• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, August 12, 2013

Over the last couple years the Department of Defense has adopted social media to facilitate communication within the U.S. military, with sites modeled loosely on civilian equivalents like milBook (Facebook and LinkedIn), milWiki (Wikipedia), and milTube (YouTube). Now there’s a new addition to the suite of military social media, with a Twitter-style platform called milWire, which allows military users to follow each other, aggregate news, and subscribe to feeds about specific topics.

Like the other military social media applications, milWire exists on the DoD’s own separate Internet, which allows secure sharing of information, and it complements the other social apps by encouraging content discovery and sharing; thus when users create content in milBook, milTube or milWiki, there is an option to “post to milWire,” and users can also activate “related content” widgets.At launch the list of suggested topics users can follow include subjects like science and technology, education and training, and sequestration and cybersecurity. Users can also post content, links, and embedded video.

Together with milBook, milWiki, and milTube, milWire is part of milSuite, the umbrella social platform provided by the Army's Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical Military Technical Solutions Office.

The DoD has created a number of other networks, like CompanyCommand, which allows captains to share information that would otherwise have to go up (and back down) the entire chain of command. At the upper levels, the DoD also launched a Strategic Knowledge Integration Web, which provides senior commanders with real-time command status, news, and information feeds, as well as a blogging function.

There are also unofficial military social media platforms: one such example, RallyPoint, serves both active-duty and former military personnel with an emphasis on career development and professional networking. The platform is especially robust on the active-duty side, which includes an interactive, hierarchical org chart showing all the current U.S. military commands around the world and their current staffing levels -- allowing personnel to search for potential postings and new opportunities they might not have been aware of.