The official White House blog called the move White House 2.0:

In the President’s last Weekly Address, he called on government to “recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking.” He added that “we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative,” and pledged to “reach beyond the halls of government” to engage the public. Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the Administration is communicating with the public, including the latest information and guidance about the H1N1 virus. In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find us in a number of other spots on the web:

• Facebook.com/WhiteHouse
• MySpace.com/WhiteHouse
• Twitter.com/WhiteHouse

If the government can embrace social media to be more open, anyone can.

Five terrific Twitter research tools — Twitter makes such a strong reporting tool preciously because it is such a strong research tool. It’s a great way to find news, see what people are saying and judge popular opinion. This article lists five Twitter research tools — outside of Twitter itself — that take the service to a new level.

The tools should take your tweeting to a new level.

Seven Totally Unique Flickr Search Tools — Not only is Flickr a great place to store photos, but it is also a great place to search for photos. Flickr also has a treasure trove of Creative Commons licensed photos that you can place on your blog or Web site. There is a problem, however. Flickr has billions of photos to sort through.

These seven search tools can make it a lot easier to find the photo you want. These search engines display photos differently, can search by colors in photos, can translate captions for you and more.