – expect to see more tribes. That’s what all the fuss is over social networks, which ones are the best tool for creating tribes. It’s why Facebook and Twitter are such big news, why investors still pour money into social network start ups and everyone from job boards to media outlets are tacking on a community component to their websites – think of it as tribal warfare.

Are you in a tribe?

Social media has made a PR rep’s job harder.

Should you ask before following a reporter on Twitter? Is it OK to respond to a HARO request even though the expert you represent only kinda sorta knows about the issue? Is it ever OK to just pick up the phone and call someone?

No, no and no.

I don’t claim to be the Emily Post of PR-reporter netiquette. But I’ve spent enough time on the news side of that particular fence and been online since the dawn of email to have formed strong opinions as a result, opinions that based on my conversations with other reporters and freelancers, are widely shared.

If you represent a company or organization dealing with news media and wonder how email and social media fit in, here are some pointers:

DO

* Email your press release – But don’t follow up to find out if I got it, read it, like it, want to use it. If I do, I’ll be in touch.

* Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn – So when I am looking for sources you’ll know right away.

* Respond to my tweet, LinkedIn question or HARO request – If the professor, company, non-profit or other source you represent fits my need as I’ve outlined it.

* Cover yourself – If the organization you represent makes a huge announcement and you’re not going to be around to handle reporters’ calls.

* Promptly follow up interviews – With any additional facts or materials your organization’s source promises to get to me.

* Tweet me to pitch a story idea – Or at least to see if I’m interested. Love the 140-character cut off – it keeps pitches from running on and on. If I like it, I’ll ask for more details in an email.

DON’T

* Call me – That’s why email was invented.

* Futz around making press releases arty or pretty – All I need are facts, contact information and links to pertinent websites.

* Ask what I’m working on – Chances are I can’t or won’t tell you.

* Respond to HARO requests with sources that aren’t related to the topic – FAIL. Don’t expect a quick reply either. A single HARO request can elicit dozens of replies. I try to answer all of them, even if it’s just to say thanks but no thanks. But if I’m on deadline I might not have the time. I will, however, save them for the next time I’m writing on that topic.

* Ask me to sign a non-disclosure agreement – Been there, done that, got burned, won’t get burned again.

* Ask me to send you a link to the story when it comes out – I’ll say yes because I’m polite that way, but by the time it does come out I’ll have forgotten or will be on another deadline.

* Invite me for coffee or lunch to hear about what I do – Unless it’s something I’m actively working on I can’t take that much time out of my day. If I want a F2F interview with your client, I’ll let you know. Or go to national or local meetings for the industries or subjects I write about – I’ll be in networking mode and will be happy to meet you and talk about your client.

* Friend me on Facebook – It’s the one social network I reserve for friends and family.

It wasn’t so long ago I was telling anyone who’d listen why I didn’t use Twitter.

Then I started using Twitter.

And never stopped. For the last eight months I’ve tweeted every day, with the occasional weekend off. I tweet eight, 10, 12 times a day: when I put up a new blog post, when one of my stories is published, when I need a source, when a random thought simply needs to be shared – though in hindsight some of those would have been better left unsaid.

Until last week.

I took an honest-to-goodness vacation away from email, blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn and everything connected to being connected.

Guess what?

The sky didn’t fall. The earth stayed on its axis. And the bottom didn’t fall out of my business – I even had a few assignments in my inbox when I got back.

It was easier than I thought to unplug. It helped to be stuck with the middle of nowhere, the only available Internet access whatever could be siphoned off a neighbor’s unsecured wireless connection.

Going without was good for the soul and apparently didn’t hurt my standing on Twitter – I returned to a few dozen new followers.

So how to unplug?

Tell people you’re leaving. If you stop tweeting without explanation, followers may think you’ve given up on Twitter. Give them a head’s up. If you don’t want to broadcast the fact that you’re leaving town for safety reasons, be a bit cagey about what you’re doing. “I’ll be taking a break from here for the next few days” works. So does “Busy elsewhere. See everyone in a week.”

Automate. If you can’t bear going a whole week without saying something, use a tool such as TweetLater or TwitResponse to send tweets at predesignated intervals in your absence.

Go mobile. Leave your laptop home and tweet from your iPhone or BlackBerry using an application like Twitterrific, PocketTweets or TwitterBerry. Twitter’s applications list has a lot more.

Tweet from vacation, sparingly. Who wants to spend their precious downtime tethered to a machine, even if it’s only a cell phone? Limit the number of times you log on. Or allow yourself a specific time of day or amount of time to check in, update your status and upload vacation pics.

Then go play.

Got your own story of going off the social media grid? Share!

A while back, I urged freelance writers who were thinking of working for content sites like Helium.com or Demand Studios to take a stab at hyperlocal news instead.

Hyperlocal news is a catch-all phrase that describes websites or blogs devoted to covering a city, town or neighborhood, or a specific beat within a city or neighborhood like biking, books or tech start ups. Think of them as the 21st century equivalent of the neighborhood paper you used to pick up on the street corner, or the weekly paper your parents subscribed to so they could read about your high school sports teams.

Hyperlocal news ventures have popped up around the country, and I’ve mentioned several successful ones here before, including SealBeachDaily.com and NewzJunky.

If you’re interested in learning more about hyperlocal news, and you live within driving distance of Portland, plan now to attend a panel discussion on hyperlocal news I’m moderating at Portland’s Digital Journalism Camp on Saturday, Aug. 1.

Digital Journalism Camp PDX is a free one-day conference on the future of journalism and what it means to media practitioners. To date, close to 85 journalists, bloggers and freelance writers have signed up to attend.

Camp-style conferences - very popular right now in tech circles – are less formal than traditional conferences and normally include a mix of sessions on pre-determined topics along with sessions conference goers choose once they get there.

Organizer and Portland freelance writer Abraham Hyatt is still putting the finishing touches on the Digital Journalism Camp agenda. But the day is likely to include discussions of digital storytelling, podcasting, SEO for journalists, new media revenue models and more.

The hyperlocal news panel I’m moderating will feature proprietors of three ventures in Portland and Seattle:

• Cornelius Swart, publisher and managing editor, Portland Sentinel, a neighborhood newspaper in North Portland with a strong online component.
• Ken Aaron, co-founder, Neighborhood Notes, a news and entertainment site that covers Portland’s four quadrants.
• Justin Carder, Neighborlogs, a Seattle hyperlocal news site.

For a little preview of what we’ll be talking about, here’s Justin Carder’s analysis of how much money he thinks he’ll make this year at Neighborlogs, roughly $14,000.

Digital Journalism Camp takes place Saturday, Aug. 1, 9:30 a.m. to mid-afternoon and will be held at The Oregonian (yes, we get the irony too), 1320 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon 97201.

Even though it’s free, space is limited, so sign up early.

I’ll be posting more information about the camp as it’s available. You can also follow camp news on Twitter at @journopdx.

Dear Twitter:

There’s not much I don’t love about Twitter. Since another writer convinced me to join last December, I’ve used it almost every day to find sources, do research, track events, report the news and kibbutz with friends.

But over the months, the amount of spam that’s showing up on the network has risen along with the number of new users. And more of that spam is X-rated

Yesterday was a new low. I clicked on the profile of someone who’d just started following me and saw the most graphic pornography I’ve ever encountered on Twitter, a photograph the spammer put up as their profile photo. It was a shock to say the least. And it could have been worse – my eight-year-old was in my office at the time. Good thing he was preoccupied with the TV.

I get that some people go online for porn. I also get that Twitter doesn’t want people to jump through a lot of security hoops to join, all the better for millions more to sign up.

But nobody should have to worry about what they’ll find when they open an email from Twitter notifying them of a new follower, or when they click on their Followers list.

So I’m asking, on my behalf, and for all of the other Twitter users out there who don’t want to be afraid of their inbox – stop the porn spam. Giving people a Twitter account to report spam is a start. Letting people block followers they don’t want to in their Followers list or to see tweets from is also good.

But it’s not enough. Figure out some kind of pre-screening mechanism. Maybe some of the Twitter apps that are out there can already screen for this stuff. For the time being, I’ve turned off email notification so I won’t get messages about new followers, just in case.

I’ve done my share of evangelizing Twitter to coworkers, family and friends. But this is giving me second thoughts. My daughter’s on Twitter – what if she’d gotten that porn spam instead of me?

Come on Twitter, help us out.

If you put down the the fireworks long enough over the holiday weekend to pick up a paper or read news online, you may have seen the story of the British spymaster’s wife who outed him on Facebook.

It seems  the wife of Sir John Sawers, next in line to run England’s super-secret spy agency MI6, had been using Facebook to share pictures of her husband and family and post updates on their whereabouts – not the kind of behavior covert operatives normally go in for.

As you can imagine, the British tabloids are having a field day, though as one British government official put it, how important to national security can it be to know Sawer wears Speedos.

But the incident points up the potential trouble of using social networks.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have gone out of their way to make it easy to update your status, so the world can know “What are you doing now?”

That’s a great way to keep colleagues and potential business partners apprised of your blog posts, projects, business ventures, convention stops or speaking engagements. But it’s also easy to end up mixing your business life with your personal life. In fact, social media gurus encourage you to devote a small portion of what you share on Twitter or blogs to real-life stuff, the better to make you sound human, not just a robo-pitchman for whatever it is you do or sell.

But as Mrs. Sawers found out, mixing things up can lead to trouble. So can providing so much about your business life you end up sharing details better left unsaid.

Major news media outlets have begun addressing this issue by crafting social media policies that, among other things, spell out what their writers can and can’t do on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The Wall Street Journal published guidelines in May with requirements that, among other things, reporters should avoid discussing articles before they’re published, meetings they’ve attended and “friending” potentially confidential sources.

Freelance writers aren’t normally beholden to a client’s social media usage requirments – unless they’re written into a contract, which is something I have yet to see.

So it’s up to you to decide what you should and shouldn’t share. Some suggestions:

* Don’t share specifics of an assignment. Crowdsourcing has become a popular for finding story sources, but there’s a way to share the general nature of what you’ll be writing about without giving everything away. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.

* Remember everything you say online could be there forever. In the heat of the moment you may feel like sharing the ugly details of an assignment gone wrong, names and all. But in an industry where editors and writers move around almost monthly, so much openness can come back to haunt you. If you simply must vent, call a trusted friend, or use the writers’ message board you subscribe to, but consider not actually naming names.

* Use some social networks for work and some for fun. Some writers use Twitter and LinkedIn for work and Facebook for fun, so they can shield all of the personal stuff they share about their families, vacations and leisure activities from the potentially prying eyes of editors, readers and other nosy types. If this is how you want to roll, use the appropriate Facebook settings to keep your info private, and don’t feel bad about saying “No thanks” when business associates ask to connect with you there and redirect them to the networks you use for business.

If you’re on social networks, how do you keep your business and private lives separated?

This is the closest to sending a chain letter I’ll ever get.

Last week, freelance writer Kerry Dexter included WordCount in a list of 15 blogs to explore. She was continuing an experiment started by another writer/blogger friend who included Dexter’s blog in her own list of 15 ‘Lovely Blogs, after that blog had been included in someone else’s list.

Now it’s my turn.

When it comes to blogs, I regularly read a mashup of subjects I write about like technology, HR, Internet security and business, and blogs about what’s happening in the media industry – as you can imagine there are more and more of those these days. I also read a handful of blogs on writing, blogging, marketing and social media that influence my own writing and blogging.

Since I started using Twitter, I probably read more posts on random blogs than posts on blogs I subscribe to – but that’s a subject for another day.

Without further ado, here are the 15 blogs I read almost every day:

Media industry

• Romenesko – Hands down the most informative blog for what’s happening in the newspaper and magazine business.
• NewspaperDeathWatch – Another strong chronicler of what’s happening in the newspaper business, written by newspaper industry and social media expert Paul Gillin.
• PBSMediaShift – With the tagline, “Your guide to the digital media revolution,” host Mark Glaser is turning this into a multi-sourced must-read for what’s happening in digital media.

Writing and freelancing

• The Urban Muse – Susan Johnston, aka The Urban Muse, is the freelance writer I wish I was when I was starting out – smart and accessible, not above sharing her frustrations, foibles and successes.
• The Social Writer - Motley Fool writer Tim Beyers uses his blog to explore how writers can use the latest social media tools in pursuit of freelance happiness.
• Seth’s Blog – An old-school online marketer, if it’s possible to call anyone associated with interactive marketing old school, Seth Godin’s been around since Web 1.0 and it shows. With the tip of his bald head peaking out at readers, Godin’s like a Buddha, spouting short daily aphorisms on sales and marketing. Freelancers are in the business of selling, whether we like to think of ourselves that way or not, so why not draw inspiration from a master.

Social media

• ProBlogger – Instructive but not preachy advice on blogging. Whatever blogging difficulty you’re encountering – building traffic, looking for topics, getting readers to comment, etc. – chances are Darren Rowse and crew have covered it, from multiple angles.
• Mashable – Do I read this to stay current on what’s happening in social networks for the paid writing I do, or do I read it for the tips to get more out my own social media use? Probably a little bit of both.
• TwiTips – Not an everyday read, but definitely the first place I turn when figuring out something new on Twitter. (Note: I’ve written a guest column here.)

Business and technology

• Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist – If you read me you know I have a train wreck kind of fascination with Trunk. Yes she’s wildly inappropriate at times, but also an incredibly compelling blogger who tackles issues other people wouldn’t dream of, like her post connecting abortion and careers, which to date has received 370 comments.
• YourHRGuy – What’s not to like about Lance Haun – he knows HR, he brings a Gen Y perspective to workplace matters, he writes well, he’s in Portland, and he’s into sports and making sports analogies about HR issues.
• TechCrunch – Love him or hate him, Michael Arrington’s group-edited blog is the CNN Headlines News for Silicon Valley.
• ReadWriteWeb – Another group-edited blog covering the tech biz. While it might not have TechCrunch’s sizzle, or bite, it’s become another go-to source for breaking industry news – and anything with so many writers based in Portland is OK in my book.

Just for kicks

• The Cohens in DK – If I’m being totally honest here, some blogs I read just for fun. One is my sister’s about life as an expat wife living in Copenhagen, which will end soon because her husband’s been recalled to the States for a new position. This is as good an example as any I’ve come across of excellent writing from an amateur writer/blogger, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my sister.
• My daughter’s blog from college, which she started so she wouldn’t have to email or even call home about her adventures or, God forbid, friend me on Facebook. Sorry, this one’s not meant for public consumption so I’m not including the link.

I’m no fan of chain letters, so I won’t ask anyone to pick up the mantle and blog about the 15 blogs they read most often. But if you’ve got a couple favorites, feel free to share them here.

Twitter is revolutionizing the way people gather and disseminate news, and today there’s no better example of that than what’s happening in Iran.

After Friday’s hotted contested presidential elections saw the apparent re-election of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by a landslide, supporters of challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in what looks to be the biggest rioting and protests since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

In the past 72 hours, Iranian citizens and traditional news organizations have taken to Twitter, blogs and other social networks to share what’s happening with the world. Through short reports on the social network, photos on Flickr and newspaper websites, live blog updates and video feeds, activists and observers are recording what is happening in the country, which has shut down other forms of communication.

Other quick take aways from what’s happening:

** As foreign press are being threatened and asked to leave the country, lines between trained journalists and citizen journalists are blurring. Man-on-the-street reports, photos and video of what’s happening are coming from a variety of sources, making it more critical than ever that news gathering organizations use their experience and professional standards to act as curators and pull together multimedia packages from various information sources and make sure people know what those sources are.

** In a Twitter world, people want constant coverage and complain when they don’t get it. When CNN and other networks didn’t provide the kind of 24/7 coverage U.S. viewers wanted they took their protests to Twitter. In fact, Twitter’s become so important to the news, when the company announced a service interruption for scheduled maintenance at what would have been Tuesday morning in Iran, subscribers made such a stink the work was rescheduled to occur at 1:30 a.m. Tehran time.

** For a well-curated sample of what’s happening in Tehran, plus continuing commentary of how mainstream media and other are covering it, check out Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish column at TheAtlantic.com.