Anti-gay reporter Roland Martin was at it again during Sunday night's Madonna concert (cleverly sandwiched between a football game) when the CNN political analyst took to Twitter to tell his followers to beat any guys interested David Beckham's H&M underwear ad. Behold: more ›

Although Baghdad by the Bay receives its fair share of unfair criticism for being an amoral cesspool of liberal ideology mixed with hippie dandruff and plated figs, the fine folks of San Francisco really are some of the most standup people in the world. Example 839,938,020? The wallet returned to New York City's Meg Robertson. While visiting our city of strong moral fiber, Robertson lost her wallet. And it was returned. Along with all the money. Behold: more ›

Kyle Williams is a legend. But probably not the kind he wanted to be. After his two fumbles (among other things) cost the Niners Sunday's NFC game, he'll go down (however briefly) as the guy who cost us a shot at the 2012 Super Bowl. Which, whatever. It happens. No big deal, right? Mistakes were made. Wounds will heal. Lessons shall be learned. Hardly the end of the world. Well, not according to one angry fan who took to Twitter to make a death threat not only against Williams, but his wife and family too. more ›

Although tickets don't go on sale until Wednesday, twitter-friendly Niners President and CEO Jed York wants to make sure one lucky member of the faithful gets a seat at the NFC Championship game. In a tweet this afternoon, York wanted to know why he, benevolent rich person that he is, should give one lucky fan four tickets and pregame field passes to this Sunday's matchup with the New York Giants. The best answer (tweeted at him, we assume?) by Tuesday at 5 p.m. wins the Jed York Hashtag Niner Faithful NFC Championship Package. If you're throwing your hat in to the twitter-ring, here's a look at the entries you're already up against: more ›

If you're one of those reasonable people who doesn't obsessively watch every hash tag that trends in San Francisco, then you're currently missing out on one of the more fascinating and inexplicable tags we've seen in awhile. Observe: #BayAreaSayings, ostensibly a list of things real people in the Bay Area utter in public with some degree regularity. more ›

The fine folks at Twitter—specifically, the benevolent Isaac Hepworth—sent SFist images of their new 10th and Market headquarters now in progress. Among the many niceties the larger, Tenderloin-adjacent office will boast? A garden, stellar views from reception, and more space for the growing social media giant. While still in its skeletal stage, the new offices will be a boon to the area. more ›

Abducted squirrel monkey and Twitter sensation Banana Sam has been returned, only slightly worse for wear, to the San Francisco Zoo. The 17-year-old, 2-pound monkey was found Saturday evening by someone in Stern Grove, who managed to coax him into a backpack and return him to the zoo, where zookeepers say he was hungry, cold, and shaking but otherwise fine and uninjured. As Banana Sam's Twitter alter-ego wrote on New Year's Day, "The zoo said, I was 'hungry, trembling, and thirsty' when I got back. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE THIS MORNING RIGHT?!!" Also, he added, "That's the last time I ever crawl into someone's backpack who says we're going to an 'awesome party, dude.'" more ›

The story of Banana-Sam, the Squirrel Monkey reported missing from the San Francisco Zoo earlier today, seems to have taken the city by storm on this slow news day. Like any good viral sensation, this one has it's very own twitter account from which we can track Banana-Sam's crosstown exploits. If the little fella is to be believed (and why wouldn't we trust a tweeting monkey?), security out there at the Zoo was "laughably simple" to breach, but he still had to wait an hour for the L-Taraval before he could escape the Outer Sunset. more ›

Today in celebrity What the Eff news: famous figure skaters Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi are taking over KQED's twitter feed to tweet about... something. So far it's been mostly Boitano retweeting his own tweet about how he's in Greenville, South Carolina for an Improv Ice show. Yamaguchi, on the other hand, has taken to filling us in on traffic on 680 in the far East Bay. (Sent from her iPad, no less.) Observe: more ›

The chilling Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), drafted by Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, would have catastrophic affects on how you use the web and who (namely the U.S. government) controls it. Think China, Malaysia, or Iran. SOPA also represents another reality-estranged attempt attempt from "Hollywood, the Recording Industry Association of America, and their allies to counter what they claim to be rampant piracy online, especially from offshore sites such as ThePirateBay.org," notes CNET. The act would essentially let the Justice Department make any "allegedly piratical Web sites virtually vanish from the Internet." more ›

The town remains abuzz with Twitter's upcoming move to upper-mid-Market, to the former Furniture Exchange/SFMart building at 1355 Market Street. And now we have a couple architect's renderings via a press conference late last week, which was ostensibly about Twitter's new redesigned web and mobile interface. We learn that a) the design calls for removing part of the 7th floor on the western side of the building to create an open-air roof garden on the 6th floor, which will overlook 10th Street, and b) there will be a fancy new cafeteria for Twitter employees which will soon become the new place everyone wants to go have lunch but can't unless they know someone at Twitter. more ›

(By Christopher Robbins) In the midst of the most important story of our time, Alec Baldwin's spokesman wants us to know that getting the boot from an American Airlines flight was just Alec being Alec. "Alec loves Words With Friends so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it," flack Matthew Hilzik tells the Daily News. And fellow famous-person Oscar De La Hoya, who was on the flight from LAX to JFK, tweeted "I think the flight attendant over reacted…@AlecBaldwin was doing nothing wrong but playing 'words' on his phone." But couldn't this just be some celebrity Omertá? According to American Airlines, Baldwin was acting like a thoughtless little pig. more ›

A Federal Judge in Virginia ruled Thursday that Twitter must turn over the IP addresses of three users possibly connected to WikiLeaks. The case has raised a number of Internet privacy and free speech issues after the Justice Department tried to get the information, which highlights a computer's location, without a search warrant. According to the New York Times report on the case, the government cited a law from 1994 to demand the information. more ›

What Twitter employees will lack in $5 foot-longs, they'll more tham make up for in $48 roasted chicken with bread salad. Which is to say, Twitter ilk will hurl chunks of their earnings at Zuni Cafe, located at Market and 10th, once they relocate to the Tenderloin. And for whatever reason this is subscription-required news. Wall Street Journal reports the obvious: "Twitter Inc. is expected to relocate its headquarters in the middle of next year to a few blocks away from Zuni's sun-washed space, bringing well over 1,000 employees to the area. '"It will be great,' said Zuni chef and co-owner Judy Rodgers. 'For so long this was such a shaky, edgy part of town.'" more ›

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone accidentally (?) spammed his entire prestigious lot of followers with the following plea: “Will you endorse @EdLeeforMayor for Mayor on @Votizen https://www.votizen.com/m/93t6at/." more ›

In a move to address the ongoing issue of violence in clubs around the city, SFPD Chief Greg Suhr held a forum with members of private security companies at the Hall of Justice yesterday. The main topic of discussion: how to get club employees and private security workers talking to the police again. And the solution: let's have them tweet about it. more ›

Five-year-old sentence-degradation engine Twitter has reached a major milestone of 100 million active users, which they say is an 80 percent increase since the beginning of the year. (They had previously cited 200 million as the number of registered accounts they had, but they're now focusing on "active" users, and say that of that 100 mil, half sign on every day.) What's next for the company? Well, they're going to be rolling out more ads in the form of "promoted tweets," which they hope won't alienate users. But as for an IPO, they're not talking about that just yet. more ›

While it's still a couple months before Twitter moves in to their new headquarters at 10th and Market, it's never too early to check in on how that whole neighborhood revitalization thing is going. In the news this week: two national developers pushing projects around Central Market: one 720-unit condo development moves forward after years of stalling and another 260-unit complex will move in around the corner on 9th Street. And a local developer snaps up an adjacent office building. more ›

Or reasons obvious to the Twitter historians and superfans, anyway: In a blog post yesterday, Twitter co-founder and Stoli Vodka shill Biz Stone announced he'll be getting "out of the way" of Twitter's current staff to relaunch Obvious Corp, the company that originally sat on Twitter until it warmed up enough to hatch and become the adorable little chick we know today. Obvious' goals aren't so... well, obvious — in their mission statement, the company says Obvious "makes systems that help people work together to improve the world." So, another well-meaning, somewhat nebulous Silicon Valley startup, basically. more ›

Gavin Newsom, an authority when it comes to social media and politics, made an important announcement via that most concise social medium this morning. And the news may come as a surprise: more ›

In case you've ever wanted to send a brief, timely update to the plaster and gauze encasing a rookie of the year's broken lower extremity (and why wouldn't you?), here's your chance. At the moment, @PoseysCast seems focused on retweeting a handful get well wishes for the temporarily disabled Giants catcher rather than providing original wisdom, but he (it?) has already spawned a spoof-of-a-spoof in the prickly @PoseysLeftAnkle. Who says in a tweet directed at PoseysCast, "Get off of me!" Well done, everyone. more ›

What with jarring drama stirring about a creepy Ed Lee election bid (more on that later), Chris Daly attempts to lighten things up. The former Supervisor and current bartender tips hit hat to New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who famously sent out a Twitter update featuring his (huge) penis, with a message of his own.
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San Franciscans may be anti-corporate in their politics, but the nation's tourists who visit here just might be fascinated enough with our brands to make them stops on their sight-seeing trips. That's what San Francisco Travel hopes anyway, and they're looking to make Levi's Plaza more of a tourist destination, as well as other corporate headquarters associated with the city. more ›

San Francisco-based Twitter is getting a bunch of credit for helping leak the huge of news of last night. Without Twitter, many news sources might not have gotten the pre-White House announcement heads up about the news of Osama bin Laden's capture and assassination last night. White House Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer first made an announcement via tweet at 9:45 p.m. ET that the President would be addressing the nation at 10:30, following up with a three-word email to selected journalists that said "get to work." Then Keith Urbahn, a former Chief of Staff for Donald Rumsfeld, seems to be the first out of the gate with this tweet from 10:25 p.m. ET: “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.” (See the NYT's account of the trail of the leak.) more ›

Word is out that Lieutenant Governor, former Mayor and adept twitter abbreviator Gavin Newsom just signed a deal with Penguin Books to pen a book about "the intersection of social media and government." Naturally, Gavin broke the news on his twitter account: more ›

San Francisco, as you know, is a unique and special flower. A city unlike any other where whimsical and unique things happen that would never occur anywhere else. Like Bay to Breakers. Or most of Stephanie Tanner's life lessons. Or a delightfully delusional man photographed at a hunky Jesus contest thrown by a cabal of altruistic drag nuns. Sure, those are all uniquely San Franciscan, but judging from the dumb stuff people say on twitter every day, some of you out there seem confused about what constitutes an "Only in SF" moment. Let's take a look: more ›

Over on the Chronicle, City Insider figured out the key to the Board's vote on the Twitter Tax Break: "The more you tweet, the more likely you were to vote for Twitter." (As if that were a hard code to crack.) The formula holds true for the social network-friendly supes like Jane Kim or David Chiu - and it even predicted the somewhat surprising vote from prolific twitster Eric Mar. (Although, he might have been focusing more on the tax break for Burning Man.) We expect it's only a matter of time before Zynga predicts their own sweetheart deal by checking which supes spend the most time playing Cityville. [CityInsider] more ›

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors overwhelmingly approved the controversial Twitter tax break today, a move that (hopefully) will keep the microblogging service from fleeing the city. "The measure passed by the Board of Supervisors 8-3 on Tuesday exempts the microblogging service from paying payroll tax on new hires if it moves to the city's neglected Mid-Market area," reports Associated Press. "The exemption applies to any business in the blighted neighborhood, but city officials call Twitter the big fish that could spur economic growth." Twitter is now expected to sign a six-year lease in the neighborhood. more ›