Fox News: Twitter Pundits
Now that Barack Obama and John McCain are definitely and unequivocally going to debate on Friday night, a popular micro-blogging site is making it easy for just about anyone to be an instant political pundit. Let the twittering begin.
Twitter, the online communication network that lets users post short messages of up to 140 characters called “tweets,” has launched a political section to streamline its coverage. Called election.twitter.com, the company has launched a specialized section that aggregates election-related topics in a continually updating feed.
Twitter’s search engine also lets users see what people are saying about the major players and the issues — almost as they happen. (Just see what people were saying about the debate the moment John McCain said Friday morning that he would attend.)
The upcoming debates between Obama and McCain, and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, are on track to generate record numbers of tweets per second as users react and respond in real-time, company co-founder Biz Stone said. “When millions of people share their thoughts publicly in response to each detail of this election, we also have the ability to gauge the reactions in aggregate, look at the emerging trends and find out what’s really on our minds,” Stone said.
Twitter, which started as a way for people to communicate with friends and acquaintances, has become a go-to place to find out what people are saying on both sides of the political aisle — as opposed to blogs that lean politically left or right, which often dictate the views of their readers.
Twitter has taken political coverage by storm. Whereas the 2004 elections were dominated by bloggers who weighed in online with news and commentary, this election has been all about networking sites. But unlike Facebook and YouTube, Twitter seems particularly suited for political discourse.
James Kotecki, a political video blogger and host of The Politico’s Playbook TV, said people are drawn to Twitter for its immediacy and short, digestible messages. “People aren’t necessarily going to read a huge blog post in the middle of a live event like a debate, for example,” Kotecki said.
Twitter is the ideal way to cover the debate, he said, because “with a mobile phone or a smartphone it would be easier to follow that analysis on Twitter as opposed to a blog … simple to read because it’s very few characters.”
Millions of Twitterers — individuals, Web sites and companies — twitter politically related thoughts, actions and links every day, and users can follow fellow Twitterers and receive instant updates online or on mobile phones. Bloggers across the spectrum twitter news headlines, links to blog posts and analyses, and personal, immediate reactions to speeches and events.
Nearly all the major news outlets have jumped on the bandwagon, including FOX News. The campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain have created Twitter accounts for up-to-the-minute news and updates. Recently, Twitter partnered with Current TV, the audience-produced television network and Web site co-founded by Al Gore, to promote political Twittering.
The project, called Hack the Debate, allows Twitterers to send their tweets to Current (by attaching “#current” to the tweet), which will be filtered and shown on-air during the debate. So what, exactly, are people talking about? Chris Albrecht, a staff writer at NewTeeVee.com, explains that debate tweets will be short, quick reactions, “like quips you would make in your living room.”
Kotecki said he plans to Twitter during the debate and will likely submit “analysis or insight or a joke” as he thinks of it. There will also be plenty of healthy political debating going on.
Will anyone care what Twitterers have to say? “I don’t know if they will,” said Albrecht.
Current’s young, tech-savvy audience — likely filled with Twitter users — might be interested in the tweets. But “hardcore political people” — the types who will be watching C-Span — might not, Albrecht said.
“The jury’s still out on whether Twitter’s actually good for anything,” says Kotecki.
But he notes: “As we become ever more saturated with information, it’s going to be more important that we consolidate our ideas into very small spaces like this space that you have on Twitter.”
Everyone can agree on this much: Twitter has opened the public discourse, and if that motivates people to vote, then that’s a good thing.
Twitter, the online communication network that lets users post short messages of up to 140 characters called “tweets,” has launched a political section to streamline its coverage. Called election.twitter.com, the company has launched a specialized section that aggregates election-related topics in a continually updating feed.
Twitter’s search engine also lets users see what people are saying about the major players and the issues — almost as they happen. (Just see what people were saying about the debate the moment John McCain said Friday morning that he would attend.)
The upcoming debates between Obama and McCain, and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, are on track to generate record numbers of tweets per second as users react and respond in real-time, company co-founder Biz Stone said. “When millions of people share their thoughts publicly in response to each detail of this election, we also have the ability to gauge the reactions in aggregate, look at the emerging trends and find out what’s really on our minds,” Stone said.
Twitter, which started as a way for people to communicate with friends and acquaintances, has become a go-to place to find out what people are saying on both sides of the political aisle — as opposed to blogs that lean politically left or right, which often dictate the views of their readers.
Twitter has taken political coverage by storm. Whereas the 2004 elections were dominated by bloggers who weighed in online with news and commentary, this election has been all about networking sites. But unlike Facebook and YouTube, Twitter seems particularly suited for political discourse.
James Kotecki, a political video blogger and host of The Politico’s Playbook TV, said people are drawn to Twitter for its immediacy and short, digestible messages. “People aren’t necessarily going to read a huge blog post in the middle of a live event like a debate, for example,” Kotecki said.
Twitter is the ideal way to cover the debate, he said, because “with a mobile phone or a smartphone it would be easier to follow that analysis on Twitter as opposed to a blog … simple to read because it’s very few characters.”
Millions of Twitterers — individuals, Web sites and companies — twitter politically related thoughts, actions and links every day, and users can follow fellow Twitterers and receive instant updates online or on mobile phones. Bloggers across the spectrum twitter news headlines, links to blog posts and analyses, and personal, immediate reactions to speeches and events.
Nearly all the major news outlets have jumped on the bandwagon, including FOX News. The campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain have created Twitter accounts for up-to-the-minute news and updates. Recently, Twitter partnered with Current TV, the audience-produced television network and Web site co-founded by Al Gore, to promote political Twittering.
The project, called Hack the Debate, allows Twitterers to send their tweets to Current (by attaching “#current” to the tweet), which will be filtered and shown on-air during the debate. So what, exactly, are people talking about? Chris Albrecht, a staff writer at NewTeeVee.com, explains that debate tweets will be short, quick reactions, “like quips you would make in your living room.”
Kotecki said he plans to Twitter during the debate and will likely submit “analysis or insight or a joke” as he thinks of it. There will also be plenty of healthy political debating going on.
Will anyone care what Twitterers have to say? “I don’t know if they will,” said Albrecht.
Current’s young, tech-savvy audience — likely filled with Twitter users — might be interested in the tweets. But “hardcore political people” — the types who will be watching C-Span — might not, Albrecht said.
“The jury’s still out on whether Twitter’s actually good for anything,” says Kotecki.
But he notes: “As we become ever more saturated with information, it’s going to be more important that we consolidate our ideas into very small spaces like this space that you have on Twitter.”
Everyone can agree on this much: Twitter has opened the public discourse, and if that motivates people to vote, then that’s a good thing.
posted by Daily Observer at 2:11 PM
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