There is something very intriguing about the new election site from Twitter that I wrote about Thursday. I’ve been watching it all day as the news from Washington and Oxford, Miss., keeps coming in.
As someone who has been rather obsessively watching every poll that comes out these days, this site is one answer to the question that has been running through my mind: Of the flurry of events and opinions, what do people really notice and how long does it take? Some people clearly are news junkies tweeting Friday about John McCain’s decision to attend the first debate. But you can also see older events careening around the public consciousness, such as Gov. Sarah Palin’s interview by Katie Couric and David Letterman’s rant when he was stood up by Senator John McCain.
Personally, I haven’t been a big Twitter user. Maybe that’s because my close friends aren’t on it. My editors might say I don’t have any ideas that fit in 140 characters.
And I haven’t been sure that Twitter is a product that will have broad appeal. For sending messages to your friends and acquaintances, I’ve wondered whether it is better as a feature of a social network, like Facebook, rather than as a stand-alone service.
But something feels different to me looking at the election site. It has aggregated all these personal communications into a mass medium.
Does listening to everybody actually have appeal or is it just annoying, like overhearing other people’s cellphone calls?
When I mentioned I was going to write this post to my editor here, he punched up the Twitter election page and dismissed it as a bunch of lame wisecracks.
He’s right. But Google’s YouTube can be written off the same way — nothing more than a bunch of leaping pets and lonely teenagers. At the same time, YouTube has become the catalyst for an important new media format that engages millions of people.
I think Twitter as well might well be the birth of a media form that combines talk radio, Digg and late-night comedians.
Like talk radio, you get an unvarnished and largely real-time window into what a wide swath of people are actually talking about.
Like Digg, you see people point to the articles and videos that they want to share.
And like late-night TV (or a politician’s sound bite for the evening news), there is a premium on pithy one-liners that try to get to the heart of the matter.
Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, told me that the company was considering setting up other specialized pages for issues and events about which people may want to share their thoughts.
I’m not saying I expect to spend a lot of time staring at Twitter’s election site. Twitter itself is meant for multitasking in this A.D.D. world. I do expect to check in from time to time to see what people are saying now, and I do plan to have it up on my laptop while I watch the debate Friday night.
12 Comments
This is the first time I read something about Twitter that didn’t scare me. And I agree about the election site; the reason I came back as well.
“…talk radio, Digg and late-night comedians…” Maybe, maybe you just might be right.
— Robin HuntFIRST DEBATE
Instant Poll numbers for the cherished “Uncommitted Voters”:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/First_Debate_INSTANT_POLL_NUMBERS
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/MediaCurves_Polls_FIRST_DEBATE_Quick_Results
Also, CNN’s coverage showed Real Time audience response to candidate’s statements via Three lines on a moving graph:
Red - Republicans
Blue - Dems
Green - Independents
As I watched, most of the time, the Independents closely matched the Democrats responses, NOT the Republicans!
— John RogersSome numbers to put it in perspective. Of the total (about 1.3 Million Twitter accounts), about 119,282 people tweeted during the coverage. That’s a LOT. 67% of people on twitter are from US and so if 13% of twitter users care about the elections, that’s amazing. Only iPhone and Apple have more “discussion” on twitter.
Dont you also think that your editors are ignoring the sheer numbers (~120K digital elite) that twitter has?
http://www.buzzgain.com
— Cindyyou dont need it on your laptop if you combine both on current.tv :) in practice, tweetdeck with twitscoop turned on is probably the best way to watch this and other large events.
— marshallfollow comments from the esteemed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen and perhaps you will see that complicated ideas can be communicated quite convincingly in 140 characters, or less.
— angela nibbsThe twitter election page reminded me of an old-school AOL chatroom. There really isn’t anything terribly innovative about it.
— Scott BreakallClive Thompson explained the value of Twitter best in the NY Times Magazine a couple of weeks back…
“Yet it is also why it can be extremely hard to understand the phenomenon until you’ve experienced it. Merely looking at a stranger’s Twitter or Facebook feed isn’t interesting, because it seems like blather. Follow it for a day, though, and it begins to feel like a short story; follow it for a month, and it’s a novel.”
— Eric SchwartzmanI’m a pretty active Twitter user that’s “live blogged” (or whatever term we’ll eventually settle on) for a few events now. I was alone during last night’s debate (kids in bed, wife still at work) so the Twittering allowed me to have human engagement while watching. I loved how others caught things I missed.
My first event Twittering was the men’s bicycle road race in Beijing which I was watching live online at 3am. NBC’s online interface was confusing and every half hour or so someone would explain how to turn on the site’s text commentary. Of course Twitter itself was great text commentary.
Kudos to the Twitter team for the debate. I didn’t know what “hashtag” to give it and where to look for others talking about it. But up on top appeared their new feature of hot tags and I knew #debate08 was where we should all congregate. It was the “talk radio” station equivalent for us to tune into. Great job Twitter.
— Martin KelleyThe fact that this was published is great. But your editor’s reaction is sad. To not know that self-organizing systems, complex social networks, and web aggregation technologies are hot topics in technology, ethics, media, law enforcement, war fighting, and more right now is just unforgiveable.
— Mark DrapeauI used to be reluctant to using twitter. Last June I signed up and have been an active user. You can’t enjoy the swimming pool from the outside, you gotta get in. I would suggest that you challenge your editor and ask him to get in, search people that might be of interest to him and follow them and stay for a week. I am sure a week is enough to get him engaged. And let me know his username, I would love to follow an Editor from the respected New York Times.
@katalink
— David TaboadaNone of my close friends were on it at first. Eventually I made new friends! I enjoy my rapport with them, and the 140 chracter limit makes for to-the-point messages. I’ve even gotten requests on my business through it.
The election site was well executed, it was great to see the medium explode and consolidate. It was a great trend-watcher too.
Im http://twitter.com/mrmrnm
— mrmrnmThe oldest three mass media - the printing press, recordings and cinema - are less capable, if not completely incapable, of supporting interactivity.
So it makes sense that Twitter, “The telegraph system of Web 2.0″ would take after more interactive mass media - television and radio.
— Elizabeth Saloka