White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Pope Sends First Tweet

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It looks like you can teach an 84-year-old a new trick. Pope Benedict XVI launched the Vatican’s news information portal via Twitter on Tuesday using, what else? An iPad.

This is the latest in a series of moves from the Vatican to improve communication both internally and with the public. But don’t be fooled by all the “Benedictus” handles on Twitter, the Pope does not have a personal account. The papal tweet was sent from @news_va_en.

Check out the pontiff working the touch screen in this video released on the Vatican’s YouTube Channel. Yes, the Vatican’s been on YT since 2005.

New Twitter Advertising Pays to Follow. No, Really.

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Wondering why certain Twitters are being suggested to follow over the people you know? Thank Twitter’s ingenious advertising plan.

All Things Digital’s Media Memo revealed yesterday that paid suggestions is just one of three advertising plans being put to use by Twitter:

The idea is a simple one, people familiar with the company’s plans tell me: Twitter will try to help corporations and brands increase their Twitter following by inserting them alongside other Twitter users it suggests in its “Who to Follow” feature.

Don’t fret, though. If you’re not a fan of say Greta Van Susteren or Jimmy Carter, you won’t be inundated with their profile pics forever locked in your Who To Follow. Twitter’s algorithm will ensure just because someone pays to promote their Twitter, they won’t spam people who aren’t relevant to your friends and followers.

The official announcement will come shortly. The adoption of this in campaign promotion and outreach will be the thundering noise to follow.

From VHS to VLC: The Rise of Fred Davis' Ads on the Internet

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Fred Davis’ rise started with a giant rat named King Roy and continues today with Mourning in America. Not exactly the plot to a generic blockbuster but more about how ad-man Fred Davis, a GOP media consultant, grew his brand in grand part due to the Internet.

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Tw'oh No, Twitter!

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As Twitter continues to unroll its “New Twitter” functionality, a rather pornographic exploit came to light this morning.

Mashable explains that “The flaw uses a JavaScript function called onMouseOver which creates an event when the mouse is passed over a chunk of text. We’ve seen the flaw being abused to launch simple pop-up windows, redirect users elsewhere (including porn sites), and we’ve also seen it used in combination with blocks of color, covering the true “intention” of the tweet.”

The bug was fully patched as of 9:50 am according to Twitter’s Status Blog, luckily saving the day of all bloggers and media types desperate to tweet their relief.

(video via Gizmodo)

Meredith Fineman's Fifty First (J)Dates

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It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Meredith Fineman carries her parents journalistic tradition into new media. Her father, Howard, is leading political light for Newsweek and NBC News; her mother, Amy Nathan, now at the FCC, got her start reporting for the Washington Post.

Fifty First (J) Dates is the 23-year old’s way to meet people after returning to her hometown of Washington, D.C. after working abroad in Buenos Aires.

“At first I didn’t tell them about it,” Fineman said. “They found out from other people about ‘how fabulous it was.'” The point, Fineman assures, is to be fun and humorous about dating in D.C. instead of a return to Washingtonienne.

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YouChoose YourTube

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William Castle is clearly smiling down from heaven when it comes to a new trend in programming.

The Wrap reports that Comedy Central greenlit “Dwaynebook,” hosted by Dwayne Perkins. The format of the show focuses on “social networking” according to Perkins’ manager, Matt Schuler:

“It’s completely different than any other green-screen show that’s on TV, because it focuses specifically on social networking … I mean, ‘Tosh.0’ is basically about anything on the internet, ‘Web Soup’ is basically about anything on the Internet, ‘The Soup’ is basically what’s going on on TV. This just focuses on the world of social networking sites.”

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4600 Hours So Far for A Life In A Day

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Like cribbing a line from RENT, it turns out there’s 276,000 minutes in A Life In A Day.

The crowdsourced documentary experiment from executive producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald is a partnership between LG, YouTube and the Sundance Institute to document one day (July 24th 2010) around the world. According to a press release from yesterday, the great culling of digital ‘celluoid’ has begun under Macdonald and 20 other editors.

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uWatch More on iPad

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If you’re watching the above video while on a laptop or desktop, you’re in a minority.

BusinessWeek rounds up the data that more people watch video on mobile devices like tablets or their phone than if they were in front of a computer. What’s the appeal?

“Because mobile devices are slower, so if you take the trouble to find a web video, you’re likely to stick around. Also, because mobile devices don’t have big screens or multitasking, viewers are pretty locked into what they are watching.”

It may not be mobile television, but with the ABC iPad app you can further expect congested Metro trips and visits to the capitol to become more dependent on Apple’s tablet, as WHC Insider previously suggested.

Fingers crossed that the ABC app does well enough to encourage the biggest D.C. wonk app: the CSPAN app.