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Fred Wilson.

When we caught up with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey during his visit to the city last month, he told us he had been meeting with venture capitalists and others in the local tech scene to get their input on launching a startup in New York.

As we reported at the time, Mr. Dorsey is strongly considering moving his new company out here. (Judging by his Tweets over the past few days, it also looks like his personal move back to New York is complete.)

He said he was gauging whether New York was conducive to fostering startups and that he was also concerned about the challenge of scaling a new company here.

One of the people from whom he sought advice about these issues was Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, who recalls his chat with Mr. Dorsey in a blog post today:

It looks like the M.T.A. has finally jumped aboard the Twitter train.

Sewell Chan reports on City Room that the agency's buses and subway arm, New York City Transit, quietly set up the Twitter account NYCTSubwayScoop after the ceiling collapse at the 181st Street No. 1 subway station a few weeks ago.

Initially, the account was used to detail and chronicle repairs and subsequent service restoration at the station. Since then, New York City Transit has used the account to dispatch updates on construction and service disruptions at other stations. Although, it hasn't yet promoted the account, and as of the time of Mr. Chan's posting at 5:25 p.m. yesterday, August 31, it only had 370 followers. (That number had grown to 533 as of this posting.)

From City Room:

Dorsey, at left.

I have an item in this week's Observer about Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

It focuses on his visit to New York last week to meet with various V.C.s and tech C.E.O.s and engineers (and Mayor Bloomberg) to get a feel for whether he wants base the new company he's launching here instead of on the West Coast. He also told us that a personal relocation to the city is in the works.

A little down the line, as Mr. Dorsey irons out the plans for his new venture, he'll be contributing some blog posts to NYFi. But in the meantime, here's a transcript of some of the conversation we had last Thursday, August 13, at The Standard Hotel. In it, he shares his thoughts about the ways city governments and agencies can use Twitter most effectively.

The interview starts after the jump:

It takes a lot of hard work and smarts to pass the LSATs and the bar exam, and, we think it's safe to say, to be a lawyer in general.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that your everyday attorney has great Web skills. In fact, as City Room reports, some of them have pretty poor ones. Which is why the New York State Bar Association held a seminar in Midtown yesterday to teach out-of-work lawyers how to use social networking Web sites:

Many of the lawyers had little experience with Web sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but all listened attentively and took notes during the one-hour lecture. Some were embarrassed to admit that they did not know much about Twitter and Facebook except from what they had read in the news. Others said they had used social networking sites but did not know how to take advantage of them to find work.

The seminar was a big help to at least one laid-off New York lawyer, Yakov Kozlenko, who's been looking for a new gig ever since he lost his job at the firm Baker Botts back in December:

He left the seminar feeling he had learned new tools to maximize his use of online networking. While he has had several job interviews after using LinkedIn, he said he was hesitant to use Facebook and Twitter for his job search, believing it to be too casual.

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Michael Bloomberg made a splash this week when he posted items on Twitter throughout the day on Tuesday, ostensibly himself.

Twitter is a wildly successful enterprise, but turning a profit isn’t been something the creators have figured out how to do yet. So, today, I asked Bloomberg, who founded a pretty successful media company of his own, if he had any suggestions for how Twitter can generate revenue.

After some laughter from my colleagues in the press corps, Bloomberg said, “I think that’s going to be the great challenge.”

“All of these new social networking--new ways of communicating--have yet to find a new business model that really works and they tend to be replaced by something else,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg said that Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter with whom he met earlier this week, has some ideas about how to generate revenue from the site. “Whether they’ll work or not, I don’t know.”

Bloomberg went on to say “We also get trapped into thinking that the world is coming to an end with old ways of communicating, and I’m still a believer in a lot of the old ways.” He also said, “Newspapers and magazines aren’t going to go away. The challenge for them is to stay relevant.”

Noted.

Video after the jump:

Streetsblog via noneck

Over at Streetsblog, Sarah Goodyear (who I interviewed many moons ago), has a post about the first #bikenyc 'tweetup,' which took place last Wednesday, August 5. The event was an 'in-real-life' meeting of city cyclists who had connected on Twitter using the #bikenyc hash tag.

Ms. Goodyear writes:

So in this case, we were all folks who like both Twitter and biking in New York City, about ten or twelve of us. We met at Bicycle Habitat (thanks for the free water bottles, guys) and then rode over to the West Side bike path via the Prince Street bike lane, ending up at Pier I Cafe for drinks and conversation on a beautiful summer evening. It was pretty sweet. No real agenda, except for enjoying our bikes and our city and each other.

The event was organized by @newamsterdamize (aka @noneck), and it won't be the last. If you're on Twitter, start using and looking for the #bikenyc hashtag. Who knows what could happen next?

Another tweetup, apparently. As a commenter points out, the next one's scheduled for August 29 at Berry Park in Brooklyn.

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New York state's official transportation and travel service, 511NY, recently debuted Twitter feeds for New York–area subway lines and highways that alert commuters to traffic conditions and emergencies.

There are 12 traffic accounts for regions all over the state, including the New York City area (a recent tweet: "Accident on FDR Drive North at 79th St (Manhattan) left lane closed"). There are also accounts for nine subway lines, categorized by color (a recent 4-5-6 line alert: "Due to Track fire at Atlantic Ave Sta, Southbnd # 2, 3, 4 & 5 Lines local service only...").

Todd Westhuis, project director for 511 and the state's department of transportation, told The Observer that Port Authority PATH feeds might soon be on the way, too.

There have been unofficial M.T.A. subway Twitter feeds, but these are the state's first official accounts alerting commuters to emergency advisories. Currently, the M.T.A. has four official Twitter accounts, MetroCardDiane, MetroCardMatt, NYCTChantal, and MetroCardLisa, which were created in April so MetroCard employees could promote events and deals.

It's no secret that New York City politicians are embracing social media and working to carve out an online presence with networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have been especially popular with candidates for mayor, public advocate and city comptroller.

But today, the Daily News contends that most of them are getting it all wrong!

The News had digital-technology and social-networking expert Darrell West of the Brookings Institute evaluate the Twitter feeds of 11 city candidates. His conclusion: "Most of these people have not figured out how to use new digital tools for campaign purposes. They're viewing it as informal conversations as opposed to serious political communications, and they're wasting their time."

For instance, "Bill de Blasio just had a great workout. Eric Gioia's toddler has skinned her knee and David Yassky considers himself a 'superb' Four Square player." Then there's "Controller William Thompson's affection for Star Trek, Councilman Tony Avella's complaints about the rain," former public advocate (and currently P.A. candidate) Mark Green's "pretentious" recent tweet that quoted the Roman poet Juvenal (in Latin, no less!), and "mundane scheduling details about parades or fund-raisers" across the board. Way too may excessive personal details, accoring to Mr. West.

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Pulver.

Jeff Pulver insists that his 140 Character Conference isn't a "tech conference" for nerds. "The people who are there, they’re not tech heads really, they’re just regular people," said Mr. Pulver, the founder of the company that became Vonage, self-described "futurist," and orchestrator of the event in an interview this morning. "This world we’re gathering of people sort of, in my mind, resembles the bar scene from the first Star Wars movie. There’s all kinds of people there and the only thing they have in common is that they speak Twitter."

The two-day conference on June 16th and 17th (at New World Stages on West 50th Street) includes a series of panels on the "disruptive nature of Twitter." Mr. Pulver describes the event as taking a chance to stop and look around at the "state of now" (Ferris Bueller style?), at a time when Twitter seems to be at its peak of popularity. He has invited a "cast of characters" beyond the typical tech stars.

Sure, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Web 2.0 godfather Tim O'Reilly, New York's top venture capitalist Fred Wilson, and Twitter investor and betaworks chief executive John Borthwick will deliver speedy keynotes (15 minutes tops!).

But David Saranga (@DavidSaranga), consul for media and public affairs at the Israeli Consulate in New York, will also be a featured speaker, along with Moeed Ahmad (@moeed), head of new media technology and the future media department technology division for the Al Jazeera Network.

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