dropping the bomb on social networking

That's a literal title folks: The department of defense has adopted social networking technologies in a field-tested system designed to allow for more networked information flow than normal in the armed forces, according to a report from Rough Type's Nicholas Carr.

By clicking on icons and lists, [patrol leaders] can see the locations of key buildings, like mosques, schools, and hospitals, and retrieve information such as location data on past attacks, geotagged photos of houses and other buildings (taken with cameras equipped with Global Positioning System technology), and photos of suspected insurgents and neighborhood leaders. They can even listen to civilian interviews and watch videos of past maneuvers. It is just the kind of information that soldiers need to learn about Iraq and its perils.

The above is actually a fantastic model for a web-based journalism site to adopt. Can you imagine the kind of robust networked reporting that could happen with something similar?