Tweetminster

I've just discovered an interesting Twitter-based web community called "Tweetminster." It's an interesting community experiment using Twitter as a base for political information and discussion on politics in the UK. From the site:

TweetMinster is a service that makes it easier to connect the public with politicians using Twitter. TweetMinster helps you track UK politics in real time and to find and follow Members of Parliament and Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.

By encouraging greater participation in public forums like Twitter, we are all promoting better communications between voters and elected representatives.

Incidentally, I will be moderating a panel at the upcoming Twitter "140Conf" on the topic of "Digital Diplomacy and Cultural Collaboration." I will blog more about that in coming days.

It's fascinating to see how Twitter is becoming an increasingly mature medium for political action and engagement. It was only last December that the Israeli Consulate in New York held their first Twitter Press Conference around the conflict in Gaza. Followed by the community storytelling game experiment "Signtific" in which we participated. There have been a number of interesting news stories of late of political activism on Twitter being challenged by governments. In this article in the Guardian, a

"woman behind the mass protests which rocked the capital of Moldova ... [went] into hiding after the so-called "Twitter revolution" forced a recount of the general election."

... To a series of posts on BoingBoing about a Guatemalan Twitter user being arrested.