Obama, Congressmen and techies atwitter about Twitter

No word of an IPO yet, but Twitter’s still making lots of news. On Wednesday, the social media company is expected to announce a new photo-sharing feature to challenge third-party services like TwitPic and Yfrog at the D9 conference, reports AllThingsDigital (the conference is hosted by the site). The feature will supposedly allow Twitter users to share photos and images directly from their Twitter accounts, instead of signing into a third-party service provider. [caption id=“attachment_18466” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“There’s a buzz about Twitter. Albert Gea/Reuters “]  [/caption] Citing concerns over service consistency and privacy, the social media company has recently embarked on a larger campaign to take control of the universe of Twitter-related businesses that have emerged. In fact, Twitter told developers outright to “ stop making their own clients.” Last week, it put its money where its mouth is and  bought TweetDeck, one of the most successful of those clients. Hacked! Speaking of consistency and privacy, Twitter’s also grabbing headlines because someone hacked into the account of Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, and then directed a lewd photo at a 21-year-old college student from Seattle. The tweet appeared on Friday night and was immediately deleted. A spokesman for Weiner said the incident was a prank, and that the Congressman had hired a lawyer to explore civil or criminal actions. The target of the tweet told the New York Daily News that even though she’s a “fan” of Weiner, and the Congressman follows her on Twitter, she has never met him. She says she doesn’t understand why she’s part of this “fiasco.” The President’s inner circle This news follows on an announcement last week by US President Barack Obama that Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who’s been on the job since October, would be appointed to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). The NSTAC provides the US government with guidance on how communications infrastructure can strengthen national security and disaster response, and enhance cybersecurity. Costolo’s inclusion in a group dominated by corporate telecom bigwigs is an indication of how vital and viral Twitter has become in breaking and disseminating news. Fun Twitter fact of the day On the viral front, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was trending worldwide on Tuesday. Lots of speculation as to why, but it apparently got a boost from Indonesia, where the film was screened recently.