Tw*tter-like services are hitting the mainstream, and there is no better example that what Rick Sanchez over at CNN has been doing for the past few weeks by bringing Tw*tter and Facebook into the political conversations he’s been having on his Saturday shows.

I was intrigued by his use of Tw*tter last week, and followed after his last show. With the Biden announcement today, it seemed like a good time to join the conversation, especially since his question intersected with the question we were discussing on NewsGang Live — whether or not the Great Obama Text Message Experiment was a failure or success.

I shot a message to Sanchez saying I believed that the text message announcement plan accomplished exactly what it was intended to accomplish: Buzz, and a large audience available at the send of a single text message. Since we were in the middle of a pretty interesting and intense NewsGang Live discussion, I left it at that, and went on with our show.

That would have been the end of it except that I received a direct message from a Twitter friend telling me that he saw my icon pop up on Rick’s twitter page on-air. That intrigued me for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it meant that Rick was using Tw*tter in real time, unedited. (At least, in as real time as Tw*tter can be, given that they’ve disabled track and hobbled conversations. Hence, the use of the asterisk in their name.)

I was impressed. Impressed enough to return to his 10pm show.

My suggestions and criticisms for Rick follow:

Rick, props for understanding the value of real-time conversations with people on Tw*tter and other social media. Props for understanding the value of bringing the audience into your conversation in a real way, and props for understanding that by interacting with us, the conversation can evolve.

I believe you understand the value and power of these conversations. However, in your 10pm show, you made the mistake of harnessing the collective idiocy instead of the collective intelligence of those following you, and then turned that into some kind of “Tw*tter shaping the story” thing.

Now that tells me a couple of things. First, it says that you read my earlier tweet to you about Tw*tter breaking the Biden story ahead of you all. It also says that you understand the value of real-time conversations as they relate to news.

These are good things. However, the third factor in an effective use of Tw*tter and like services is the most important: Your own participation in the conversation.

Seriously, the only reason that 3AM lunatic comment got any traction is because you gave it traction. You skipped over really well-stated opinions in favor of the one that was utterly ridiculous.

If you’re going to have a conversation one to many, make it count.

Oh, and you could completely lose your pundit panel, too. Let the folks who really follow these issues be the center of the conversation. Kind of like Talkback Live was back in the days when I worked for CNN Interactive. Talkback Live was the prototype for what you’re doing now, use that audience power to propel you.

To the folks like Mark Mayhew who took me to task for criticizing Sanchez:

You make the point that Sanchez’ followers jumped from 500 to 950 in the span of an hour. How do you think that happened?

It happened because I, and a few others, sent Sanchez’ message out to those folks who follow us, who then sent the same message out to those who follow them, widening and overlapping the circles.

And Mark, the way I found your critical remark? I track my name. So when you sent me a message without following me, I was able to discover it and have a real-time conversation with you about the whole thing because track worked.

Not Summize. Track. via Twitterspy.

Tw*tter, as it is structured right now, precludes those real-time conversations. Important conversations. They control the flow of the conversation, preventing us from engaging with one another in a fashion that allows the conversation to shape the event. Steve Gillmor said it best:

Here is where the difference between search and track will prove pivotal. Search produces analysis after the fact, while track produces interactions that change the events themselves. As social hubs perform for the “cameras” over the next weeks, the efficiencies of those with real time synergies will likely outperform more historical views of the resulting data. Those micro-communities more adept at conversational politics will do better faster, and may in fact tip the election in much the same way Obama’s teams tipped the nomination process via the caucuses.

I call it this: The fierce urgency of NOW.

Or, as Rick Green said so well today, Julie Amero is held hostage for 432 days.

I’m waiting for the state to admit that this poor substitute teacher should never have been arrested, tried and convicted. I’m waiting for prosecutors in Norwich to do something: come up with some real evidence and try her — or drop the charges. Amero’s supporters, who include Internet security experts from around the country, have a petition urging Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane to drop all charges.

Perhaps the citizens of Norwich should tie yellow ribbons around their trees. It might even be more effective for them to ask their law enforcement officials to focus on real criminals and let the innocent be.

Please sign the petition. It’s time for Julie Amero to be freed from the chains she’s worn for 432 days.

And thank you, Rick Green, for being a responsible voice for justice.

Update: Thanks to a fellow member of The Julie Group, I’ve got a widget on my sidebar counting the number of days Julie has been held hostage. I’ll remove it when they free her.

Since the commenters at TechcrunchIT get so aggravated anytime Steve Gillmor writes a post about Twitter’s value in the enterprise (corporate) environment, I feel compelled to provide them with two breadcrumbs on their road to clueful.

Kathy Sierra:

James Governor (monkchips)

Both of those say in 140 characters or less what I spent the better part of zillions saying in the comments here.

You can find me on Twitter here, and on Identi.ca here. I recommend Identi.ca, even though it’s in its infancy, because there is a huge community effort underway to build an infrastructure that will scale, grow, and play nice with similar services. I’m currently using identi.ca to post to twitter, so I don’t lose touch with the community and friends I have over there, but identi.ca has much stronger potential to spawn microbranded communities that can still reach out to the larger community at will. Using the identi.ca architecture permits me to place that identity at the center of a larger circle that includes Twitter and other communities.

It’s all interesting, all still in its infancy, and yet, as Kathy says, there remains a low barrier to entry.

I haven’t written much here about my passion for using Twitter with the Track feature, mostly because we talk about it on NewsGang Live all the time.

Track opens the conversation in real time on important topics, from the earthquake in China, to the election, to the recent iPhone release. It permits discovery of new voices with fresh thoughts and releases us from the echo chamber.

For about six weeks, Twitter has disabled their track feature, leaving us to use Summize for tracking important topics. It works reasonably well, but as a standalone site couldn’t be integrated into much other than a cobbled together GTalk application called Twitterspy.

With the acquisition of Summize by Twitter, I hope it can be integrated into the API, and the gateway to IM services opened again with Track enabled. That would be the logical next step — let’s see if they go there. At the very least, they should be able to integrate it into the API so that Twhirl and other standalone applications can access it.

There is an online petition set up for Julie Amero, appealing to the state and local prosecutors to withdraw all charges against her and end the nightmare that has been the last 3 1/2 years of her life. Click here to sign it.

Even though it’s been 13 months since Judge Strackbein set aside the verdict against her, it’s not enough. She should be completely exonerated of the charges, and the only way for that to happen is for the prosecutors to formally drop all charges against her. If they don’t go on record with this, Julie will suffer the way she did earlier this year, when she was fired by her employer after someone left a copy of Rick Green’s New Year’s editorial on her supervisor’s desk, and others pressured her employer to fire the woman who “showed porn to kids”.

This is the stigma she lives with, despite concrete, irrefutable evidence that she was the victim of sloppy network maintenance and multiple malware infestations. Please, sign the petition, and tell these prosecutors the time has come to give Julie Amero the justice she deserves.

It’s been a full year since I’ve written any updates about Julie Amero. Actually, more than a full year. This is because I and many others, including her legal and forensic team, have been waiting to see whether the charges would be dropped after the judge set aside the verdict and ordered a new trial.

Sometimes netroots activism can create a negative environment for the ones with power to do the right thing. Because the goal is for Julie Amero to be free of this millstone around her neck, I’ve fallen silent and waited.

And waited.

I’m still waiting. It has been 13 months since Julie’s verdict was set aside. There is no doubt whatsoever that Julie Amero is as innocent as Michael Fiola was. There is no doubt that the viruses, trojans and malware that were on the computer in the classroom where she was substituting that day were the cause of the popup pornography displayed on that computer.

There is no question that a pregnant substitute teacher who loved kids was absolutely not sitting back in a classroom surfing pornography.

Even the judge agreed that there also was no question that the evidence presented in court was so flawed that Julie Amero received an unfair trial. The judge was so convinced that she set aside a jury verdict, something that rarely occurs in our justice system. Kudos to Judge Strackbein for her wisdom.

Why isn’t Julie free? She isn’t free because prosecutors have not made a decision on whether to retry her or drop all charges. Rick Green of the Hartford Courant tried to get status updates, only to be met with a solid brick wall.

I tried to find out what plans the state has for this poor woman, who was charged, arrested and convicted on false information, shoddy police work and an unwillingness by anyone — from Norwich school officials to state prosecutors — to admit that they had made a mistake.

Michael Regan, state’s attorney for the New London district, reminded me that there is a backlog of serious criminal cases in southeastern Connecticut. The Amero case “is not a high priority for us. We have other cases down here that are much more important.”

Well, maybe it’s not a high priority for Michael Regan, but it sure as hell is for Julie Amero. Since Judge Strackbein’s decision, Julie has lost a job, been hospitalized for stress, and let’s not forget that she lost her baby during the trial, too.

She was arrested 3 1/2 years ago. She was finally tried in January, 2007. That verdict was set aside because of “erroneous testimony” and “false information”.

Yet, her name still appears on the active trial list, so for now, Julie Amero is facing a new trial on charges that should not have been brought in the first place.

I’ll just end with this quote from today’s editorial from the Hartford Courant:

By burying her case in paperwork, delaying decisions and denying her justice, prosecutors are treating Ms. Amero almost as if she were a Guantanamo detainee. It’s past time to end the agony.

Even Guantanamo detainees are finally getting their day in court, or being freed after the court has determined they’ve been unlawfully detained. When will Julie’s prosecutor decide that she, too, deserves liberty and justice? She is an American citizen, an INNOCENT American citizen, who lives her life each day wondering when she is included in the “ALL” that ends our Pledge of Allegiance.

…with liberty, and justice for all.

Warning: It does have language that’s NSFW at the end. Still, it’s 2 minutes well-spent on how to have a productive online discussion:

Unlike Julie Amero, Michael Fiola won’t face criminal charges for possession of child pornography. But that doesn’t make his case any less egregious, or his life any different today. It doesn’t give him his job back, restore his reputation, or the harm that’s been done as a result of yet another ignorant leap to the wrong conclusion.

Michael Fiola worked for the Department of Industrial Accidents in Massachusetts. On November 20, 2006, Fiola was issued a laptop for use in connection with his field work as an accident investigator. In March, 2007 the laptop was seized and Fiola was subsequently fired from his job for possession of child pornography. The case was also referred to the DA for prosecution.

This time, however, the laptop was examined by a qualified forensic examiner, Tami Loehrs. Her examination and analysis of the laptop concluded the following:

1. The laptop was infected with at least 5 serious viruses and Trojans that caused the computer to be compromised for at least 4 1/2 months — longer than Fiola had possession of the laptop.
2. The Symantec antivirus software installed was outdated and not functioning properly from day one.
3. The Systems management software wasn’t installed properly, so no network monitoring or updates were being pushed to the laptop.
4. Mr. Fiola not only wasn’t responsible for the pornography, he probably didn’t even know about it.

Of course, the DIA didn’t take kindly to the allegation that this was all their fault, and in a fashion similar to Julie Amero’s prosecution, said that with their 3-hour examination of the hard drive and the assumption that one has to DO something in order to initiate such activity it was clearly Fiola’s fault and so he should be fired, he should not get his job back, and he should suffer the stigma of being a kiddie porn downloader for the rest of his life.

This is outrageous. Beyond outrageous. You can read Loehrs’ report yourself. The investigator for the DIA climbs up on his high horse and makes the usual specious statements about how “the network is monitored carefully” and that “the user has to do something to have pornography downloaded, it just doesn’t download itself”, indicating that he has absolutely zero knowledge of how Trojans and viruses work. In fact, one of the times the laptop had activity was a time where Fiola was out for the evening without the laptop. Loehrs hammers home the responsibility of the network administrator here:

It is their opinion that Michael Fiola must be responsible for the activity because it was only happening when he possessed the Laptop out in the field. How else could viruses, Trojans and hackers attack a Laptop? The Laptop must be turned on for the viruses and Trojans to execute or for a hacker to gain access to it. Therefore, the Laptop could only be compromised when Michael Fiola had the Laptop turned on and he typically had the Laptop turned on when he was in the field. He did not need the Laptop at the office because he had a desktop computer at the office, therefore the Laptop was not compromised during those times. In addition, viruses and Trojans typically need some event to occur in order to trigger their execution. For example, when the Internet browser is opened, it may trigger the downloader to download a back door which in turn allows the hacker to gain access. Therefore, when Michael Fiola opens his Internet browser to access a work-related website, checks his email or logs into the DIA mainframe, the trigger is pulled, the virus or Trojan begins its attack and the activity subsequently appears to be caused by Michael Fiola.

Her indictment of their disingenuity is no less scathing:

If the DIA had reviewed the Symanec logs, they would have discovered the numerous viruses and Trojans attacking the Laptop for four and a half months without resolution; that log files were missing or incomplete; that virus definition downloads were failing; that virus scans were only taking 30 seconds to complete. If the DIA had reviewed the SMS logs they would have discovered the numerous errors that began the moment Michael Fiola received the Laptop thereby leaving the Laptop unmonitored and unmaintained for four and a half months. If the DIA had reviewed the temporary Internet files they would have discovered suspicious activity occurring day after day including the appearance of pornography with no preceding event; websites being cached to the hard drive at the rate of 20 to 40 per minute; JavaScript files with malicious code. What should have been a “red flag” to Mr. Glennon and the IT department when they found the Verizon wireless data usage to be four and a half times that of any other user is that the Laptop may have been compromised by a virus, Trojan or hacker.

According to the Boston Herald article, the Fiolas intend to sue the DIA for the destruction of his reputation, career and life. His attorney has a good grasp of the big picture:

“Imagine this scenario: Your employer gives you a ticking time bomb full of child porn, and then you get fired, and then you get prosecuted as some kind of freak,” he railed.

This is happening to many, many people. The combined arrogance of in-house IT folks who don’t want to admit they screwed up someone’s computer and someone’s life and the ignorance of many who investigate on the employers’ behalf leaves real people behind, bankrupt and ostracized.

I hope Mr. Fiola succeeds in his efforts to hold the TRUE culprits available. And I hope Julie Amero is given a new trial, or better yet, has the charges dropped against her. Both are victims of something they could not control, and both found themselves at the mercy of IT administrators’ arrogance (or ignorance), and hot zeal to hand out punishment for it, whether or not the responsible party was punished.

If you know of anyone who has found themselves in a similar situation and are in need of assistance, send them to The Julie Group blog for assistance.

h/t Alex Eckelberry - Sunbelt Blog