White House tweeting spreads president's message

Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama's record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter.

The popular social network is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects (the federal budget) and the mundane (personal grocery lists). It's similar to a bulletin board where anyone can post short notes and users cull the pieces they see by choosing to "follow" individuals' account. Forget press releases. Gibbs and his deputy, Bill Burton, are now sharing news in Twitter messages. So far 33,000 people have signed up to follow Gibbs and more than 6,000 are tracking Burton. Those two officials have a ways to go to catch actor Ashton Kutcher and his 4.6 million followers. With a news cycle now measured in seconds rather than days, administration officials recognize they must embrace this rapid pace and use the same tactics as the critics who assail them and the reporters who cover them. Gibbs, who is Obama's chief defender, has signaled that the White House won't cede any ground online. Since then, it has proved to be a powerful tool for mobilizing causes and protest movements by allowing people to use common phrases to link subjects by theme. In Washington, that translates into hashtags - key words preceded by the symbol for a pound sign - such as (pound sign)whitehouse or (pound sign)gop that users key in to find connected nuggets.