The Good

In the same week that Twitter finally made its ‘Lists’ feature available in beta to some users (which allows people to curate lists of Twitter accounts), both Google and Bing have announced that they will start to include publicly accessible tweets in search results.

The ‘Lists’ feature seems to have put to rest some of the criticism of the ‘Suggested User List’ (displayed when your first sign up to the service). It was intended to supply people with a selection of profiles that may be of potential interest, but has been called ‘undemocratic and editorialising’ by many, with critics suggesting that media companies included on the list have a vested interest in writing positively about Twitter.

With Facebook finally becoming profitable recently, Twitter’s search deals (rumoured to be worth several million dollars) have put it firmly back in the saddle.

The Bad

The BBC spent the week fighting to protect its reputation after allowing BNP party leader Nick Griffin on its prime time Question Time show last night, despite repeated attempts from the BBC Trust itself to stop this going ahead.

Deputy director general of the Beeb – Mark Byford – said that it was not the BBC’s role to censor the BNP, stating that he had to allow it due to ‘responsibility of due impartiality’.

The BNP has been under an increasingly intense spotlight in the run up to the programme, after another membership leak on Tuesday, and a number of former generals accusing the party of hijacking the reputation of the armed forces.

During the broadcast of the show, tweets referencing Griffin’s involvement hit an all time high. Mentions of the hashtag #bbcqt peaked at 12.49 tweets per second, 53,500 in total, according to political Twitter tracker, Tweetminister.

The Ugly

TFL also fought to save face after an employee was caught on camera being aggressive to an elderly passenger. Damningly, video of the incident suggested that he has stormed off while muttering ‘sling him under a train’. As the clip was circulated around various social networks, blogs and started getting national coverage, London’s Mayor Boris Johnson waded in. He tweeted that he was “appalled by the video. Have asked TfL to investigate urgently. Abuse by passengers or staff is never acceptable.”

In a matter of minutes, TFL responded by echoing the sentiment, saying: “We are appalled by the scene captured in this video and will investigate thoroughly and urgently what took place and what led to it. We do not tolerate members of the public being abusive to our staff but neither will we tolerate members of our staff abusing members of the public”.