CEO of News Corporation and global media titan Rupert Murdoch rang in the New Year by finally joining Twitter, tweeting via his iPad. The media mogul has fast drawn hundreds of followers in the span of only a few hours, and the first people he has has personally chosen to follow are Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and Mark Pincus, the founder/CEO of Zynga, the online game company best known for Farmville. According to his tweets, he appears to be celebrating with Dorsey at a “huge NY eve do”.

Facebook on Monday published a note pointing to Newt Gingrich as an example of the one of the most “Facebook savvy” politicians on the social network. “Gingrich’s Facebook page is a great example of providing many ways for supporters to get involved, catering to every level of engagement while equally promoting all of the tabs,” [...]

I’ve got Klout and I know how to use it. I apply it directly to my armpits. Sometimes I read it or listen to it or wear it. Some people can drive it or drink it. Hopefully not at the same time.

I’m talking about Klout Perks, the next step from the folks at the social media ranking site, Klout. While Klout Perks have been around for over a year, it seems the program has really picked up momentum lately. These days my Twitter stream is filled with people tweeting their latest perk. I joined Klout on a whim and rarely looked at the site after that, so I was surprised the first time I received a tweet from @KloutPerks notifying me I was eligible for a perk. I almost dismissed it as Twitter spam; along the lines of a free iPad or Walmart gift card. It wasn’t until I saw others tweeting about their Klout Perks that I caught on that it was an actual thing. And it is a good thing.

Howdy! Now, Herman Cain‘s campaign may be behind the political ad everyone’s talking about at the moment, but the cutest ad (you guys, it’s seriously cute, just you wait) comes courtesy of Rick Perry, from way back in 2009.

A new survey completed by The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds an increasing number of Congressmen actively using social media, as the times call for them to do. According to the survey, three-quarters of Americans age 18 to 29 use social media, one-third of which go online to connect with government officials on Facebook (where 83 percent of Congress can be “liked”) or Twitter (used by 83 percent of Congress).

Remember those riots in England that we were all fixated on for a few days before our attention turned to other stuff? Well, you may have heard that Parliament was actually considering temporary blocks on social media sites during times of violent unrest.

If someone flips by the Manhattan public access on Wednesday nights and catches The Chris Gethard Show, it’s unlikely that they’re going to say to themselves, “Ah, now here’s the future of television.” A goofy, low-budget show featuring a bunch of comedians and self-admitted weirdos taking calls from strange and sometimes hostile New York citizens doesn’t initially scream out “innovation.” However, for those that stick around, it gradually becomes clear that Chris Gethard and friends are doing something very interesting. In addition to airing in New York, the show is streamed live out on the Internet and is steadily building a devoted following of comedy nerds across the country. By combining the approach and aesthetic of a cult public access show with the streaming and interactive capabilities of a high-tech Internet property, the show has found a fascinating middle ground between the old and new. In a lengthy conversation, we talked to Gethard about the genesis of the show, his thoughts on public access and social media, and the crazy and wonderful people he shares the network with.

As quickly as some of London’s neighborhoods collapsed into chaos, cleanup brigades have sprung to life–thousands of them being guided into action via Twitter and Facebook. “The footage last night of high streets and independent shops burning was terrifying to watch and I wanted to find a way to help that was quick, simple and practical,” Dan Thompson, an artist, told the BBC. Thompson created a Twitter campaign, @riotcleanup, that’s already amassed 70,000 followers and has inspired a host of similar efforts in other cities:

With its influence on international events like the revolutions in the Middle East, it’s clear that social media has become much more important than as merely the 21st century way to share Charlie Sheen jokes (God, remember when we had to make fun of his legal problems through fax?). And it’s not just billionaire nerds who’ve taken notice; a fascinating article in the New York Times details the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s goal to employ what the Times dubs an “Internet meme tracker.”

When the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal broke in May, many reporters tried to bring the story home for Americans by comparing it to Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s revelation that he’d fathered a love child. With DSK back in the news this week after new reports that he may be innocent after all, pundits are again drawing parallels to another case being discussed, that of Casey Anthony. “Combined with the seeming collapse of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, the shock showed a press quick to jump to conclusions, if not about actual guilt, then at least about guilty verdicts,” TIME‘s James Poniewozik said, upon the conclusion of the Anthony trial this week. What do these two stories really have in common with each other?

The murder trial of Casey Anthony has drawn huge ratings for HLN, which has featured extensive live coverage of the trial, and by far the biggest beneficiary has been HLN’s Nancy Grace. Last Thursday, Grace’s 8 p.m. hour was the second-highest-rated hour in all of cable news, after Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, with nearly 1.8 million viewers. But all those viewers aren’t just watching the story–they’re engaging via social media.

“As the Casey Anthony trial has captured the attention of the American public, it’s not surprising to see an enormous social media conversation build around those daily proceedings,” said Scot Safon, HLN’s general manager and executive vice president. “Given the groundbreaking work she has done on this case from Day One, it is not surprising that Nancy Grace has become the essential voice in that conversation.”

While the view that information is as vital as food, water, shelter and medicine World Conference on Humanitarian Studies, hosted by Tufts University in collaboration with Harvard University, Columbia University and the Social Science Research Council (June 4, 2011). There, one of the panels will discuss media, new technologies and how information can best be used in humanitarian responses.

Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor and, like, world’s strictest dad ever, took to the paper to vent a bit about Twitter and other forms of social media. Keller doesn’t like Twitter too much, it seems. You see, he and his wife – who is herself an avid Twitter user – just permitted their 13-year-old daughter to open her own Facebook account, much to Keller’s personal dismay. Keller wonders whether the toll we pay for so much access to one another online, and to many time and energy-saving applications found on the internet, ultimately ends up being a piece of ourselves. Heavy.

Confused about which scent to wear while you’re trolling online message boards? Are you not sure which fragrance best compliments hours of sending “what’s good gurl” messages to strange women on Facebook? As always, the internet is here to help!

CrowdGather – “one of the leading networks of community forums” – has created a “social media” fragrance with a little help from Human Pheromone Sciences, Inc, a company that is currently researching and developing products made with synthetic human pheromones. According to the company, the unisex fragrance, called Erox, has been “proven to increase feelings of arousal, excitement, social warmth and friendliness in both female and male users.”

Earlier this afternoon, American Express’ Twitter account issued a Tweet in support of Planned Parenthood. It seems like an odd move, PR-wise, for a company catering to a wide range of people – people who might not necessarily agree with AmEx’s supposed stance on controversial political issues.

If you simply sit down on a Friday night and watch NBC’s Dateline, you’re missing out on part of the experience. Increasingly, people are gathering to watch a favorite show like Dateline or CBS’s Survivor–and also to talk about what they’re seeing, live, via social media. “We’re seeing real time communities forming,” said Ryan Osborn [...]

I remember a million years ago when I was going to school (in a one-room schoolhouse that I walked five miles to), a big debate that frequently flared up was whether children should be disciplined by the school for something that happens off school properties. This issue is hitting interesting 21st century complications, as schools seek to punish children for offenses committed online and are thus able to be accessed at school. This includes posting pictures of alcohol use, cyber bullying, and, in the case of a school in Georgia, writing nasty things about a teacher on Facebook.

Earlier this morning, our friends at Geekosystem wrote about an Egyptian man who has named his daughter “Facebook.” Based off how most of us Americans use the website (“I guess you’re not too hot to go to prom with me now that you’ve grown up and gotten fat, Allison McCallister!”), this might seem a little silly. Then however, you see posts like this and you begin to understand.

As Glenn Beck‘s latest campaign against Google goes to show, he has little trust in large entities, whether they be government-run or private. After dedicating some time this week to asserting that Google’s involvement in the Egyptian revolts gives them a dangerous bias that seeps into the order of search results on their site, Beck took his campaign, as he always does, to an intrigued Bill O’Reilly last night.

As beat up as the media sometimes gets regularly, the threat to journalism as an institution can often bring out the best in reporters. Dylan Ratigan regular Toure dedicated his regular rant to the tremendous work journalists following the unrest in Egypt have been doing, and to remind viewers that, in the 21st century, trying to shut down the media will, ironically, only reinforce the spread of information.

If you had told me ten years ago, when I was in the midst of my pimply, awkward, boy-terrified teens that there would soon be a world where I could do nearly all communication online or via text, rather than shaky-handily calling my crush, only to hang up three times in a row when he answered, I would’ve begged for you to send me to the future right then and there. Things are different now. Social media lets you avoid and ignore to your heart’s content, leaving you blissfully alone with your laptop so you can update your Facebook status.

Last week, Jimmy Fallon had New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Late Night to talk politics and clash over Jersey jokes. It was a relationship spawned on Twitter–like Christie, Fallon’s made a name for himself as a media guy who “gets it.”

Even before Conan O’Brien‘s rebirth as a Twitter-phenomenon, Fallon’s been engaging with viewers via Twitter, taking their tweeted-in jokes and questions for guests, and using his ever-growing following to create a wave across social media–something he calls the “Hashtag Game:”

At the recent Nevada Cancer Institute gala, CNN anchor Larry King, who leaves his long-running show in December, waxed nostalgic about newspaper and the old way of consuming news — and said that he doesn’t care much for Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. The Las Vegas Sun reports.

Over the past few years, everyone has been captivated by the ideas of what social media can do for political change, how the amazing democratization of free, instantaneous communication could be employed to change the world. In Moldova, protests using the internet for organization were called the Twitter revolution. In Iran, people wondered if social media would destroy a disputed election. And, in America, on the eve of Midterm decisions that could change the very direction of our nation, baseball fans checked into Foursquare to let people know where the best riots in San Francisco are.

Enough with Facebook and Twitter. I admit that I use them; they’re good business billboards. But people, I just don’t care if you got a tatt, or how proud you are that your kid won the spelling bee, or even if your kid got a tatt. I really don’t. Let’s face it: Social media are quickly becoming passe, sort of like anything “green” or “organic.”

The time has come for anti-social media. It’s time for ” Hellbook.”