Nate Ritter has rigged @missingchildren to automatically send out updates from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Follow @missingchildren to receive the latest alerts. You never know when you might be the one to recognize a missing child.

Jason Falls of SocialMediaExplorer.com writes a guest post on Buzz Networker recounting his experience working with Jim Beam Racing and Robby Gordon Motorsports to use Twitter to give more than 12,000 fans a nearly-live play-by-play of the action.

Jason goes on to cover some important other uses of Twitter, including search by keywords, for the marketing-minded.

Twitter Me This… and Be Informed

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a very creative way to use Twitter to keep track of your phone’s location.

Link: TUAW Responds: iPhone LoJack

With protected updates, it can help you locate a lost (or stolen) phone, and with a public Twitter account, you can keep your followers abreast of where you are at any given moment. This could be especially useful if you’re on a road trip.

Before, if your tweet was over 140 characters, Twitter would tell you exactly how many characters over the line you were.

If it said “-2″ you’d know you had to eliminate two characters before you could send your tweet.

Now, it just says TOO LONG:

I miss the old way — now i have to guess as to how much I need to shorten my tweet.

What do you think?

Joshua L. Konkle over at the DCIG Blog reminds us that anything written in a live-tweet of an event would be considered evidence, not hearsay, in a court of law.

Once you understand the basic premise, it’s simple to see that all sorts of information can be posted to twitter about internal activities or personal matters, in the case of civil litigation. For example, several cases related to health insurance, child custody, etc have been fought or are being fought based on information found in My Space and Facebook. Consequences of twitting on twitter should be similar to existing social media, but twitter won’t be subject to hearsay based on FRCP 803(1) and 803(2).

In other words, be careful when you live-tweet your next Board of Directors meeting — unless questionable things are going on that you want to expose.

Original article here.

(I am not an attorney. From the sounds of his bio, Joshua isn’t an attorney. Even if we were both attorneys, you shouldn’t take anything we write or link to as legal advice. If the above information makes you go “Hmm,” you should definitely consult your own attorney.)

Forget baby steps — in a talk to a group of science journalists at the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships 25th Anniversary Symposium in Boston, Clive Thompson not only highlighted the benefits of blogging, but also of Twittering. During his presentation, he tweeted a request for questions to ask the audience, and Twitter delivered: six questions in twenty minutes.

My favorite:

One question, however, came from “Hermida” — Alfred Hermida, an assistant professor at the graduate school of journalism at the University of British Columbia, who was in the audience and scheduled to speak today (February 20). His question: “Why aren’t they on Twitter?”

Follow Clive on Twitter and maybe you can ask the audience a question next time!

Update: This article has been edited slightly thanks to feedback from Robin Lloyd in the comments. I shouldn’t blog so late at night! Thanks, Robin.

Forget regurgitating content from Google News links for breaking news stories. Why not ask someone who’s actually there?

Twitterer Tuuli Platner needed a Bolivian blogger to comment on the floods in South America, and Twitter delivered.

There’s a great audio interview with Laura Fitton over at Tech PR War Stories full of advice on how anybody — especially PR/Marketing people — can use Twitter effectively.

Twitter Magic (Runtime: 23:27)

Laura’s a great resource on Twitter and I always enjoy interacting with her.

Shama Hyder is finishing up a Masters at the University of Texas at Austin and has chosen Twitterers and our use of time as a thesis topic!

Share your thoughts and contribute to the research by taking this quick survey: http://tinyurl.com/2pebcr

Results will be published in May.

One of the great challenges of Twitter is how to use it effectively once you start following upwards of 100 people. I’ll explain my personal methodology and while it may not work for you, you might be able to pick and choose to make dealing with your Twitter stream easier.

Before I get started, there is one thing that you must remember once you start following a significant number of people: you will miss tweets. With that in mind, here’s how I use Twitter.

1. Make use of notifications

Twitter began for me as a way to keep in touch with my friends scattered in different locations. To this day, I still have a limited set of people for who I want to see all of their Tweets. I turn on notifications for these people to ensure that I don’t miss communication from them.

2. Utilize Twitter via Instant Messenger (Settings -> Phone & IM) to receive notifications - I’ve found twitter@twitter.com (Jabber) to be more reliable.

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous recommendation. Twitter via IM can help centralize replies and direct messages in one location allowing you to address them there. If you also set up your mobile phone, Twitter will send notifications there when your IM is offline. However, too many tweets via SMS can be over-stimulating and I tend to use SMS messages for important or personal messages. Fortunately, most of the people I have notifications turned on for are not heavy Tweeters and I can use SMS notifications when I’m away from my computer to keep in touch. If it gets to be too much, I just send an “off” to Twitter and turn it back on later.

3. Download a client application

There are many third-party client applications out there, each with their own set of features. Just shoot out a tweet and see which one your friends like. The applications can help with the Twitter stream, as most of them display tweets as they are made. I usually have mine running throughout the day and I’ll glance at tweets as they pop up and reply accordingly if anything catches my eye. Most applications also highlight direct message or replies, making it easier to identify conversations that pertain directly to you.

In this way, it doesn’t affect my normal workflow but I can keep up with the Twittersphere fairly easily and tweets that pertain to me are highlighted. The web application remains the most popular way people tweet, but it doesn’t provide a good way to keep an eye on a large volume of activity.

Rumor also has it that one or more of the applications might be implementing something akin to groups in the near future, a much-desired feature on Twitter.

That’s it for now - go forth and follow!