The FBI's most wanted list joins social media

The FBI's most wanted list never looked like this.

The bureau is taking lessons from social media to distribute information about the most wanted criminals and update the public about the cases. It has an email distribution list with 150,000 addresses for updates on the list. The bureau has more than 33,000 followers on its breaking-news Twitter feed and more than 18,000 Facebook fans.

There is an iPhone app, too. Users can have the faces of the most wanted, as well as top terrorism fugitives and missing children, right in their pockets.

"When [posters] were in the post office, it was because a lot of people were in the post office," said Nancy Beaton, a spokeswoman for NIC Inc., which developed the iPhone application. "These days, people spend a lot of time on their mobile phone, and it is the place to be."

For more on the FBI's most wanted list:
- see this Houston Chronicle article