Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-17/From the editor

Regular readers will remember this column last week, where the Signpost announced a new Android app created by Yuvi Panda and Notnarayan, free for download on Google Play.

Last week's column focused on the physical changes in news consumption over the last twenty years, from paper to personal computers to tablets and smartphones. I also remarked on the emerging roles of blogs and news aggregators in distributing the information traditionally conveyed by newspapers. Yet these two shifts, while important, leave out a third dimension: social networking. In recent years, websites like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter have fundamentally altered the way many internet users receive news. Twitter, in particular, has been the starting point for many crucial news stories, like the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, where a Pakistani citizen was the first to report and tweet about helicopters over Abbottabad.

With the importance of social network services in mind, the Signpost has now expanded to include Facebook. The page is located at facebook.com/wikisignpost, and we invite you to "like" the page and join the discussion there. We are aiming to link to several interesting stories throughout the week, both from the Signpost and outside publications, for you to comment on.

We hope this will give readers more comfortable with social networking a chance to comment in a familiar environment. This will also allow us to provide news to you throughout the week, rather than waiting for the usual weekly issues.

You can also connect with us via Twitter or Identi.ca.

&mdash;The ed17, Signpost editor-in-chief