Police on Twitter

• Mount Pleasant Police
• Charleston Police
• North Charleston Police 
• Charleston County Sheriff
• Dorchester County Sheriff

Fire departments on Twitter

• Colleton Fire and Rescue
• St. Johns Fire Department

North Charleston government on Twitter

• North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey
• North Charleston Fire Chief
• City of North Charleston

Charleston County government on Twitter

• Charleston County government
• Charleston County School System
• Charleston County’s Transportation Half-Cent Sales Tax Program

Utilities on Twitter

• Charleston Water System
• South Carolina Electric and Gas
• South Carolina Emergency Management Division

State agencies on Twitter

• National Weather Service – Charleston
• South Carolina Department of Transportation
• South Carolina Ports
• SC Department of Environmental Health and Control 
• College of Charleston

Facebook

• Charleston Police
• Charleston Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force
• Mount Pleasant Police
• Charleston County government
• Charleston 911 education center
• Charleston County Emergency Management
• Charleston County Board of Elections and Voter Registration
• National Weather Service

But by and large, the material on the new @CofCCrushes twitter account is way too raunchy to repeat here. And it’s all anonymous, except for the targets of the tweets who are either described in detail or named.

I have just discovered @cofccrushes on my timeline. It’s like @postsecrets meets the bathroom stall wall at Upper Deck. #chs #cofc

— Andy Paras (@AndyParas) March 27, 2013

Some of the tweets are funny – and seemingly meant to be – and so far no one seems to have taken offense to being a target, no matter how creepy the tweet.

 The College of Charleston account has grown to 900 followers in about a week but it is not the first of its kind, not even in the state of South Carolina where there is already @USCCrushes 5,000+ followers; @ClemsonCrushes 2,800+ followers; and a @WoffordCrushes 260+ followers.

The concept is pretty simple. You anonymously send a message about someone you’re crushing on to one of these accounts and they tweet it out to everyone to see. I’m honestly not sure what’s to be gained from it – even if the object of your infatuation is somehow intrigued by your nasty gram – there’s really no obvious way for them to reach out to you.

Basically it’s just for everybody else’s entertainment.

Everyone in my French class is talking about @cofccrushes LOL

— Loris Luc (@lalalalaloris) March 27, 2013

@cofccrushes has made my day #hilarious

— Amber-Nicole (@Miss_nickb12) March 27, 2013

What do you all think of it? Should the people named in these tweets be flattered or creeped out?

It’s not uncommon to see publications drop the “North” from in front of Charleston when talking about Boeing or events playing at the North Charleston Coliseum.

That’s why it was neat to see the city and its people and food get some much-deserved attention in The New York Times this weekend.

Love seeing North #Charleston getting ink in today’s @nytimes! twitter.com/ashleyzink/sta…

— Ashley Zink (@ashleyzink) March 24, 2013

Note: Thanks to Mike Kelleher for pointing out this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine piece about Charleston.

Charleston Fashion Week, which has been getting rave reviews from locals all weekend long,  also received attention from CNN on Sunday.

Get to know Afriyie Poku. This was our chasfashweek! Thank you CNN! #chsfw instagram.com/p/XQ106CD5hr/

— Ayoka Lucas (@AyokaLu) March 25, 2013

All of the attention has instilled some civic pride in the community.

Best city in the world for a reason. So many people have contributed. Charleston, South Carolina. I love you.

— justhaveaseat (@justhaveaseat) March 24, 2013

Chad Walton has been confronting officers – and videotaping those confrontations – long before his road rage video (above) went viral on YouTube this week.

You can also find him arguing with officers here, and here, and here.

Post and Courier reporter Natalie Caula also reported today that Walton filed a similar complaint against a North Charleston police officer a year ago but the department determined the complaint to be unfounded.

Does Walton’s repeated confrontations with police change your opinion of what the North Carolina deputy did? Read the deputy’s public statement on Facebook here.

Chasing News

The coolest and yet most challenging aspect of social media is it gives everyone a platform. You no longer need “traditional media” to magnify your voice.

The challenge for journalists is when a seemingly newsworthy YouTube video with 300 views appears on your Facebook newsfeed and you literally watch it grow 10-fold and nearly 100-fold before you can get the first official to confirm what you think you’re seeing.

That’s what happened with this video Tuesday evening. Just goes to show how fast news can travel nowadays, even before it can be confirmed and vetted.

Fox News has a crew filming live aboard the USS Yorktown this morning during its Fox and Friends show.

The broadcast is trumpeting how we’re a top-rated city while talking to a local pirate and cook.

Fox and Friends previously tried to visit Folly Beach a year ago but they were rained out.

This very sad story came across my newsfeed last night after one of my Facebook friends became one of nearly 300 people to like the post on Uncle Kracker’s Facebook page. It’s written by a Colleton County High student about her friend who died and how happy he was to see the singer at the Coastal Carolina Fair.  Check it out. The comments are touching too.

 Craving attention

National magazines frequently take to social media to ask readers to vote for their favorite things, restaurants especially. Crave Kitchen & Cocktails in Mount Pleasant just recently “dominated” an Esquire contest seeking the best Mac and Cheese.

And now Fiery Ron’s Home Team Barbecue (Sullivan’s Island and West Ashley) is asking for you to vote in a Southern Living contest seeking the South’s Best Ribs. I noticed that Jim ‘n’ Nick’s is on there, as well as Sweatman’s in Holly Hill. The good news is you can vote for as many as five.

 Cover kids

Lowcountry Parent magazine is having its annual Cover Kids photo shoot Saturday. There will be plenty for your children to do AND you can sign them up for a chance to appear on the cover of the magazine.

Have fun.

What if I told you it’s set in Charleston?

Even better: the show is being filmed here and they’re looking for extras through a new Facebook page.

The Facebook page (876 likes as of this moment) discusses everything from how much extras are paid to who the actors will be. It’s run by the same people who cast for Army Wives, also filmed here in Charleston.

So far both the director and the lead actor are from the first Twilight movie so it’s subjective as to whether that bodes well for this show. I guess we’ll just have to tune in.

The Dude

What would you give to be The Dude?

How about the @dude?

The @dude

Summerville entrepreneur Billy Gadol has held the @dude account since January of 2007. He’s is offering to give it away in exchange for a $4,999 donation to a project he’s trying to start on Kickstarter, a website that helps people raise money for such things.

Gadol has been playing guitar since he was a little dude and came up with the idea of creating a foot pedal that would allow him to change the sound of his guitar during songs, not in between.

With 11 days to go he’s nearly one-third of his way to his $60,000 goal. He’s offering various prizes commensurate with the donation amount but the big prize is the coveted @dude account.

How coveted? Gadol gets between 5-20 notifications a week that someone tried to hack into his account by changing the password.

You don’t have to be Burger King and Donald Trump to get hacked on Twitter. Hackers torched Wired writer Mat Honan’s Google account and Apple ID just because they wanted to make a grab for his three-letter Twitter account, @Mat.

Despite the interest, no one has yet pledged the $4,999 – and even if there is a pledge it’s only good if Gadol gets all of the $60K requested.

And there’s another wrinkle: Technically it’s a violation of Twitter’s terms of service to buy or sell a Twitter account. Gadol said he’d argue that through Kickstarter, he’s offering the account as a reward, not a straight-out sale.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see how that turns out, dude.

See more Charleston-area Kickstarter projects here.

You can be quoted on the news from a tweet without your permission? Seriously?

— christinaorso (@christinaorso) January 19, 2013

And yes, as a courtesy, I asked her for her permission before I reprinted her Tweet here but the question remains: Should I have?

It’s kind of hard to expect privacy when you publicly post something on a social medium where sharing is a rule, not an exception.

On the other hand, even I would find it a bit jarring to see one of my tweets quoted on a newscast or a blog or in another newspaper without any warning. At the least, I’d expect a tweet back letting me know or asking me to expand on my point beyond 140 characters. That seems easy and fair. That’s why our policy is to essentially stick to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others …”

But it’s not always that simple.

Should journalists alert public figures, such as celebrities or the local mayor, that they’re going to use their public tweet? I don’t think so. We’d be lucky to even hear back in the case of a celebrity, who really should know better at this point. Should a journalist contact the mayor’s office seeking out more info about a newsworthy or controversial tweet? Probably. Do we need permission to publish the post? No.

What about breaking news?

It’s not always easy to tell you I’m using your tweet in a breaking news situation. I am a huge fan of Storify, a program that allows anyone to use public Tweets and Facebook  posts to help tell a story. It’s especially useful for journalists covering breaking news, such as the time a man in an SUV blocked the Ravenel Bridge for a couple of hours.

Storify allows you to notify someone you used their post after you publish but not beforehand, but it also links back to the original tweet in its original context. It’s basically an extension of Twitter. That’s why I think it’s fair. I’ve used Storify several times and have not had anyone ask me to take their post down (also deleting the post will make it disappear from the Storify story).

Facebook

We often want to know what you’re thinking so we ask you on Facebook. Should someone who posts a comment on a newspaper’s Facebook page expect to be asked permission to use their comment in the newspaper? What do you think?

Photos

A lot of people’s livelihoods depend on making money from the photos they take, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that a judge recently ruled against two newspapers who used a professional photographer’s photos even though he published them on Twitter.

The judge basically said posting a picture on Twitter does not give another publication license to use and profit from someone else’s photo. If you take an up-close shot of breaking news and post it on Twitter – even if it’s from your clamshell cell phone and not a camera – you’ll get a tweet from me asking for permission to use it on our site. (Note: If you have a good shot let me know!)

This is a tough issue to talk about in 140 characters, ironically enough …

— Andy Paras (@AndyParas) January 19, 2013

Are there newsworthy photos that fall in the gray area? Absolutely. Social media is relatively young and growing so quickly that there will always be questions about what’s right and what’s wrong, and I’m not an attorney. That’s why we just try to do what’s best and keep the conversation going.

What do you think?

Williams is doing stand-up alongside comedian David Steinberg Friday at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.

Williams’ Twitter followers shot up from about 500 to 6,000 in about an hour. It was approaching 10,000 as of 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. His count will grow exponentially in the next few hours. It will be interesting to see what kind of view they will get of Charleston by following Williams’ account over the next few days.

Stay tuned.