Late Friday afternoon, Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) Senior Editor Milton Coleman sent a memo to the staff with a social media policy–effectively immediately–aimed at staffers’ use of “”ndividual accounts on online social networks, when used for reporting and for personal use.”

The new policy was translated externally by WaPo ombudsman Andy Alexander on his blog, along with a worst-case illustration: the decision by Managing Editor Raju Narisetti, responsible for features and the web, to shut down what appears to have been a small Twitter account intended for a private audience of friends and associates (as private as something that goes to 90-ish people can be) after some of his comments were called into question. Most of the online conversation that ensued was among people who had not yet seen the guidelines, which the paper, in a major transparency failure, didn’t make public.

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As school starts again, there’s so much more for a parent to nag about. Homework. Bedtime. Lost hours on Facebook and Xbox. The chores that need to be squeezed in.

But in the age of the digital childhood, Jacky Longwell, 45, mother of three in McLean, often text-messages what she once uttered as her children rushed out the door: Be nice to your brother. Walk the dog. Remember your reading.

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The Obama administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with “cookies” and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups.

A two-week public comment period ended Monday on a proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget to end a ban on federal Internet sites using such technologies and replace it with other privacy safeguards. The current prohibition, in place since 2000, can be waived if an agency head cites a “compelling need.”

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Online swindling takes dedication even in the best of times, the scammer said earnestly.

The spinal cord aches from sitting at a desk. The eyes itch from staring at a computer. The heart thumps from drinking bitter cola to stay awake for chats with Americans in faraway time zones. The wallet shrinks from buying potions that supposedly compel the Americans to pay.

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The Washington Post (WPO) on Wednesday is unveiling a new mobile version of its Web site as it seeks to catch up to the competition in the mobile arena and exploit a rare area of promise for newspapers.

For the Post, the mobile launch reflects a broader strategy by the paper to magnify its focus on Washington. Like a lot of major metro papers, the Post was able to be more ambitious and comprehensive in its coverage of news when it enjoyed a virtual monopoly on local advertising.

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Dorothy and Andrew Yankanich moved into their $18,000 brick rambler in Wheaton in 1966 and soon began what would become a daily ritual: Walking across the street to the squat blue mailbox and dropping off bills, birthday cards, letters, catalogue orders and whatever else needed to be sent on its way.

For 43 years, in rain and shine, through the raising of seven children, the friendly box they could see through their front window’s lace curtains was always there.

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The discarded plan to sell seats at dinner with the publisher of the Washington Post (WPO) shouldn’t be taken by newspapers as a reason to avoid hosting profit-making events that deliver journalistic and public-service benefits to their communities.

The key in organizing for-profit (and pro bono) events is to keep your commercial and ethical priorities straight.

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Nick Denton is sitting amid the rows of screen-staring digital workers in the fourth-floor walkup that serves as Gawker headquarters, having neglected to build himself a private office.

“I would do it, but I don’t want to be mocked by the blogs,” says the company’s founder, retreating to the loft’s only semiprivate space — a pair of old couches next to a table with boxes of canned soda piled underneath.

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Will the settlement agreement between Google’s Book Search Library Project and authors and publishers put Google (GOOG) in monopoly territory?

That’s the argument that Brewster Kahle, co-founder of the Internet Archive, made in an op-ed in the Washington Post, in which he writes that the settlement “provides a new and unsettling form of media consolidation.”

Google’s book-scanning project drew outcry and a class-action lawsuit from the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers, who said the Internet company was violating copyright laws by scanning copyrighted works. A settlement agreement was reached in October of 2008 which would allow publishers and authors to share Google’s profits from the sale of digital versions of copyrighted works. The deadline for plaintiffs to object to or opt out of the settlement was recently extended to Sept. 4, 2009.

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Unless Congress embarks on far-reaching change in public policy to maintain the viability of journalism as it evolves online, we will soon find ourselves with the remnants of a broken industry incapable of providing the knowledge necessary to manage life in a complex world. Journalism does not need a bailout, but it does need a sort of “recovery act” to bring the legal landscape in line with today’s publishing technologies.

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If journalism were a psychological disorder, traditional print reporters have attention deficit disorder, while bloggers are more on the obsessive-compulsive-disorder side of the coin.

This is according to Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, who presented her testimony Wednesday to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in a hearing about the future of journalism, along with Google’s Marissa Mayer, former Washington Post editor Steve Coll and others.

Ms. Huffington called the profusion of online journalism “a Golden Age for news consumers,” not unexpected given her Web-media leanings. She said mainstream-media reporters must change their approach. “For too long, traditional media have been afflicted with attention deficit disorder–they are far too quick to drop a story–even a good one, in their eagerness to move on to the Next Big Thing.”

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The relationship did not end because of Elizabeth Fishkin’s boyfriend’s text aversion.

On the other hand, it didn’t exactly help.

Like the time when they were supposed to meet for dinner, and Fishkin texted him to say she was waiting at the restaurant bar.

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To the usual trappings that help many homeless people endure life on the streets–woolen blankets, shopping carts or cardboard box shelters–add the humble cellphone.

Today, it’s not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia (NOK) 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check email or urge friends to read their blogs.

It’s another sign of a society in transition by way of technology, as businesses shed physical addresses for cyberspace and homeless people can establish an online presence and chase opportunities digitally.

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Julie Zingeser texts at home, at school, in the car while her mother is driving. She texts during homework, after pompon practice and as she walks the family dog. She takes her cellphone with her to bed.

Every so often, the hum of a new message rouses the Rockville teen from sleep. “I would die without it,” Julie, 15, says of her text life.

This does not surprise her mother, Pam, who on one recent afternoon scans the phone bill for the eye-popping number that puts an exclamation point on how growing up has changed in the digital age. In one busy month, Pam finds, her youngest daughter sent and received 6,473 text messages.

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The nation’s switch to all-digital broadcasts has been more than a decade in the making. The federal government has spent nearly $2 billion to help people prepare. Broadcasters spent another $1.2 billion to run warning ads and millions more to upgrade equipment. Until last week, the United States seemed ready to follow the half-dozen European countries that have made the switch.

But with two federal agencies in charge, no clear idea of how many people would be affected and constant partisan disagreements over money, the program foundered just before its longstanding Feb. 17 deadline. It has now been pushed back four months.

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