Did you know that the first announcement of the discovery of ice on Mars was by NASA on Twitter.com? Did you know that the Joint Forces Command and the Office on Women's Health in the Health and Human Services Department are using twitter to announce speaking engagements and deliver medical news and advice?

Did you know that you can receive Twitter messages on your cell phone, or your instant messaging client, or by e-mail, or via other Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook?

Welcome to the new world of government communication.

• Psst! Are you Twittering yet?, By Heather B. Hayes, FCW, August 25, 2008.

See also Government Agencies Tweet @ Twitter, and Twitter Fan Wiki USGovernment, and Members of Congress who Twitter.

While updating my Twitter account recently, I noticed that womenshealth.gov created their own Twitter account and added me to their network. Kudos to the government agencies who are jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and getting their information out to the community!

That got me wondering what other government agencies have created Twitter accounts, so I did some hunting and found a previous FGI blog entry and an article from CNET News stating that NASA wants to tackle Web 2.0 initiatives in order to "save itself from turning into a dinosaur in the Internet age". It took awhile, but I finally found the official NASA Twitter account, which I stumbled upon via the NASA Edge website and their Twitter page.

The U.S. Department of State created a dipnote Twitter account for alerting users to new posts on their DIPNOTE Blog.

Many non-profit organizations, such as the American Red Cross, created "tweet" alerts during the recent tornado outbreaks in the south.

The Sunlight Foundation is "tweeting" public laws as they are signed.

And of course, FGI is on Twitter as well!

Even Presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton update their Twitter accounts. I can't find one for John McCain, but it looks like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul joined the Twitter bandwagon too.

If you find any other government agencies using Twitter, please post a comment to let everyone know.

Do you use twitter? We're experimenting with using the service -- sort of a microblog that lets you also post to it from your cell phone and other cool features. We've just set up a twitter acct -- freegovinfo of course! -- so go on over and subscribe to the RSS if you're so inclined. Also, if you user twitter, drop us a comment telling us your twitter acct. You can expect some twitter posts from Philly as I'm off to ALA until next tuesday.