In another sign of changing times, the latest Associated Press Stylebook -- still the bible for many newsroom wordsmiths -- now includes guidelines for social media, according to an announcement.

“The new Social Media Guidelines section includes information and policies on using tools like Facebook and Twitter, how journalists can apply them to their work and how to verify sources found through them,” the announcement states. “Also included are 42 separate entries on such terms as app, blogs, click-throughs, friend and unfriend, metadata, RSS, search engine optimization, smart phone, trending, widget and wiki.”

The AP also revealed a major change from “Web site” to “website,” noting it “was based on increasingly common usage both in print and online.”

The entire announcement is below:

2010 AP Stylebook adds social media guidelines

NEW YORK -- Social media have gained greater recognition in the 2010 edition of The Associated Press Stylebook with a separate section for the first time that also makes “website” one word.

The new Social Media Guidelines section includes information and policies on using tools like Facebook and Twitter, how journalists can apply them to their work and how to verify sources found through them. Also included are 42 separate entries on such terms as app, blogs, click-throughs, friend and unfriend, metadata, RSS, search engine optimization, smart phone, trending, widget and wiki.

The AP said the change from “Web site” to “website” was based on increasingly common usage both in print and online.

“In making the change, the Stylebook team considered responses from our staff as well as readers and users of the Stylebook. It was clear that website has become the widely accepted usage,” said Darrell Christian, AP editor-at-large.

“We solicited reader suggestions for the new Social Media section and received 237 responses, with a large number of commentators urging us to change to website,” he said.

“Web” remains a capitalized proper noun when used as a shortened form of World Wide Web, and e-mail, with the hyphen, remains unchanged for electronic mail, along the lines of similar phrases such as e-book, e-reader and A-list.

The new edition of the Stylebook also changes some cities that have appeared alone in stories, without country identification. Country names were restored to Bogota, Colombia; Copenhagen, Denmark; Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany; Kabul, Afghanistan, and Oslo, Norway. The province was restored for Ottawa, Ontario, in Canada. The changes were based on editors' judgment that these cities get higher reader recognition when paired with their countries in news stories.

The Stylebook also makes the distinction between Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the corporate name of the discount retailer, and Walmart, for the stores themselves.

New entries recognize significant developments in world events: Great Recession, referring to the 2007-08 economic downturn that was the worst recession since the Great Depression, and tea party, for the conservative political movement.

Other new entries cover Alcoholics Anonymous, Bluetooth, Blu-ray, bondholder, Breathalyzer, flu-like, GED, International Space Station, mic as the shortened form for microphone, hard line, high-five, Taser, thumbs-up and Ultimate Fighting.

In print, and as the Web-based Stylebook Online, the AP Stylebook is the essential tool for writers, editors, students and public relations specialists.

It inspires such a following that the social networking site Facebook includes four separate groups called “The AP Stylebook is my Bible” and has spawned a popular parody Twitter account. The official Twitter account for the AP Stylebook, http://twitter.com/APStylebook, has more than 44,000 followers.

The Stylebook was first produced in 1953 as a stapled collection of rules totaling 60 pages, and has grown to a publication of more than 450 pages today. The book's creation was prompted in part by a technical change in the way the AP transmitted news as well as a need for consistency among a worldwide editorial staff that produced stories for newspapers with a variety of style preferences. There have been major periodic revisions over the past few decades, the last in 2008, and the print edition is now updated annually.

The new print edition and online subscriptions can be ordered by credit card online at a secure site at http://www.apbookstore.com. The order form also allows customers to create an invoice to pay by check or money order, and member news organizations can request direct assessment.

The new edition costs $11.75 for member news organizations and college bookstores and $18.95 retail. For the second year in a row, AP held prices steady. Stylebook Online prices also are the same, with individual subscribers paying $25 annually, $15 for news organizations that are AP members. Prices for Online site licenses are based on the number of users, with the price declining as the number of users increases.