Secrets of the City

Via MPR: Two Republican House members have filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Paul Gardner, DFL-Shoreview, over some comments he wrote on the social network site Twitter. Gardner says he has already apologized. …

In two separate entries, Gardner wrote, “Emmer seems to belittle his female colleagues (rage, sarcasm) on the House floor more than the men? Great face to the GOP?” and, “Why is Buesgens wearing sunglasses? Black eye?”

[via BecauseEmilySaysSo]:  Leah Betancourt profiles Jason DeRusha by offering up The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter on Mashable today and, among interesting tidbits, provides this example of Dweeting:

DeRusha’s first Twitter success story was in late 2007. He was doing a story on December sniffles caused by allergies to Christmas trees. He used Twitter to find someone who was allergic to Christmas trees, who has to use heavy protective gloves to decorate theirs. He said he would never have found this source without Twitter.

FOX9 did an occasionally silly, but generall informed report about Twitter; they then posted it as a text story to their site that reads like it was written to be a Mr. Rogers’ script. DeRusha sees this as a teachable moment: Tonight’s lesson for TV journos: Text rules online, not video. You need to own the online version. Write it yourself.

Esme Murphy is a little less charitable: Of all the depressing developments in local journalism these days the Fox 9 version of their Twitter story ranks right up there.

The cities of Falcon Heights, Edina and Minnetonka are using Twitter to notify their residents of snow emergencies, sewer backups and other important information. Although, most of the time they will be letting residents know what they had for lunch or complaining about neighboring cities, hoping that those cities aren’t on Twitter. Strib via Fark

Tyler Green in Modern Art Notes: This morning [Dec. 5], the Walker Art Center offered up what might be the dumbest tweet ever: “Wondering what people would like us to tweet about more. Got suggestions? Reply!” … The Walker Art Center is one of America’s best contemporary art museums. Its building is full of modern art and contemporary art from its permanent collection of art. It hosts art exhibitions, and it employs art curators and other smart art people. I’d bet that its offices are full of art. The place exists because of art. And the Walker Art Center can’t figure out what it should be tweeting about? (I mean, you know it’s time to lay off the entire web/interactive/whatever staff when…)… Bottom line, museums: If you blog or tweet, make sure at least half of your blog posts are about art objects.

With the recent tragedy in Mumbai, Twitter suddenly became many people’s primary source of news. City Tweets allows you to peek in on tweets from Minneapolis, although, it seems, the news is less exciting here (which is undoubtably for the best). Sample tweets: “My hamstrings are really tight today”; “Sugar cookie herbal tea = yum”; “I’m putting together a blog post right now on misinterpreted birder underwear!”