Iran brings the world its first Twittered revolution.

A mere few months ago, celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Oprah brought Twitter to the mainstream masses. Soon enough, people were jumping to prove that Twitter had been overhyped and was on the verge of stagnation.

Then came the Iranian Election. In the days since, Twitter has proven to be a vital hub of information for a peaceful revolution that has been locked out of almost any other communication channel.

If you've only been on the periphery of this online saga, here are a few links (in chronological order) to get you up to date:

• "US State Dept. Helping Twitter Stay Up For Iranians" [ReadWriteWeb]
• "Iran's Twitter Revolution" [The Nation]
• "Iran's struggle for free expression on Twitter." [NPR]
• "Twitterers Protests CNN's 'FAIL'" [WSJ]
• "Ahmadinejad Rally Photoshopped to Appear Larger" [Daily Kos]
• "Social media allows reports despite Tehran's curbs." [NPR]
• "Twitter 1, Censors 0: Why it's still working." [MSNBC]
  

Those of us active on Twitter have noticed that for the past several days, thousands upon thousands of updates have been labeled with the #iranelection tag, allowing for news to spread quickly before being "blacked out" by the Iranian government's current ban on most forms of media coverage.

One inspiring thing to come out of Iran's recent struggle with election tallies and suffering democracy is citizen heroism. The decency and compassion in which the Iranian reformist protesters conduct themselves makes it even harder to watch in real time when violence flares up.

Meanwhile, Iran's government officials are seeking out bloggers within Iran and filling Twitter with false information.

 I won't name any specific Iranian bloggers since I know they currently have a bounty on their heads, but if you like your news and information in real time, you can watch it all unfold on Twitter Search (even if you're not a user).

This post was co-written by Whitney Sides Mitchell and David Griner.