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Archive for February, 2009

The Hotline’s Tweetometer

Published by William Beutler on February 26, 2009 in Congress, Hotline, Startups, Twitter and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Before I started working for The Hotline (and before they had a web presence to speak of) the original Beltway tip sheet had a catch phrase: “The word on the street is ours.” This week it looks like they’re going back to the well as they roll out a new feature, because it is called:

Word on the Tweet is a logical extension of On Call’s sister publication and my former vocation, The Blogometer. When we started in the winter of 2005, the blogosphere had just recently gone mainstream, largely thanks to its impact on the 2004 presidential campaign. Here in the winter of 2009, it’s the Twitterverse which has only just hit the big time.

And this is an even easier call for Hotline to decide on covering: The Blogometer covers the blogosphere as an amateur/activist extension of the Beltway media, but no member of Congress has time to sit down and write a blog. Twitter is different: after all, no less a politician than the president of the United States is an admitted BlackBerry addict.

And where most members would formerly have staffers maintain their Twitter account — if they had one at all — more and more are following the lead of Texas Rep. John Culberson and actually tweeting themselves. This participation by actual sitting congresscritters could be a great deal more entertainment, as writer Evan McMorris-Santoro hints in this disclaimer:

Note: all tweets are reproduced exactly as they appeared, grammar/spelling warts and all.

Exactly as it should be. For the announcement video starring McMorris-Santoro and my old boss John Mercurio, click here:

Who is @VanityFairer? (Hint: Probably Not Graydon Carter)

Published by William Beutler on February 13, 2009 in Cybersquatting, Facebook, Fake Bloggers, Ron Paul, Tech Blogosphere, Twitter, Website Design and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Some time overnight I was followed by the Twitter account @vanityfairer, d.b.a. “Vanity Fair Wayfarer” (whence the image above right). As a subscriber to the magazine (at least assuming my reup went through) I followed back and clicked on the sidebar link to learn more. Instead of finding the Vanity Fair website or a personal blog, it directed me to a blog post at Web2.0h…Really? titled:

VanityFairer: The Magazine’s Social Faux Pas?

About which I first thought, yeah, Vanity Fair should have scooped up the account before this person got to it. But it turns out that’s not what the author meant. Here’s what he did:

Vanityfairer [is] a Twitter “fan”feed by someone who identifies “her”self only as Vanity Fair Wayfarer and whose bio reads only “I heart Vanity Fair magazine.”

“Her” updates are really pretty good–mainly pointers to stuff about, in or related to content from the celebrity-addled, scrumptiously visual, annoyingly literate and therefore-hard-to-ignore glossy. …

It looks to me like the Twitter feed is an undisclosed VF inside job. Vanity Fairer is following a conspicuous list of 51 prominentos from the worlds of technology and media [including Tim O'Reilly, Esther Dyson, WSJ's Kara Swisher, 2.0 author Sarah Lacy, John Dickerson of Slate, Gawker, Ana Marie Cox and TechCrunch, A-list tech bloggers plus a few C-list hangers-on like me].

The trick to building a Twitter posse, as savvy Twitsters know, is to “follow” people whom you hope will follow you back–or actually maybe write a blog item about the Twitter stream to gain some 2.0 brainshare [!]. So there is clearly something tactical and ambitious about Vanity Fairer’s “following” list. Vanity Fairer appears to be following none of her own personal friends, for instance. A bit curious.

Perhaps, but I think not the way 2.0h…Really? blogger Craig Stoltz sees it; his site tagline says “A Skeptical Look at Emerging Web Technologies” but here I think this skepticism is misplaced. As one who has started a “fake” Twitter account or two in my day (hint: a clue to one of them is embedded somewhere in this post) I don’t see any evidence that this is anything but a fan of the magazine who decided to fill a void left by Conde Nast’s apparent unwillingness to embrace the service. In fact, I think Stoltz’s evidence points in the opposite direction.

First of all, I can’t see why a secretly official account would be any more likely than an amateur to search the VF name on Twitter search and add people mentioning the phrase. In fact, I think the opposite is more likely: that the Vanity Fair Wayfarer has no inside connection and so is simply following people who have indicated an interest (which is how she found me) because that’s the only way to get tweeps’* attention.

Moreover, if the account was itself being followed by other luminaries of the Twitterverse, that I might take as a reason to believe it was real. That would show insider connections; instead this Twitter account seems more to be standing outside the velvet rope, waving at the bouncer and insisting her friends are inside.

Plus I just don’t see the rhyme, reason or motivation for VF to spend any time on this underperforming (approx. 650 followers) account.

Stoltz does point to a recent-ish Facebook stunt by Vanity Fair’s web team, which was kind of amusing and although lacking for even circumstantial evidence, it does mildly insinuate that VF might be game for this kind of trick. If so, it’s a good one and a bad one: the account is visibly lacking in design sense, let alone an art department. And because Graydon Carter would probably Toby Young anyone who tweeted something like:

When will either-or tech pundits realize that it’s okay to be comfortable with contradictions — a la Vanity Fair’s fluff-depth combo?

Meanwhile, I wonder if Vanity Fair knows that @ev and @biz will hand them this account if only they ask:

* I guess I am letting this word into my vocabulary. But not “twestival”. Never.