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Archive for the 'Twitter' Category

Orange You Glad It’s Election Day?

Published by William Beutler on November 4, 2008 in Barack Obama, Charts and Graphs, Election Night, Elections, Joe Biden, John McCain, New Media Strategies, Sarah Palin, Trend Tool, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Well folks, this is it. After two years of the longest presidential campaign ever — and one hopes it can’t get any longer — the polls are open and people are standing in line all across America. Or, given the early hour, all across the Eastern time zone. And this time around people are doing something they couldn’t the last: posting their thoughts to Twitter via mobile device.

Why do I bring all this up? Because New Media Strategies (where I work and whence I type) has teamed up with Tropicana (the orange juice makers, not the casino resort) to create a Twitter-focused data visualization tool that we’re calling Fresh Squeezed Election Tweets, and just went live a few moments ago at www.anorangeamerica.com:

The site is continuously collecting tweets using the words “Obama” and “McCain”, counting up which other words appear with them — Vote, Election, Country — and other words that appear frequently — Bush, War, Lie (no one said Twitter was fair and balanced) — and representing this frequency by the size of the associated blue-red bubble. The bluer it is, the closer-aligned the keyword is with Obama; the more red, the more it’s McCain. And see the black lines connecting? Those show you which words are used together most: if you mouseover the keywords, you’ll get actual percentages. Did I mention it’s embeddable? I don’t think I did. Here, let me: It’s embeddable.

Is that cool, or what? Feel free to use it in your own posts and check back throughout the day, as the data set changes and perhaps reveals some insight into the day’s events. We might already have a pretty good idea who will be president-elect by day’s end, but Freshly Squeezed Election Tweets may help give a better idea why.

RNC08 #4: The Beutler Hub

Published by William Beutler on September 2, 2008 in 2008 Conventions, Republicans, Seriously, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

I’m finally inside the restricted zone in St. Paul and sitting down at the C-SPAN work area in the Wilkins Auditorium press filing center (adjacent to the Xcel Energy Center) to get some actual work in. Barring any pressing need to write something longer than 140 characters, this will be my last update from #RNC08 in the form of a blog post. The Twitter and Flickr badges below will stay live throughout the week, so keep hitting refresh just as fast as you can manage without risking early-onset carpal tunnel.

Monday update: Now that #RNC08 is over and my tweeting activity is back to normal, I’m moving the Twitter feed back to the sidebar (or it will be just as soon as I figure out why WordPress is balking). But the Flickr badge is just the St. Paul photoset (with more yet to be added) so I’ll leave it where it is.

www.flickr.com

RNC08 #3: Let’s Try it Like This

Published by William Beutler on September 1, 2008 in #RNC08, 2008 Conventions, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

So here’s the situation: I’m having technical difficulties trying to upload photos or a Twitter plugin — I only just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress — and apparently the NMS IT guy has the audacity to be on vacation on Labor Day.

Instead I’m going to keep tweeting from my iPhone and taking photos from same while uploading them to my Flickr account and, with any luck, you can follow the latest of both through the widgets included in this post. If that doesn’t work, at least you’ve now got the links to both.

Update: No longer; all live content has been moved to the next post.

RNC08 #1: Don’t Call it a Comeback

Published by William Beutler on August 31, 2008 in #DNC08, #RNC08, 2008 Conventions, C-SPAN, Hotline, John McCain, Journalist Bloggers, Metapost, National Politics, New Media Strategies, RNC, Relaunches, Twitter, Web 2.0, White House '08 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

C-SPAN 2.0 Featuring New Media Strategies
If you are a frequent reader of Blog P.I., you (and thanks to the MyBlogLog widget in the sidebar, I know who some of you are) may have spent a few seconds out of the past week wondering just where I’ve been. Of course, as my last post two weeks ago made clear, I was about to spend the coming fortnight-and-a-half working on C-SPAN.org’s Convention Hubs: first DNC08 and now increasingly RNC08.

For 168+ hours now I’ve been working literally around the clock — to be more accurate, one revolution of the hour hand each solar day — finding and spotlighting blog posts from national and state-level media and political blogs, and running a Blogads campaign involving changes to the artwork and copy reflecting each evening’s developments (I like how it’s rendered on BuzzMachine best). I’ve also done C-SPAN TV twice, sitting on the back of my sport coat, focusing just beyond the camera lens, depending on the bug in my ear for cues, reporting on the latest buzz from the left- and rightosphere from the offices of New Media Strategies.

This week my role shifts, and in a dwindling few hours I’ll be flying to St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention. As the NMS Blue Team returns from Denver, the Red Team will be shipping out to the metropolitan area where the Coens’ Fargo mostly took place. I travel both in my capacity as a representative of C-SPAN at the convention as well as an official, RNC-credentialed blogger, so I will do my best to share the experience with you.

This will be a new thing for Blog P.I., but a second time for me as a blogger at a GOP convo; in 2004 I was part of Hotline’s convention team in New York City, and I blogged the convention in my off-hours. Then, I took some pictures with my crummy first-ever Sprint camera phone, most of which were uploaded to a server I long since forgot to pay for. This time I’ll be blogging it here in this space, using my iPhone camera and WordPress app, available free of charge from iTunes (which by the way now is really crying out for rebranding).

For the next five days or so, I expect to be taking photos and posting them with minimal presentation, reserving most of my reporting and commentary for a widget from my Twitter account, which will appear here shortly. This is basically the opposite of what Blog P.I. has been in its two years-plus existence: whereas my blogging has primarily comprised several times-weekly essay posts (such as this one) I will instead switch to frequent, quick-hit posts that will take you inside the moment (I’m pretty sure I can do this).

If you’re going to be in the Twin Cities this week, gimme a shout (see the contact page). If you know me from e-mail or the Blogometer or Blog P.I. and want to say hello, drop me a line. If you know of a party, breakfast or similar event that’s either open-invitation or you can extend one, consider me interested. Need a mug, thumb drive or baseball cap emblazoned with the C-SPAN logo? We can probably work something out.

And but so, I’ll get back to packing a week’s worth of my least-unprofessional attire and making sure I don’t leave anything behind, with the DVR playing the Oregon Ducks’ 44-10 victory over the (Huck the) Fuskies as I close up shop here and make my way to the Lesser White North.

More coming soon.

C-SPAN 2.0 (Ft. New Media Strategies)

Published by William Beutler on August 13, 2008 in #DNC08, #RNC08, 2008 Conventions, Barack Obama, Blog Consultants, C-SPAN, Cable News, DNC, John McCain, Metapost, New Media Strategies, RNC, Television, Twitter, Web 2.0, Web video, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 9 Comments

C-SPAN 2.0 Featuring New Media Strategies
I don’t write about clients often. When I do it’s really something, and this is really something: New Media Strategies will be working through the conventions with C-SPAN, perhaps my favorite Beltway news organization, to run their Convention Hub. The website was designed by NMS partner JESS3, will be maintained by the multi-partisan Public Affairs practice, with editorial oversight and video from the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network. I wish I could show it to you. I can’t just yet, but as I said, it’s going to be really something.

What I can offer are details about the Convention Hub microsites. There will be two, one for each convention, with video and blog coverage around the clock:

  • C-SPAN will provide exclusive video from the conventions, and for the first time, this C-SPAN video is searchable, clippable and embeddable. As someone who has tried (unsuccessfully) to jerry-rig an embeddable C-SPAN video in the past, this is a huge leap forward.

  • NMS will feed the latest convention reporting and blogging to the Convention Hub pretty much non-stop. Or as our official language puts it, “extensive real-time blogosphere coverage using NMS’s proprietary combination of software and trained human analysts.”

  • C-SPAN Campaign 2008 LogoMore about that software another time; all I can say is that it answers the questions I’ve asked about such analysis tools.

  • The Hub will also include Twitter feeds of users using the hashtags #RNC08 and #DNC08 (and surely other tags, as their usage rises).

  • The site goes live at c-span.org/politics later this month. The Democratic Hub will be at c-span.org/politics/DNC08 and the Republican Hub will be at c-span.org/politics/RNC08.

  • NMS will have a presence at each convention to help to facilitate coverage and promote the Convention Hub. It certainly doesn’t hurt that we have bloggers credentialed to both (see you in St. Paul).

  • There is more, but I’m not exactly sure what I didn’t see in the press release that’s public, so I’d better hold off for now. At the moment, this is the only public hint on c-span.org:

C-SPAN Convention Hub banner teaser

Meanwhile, the C-SPAN Convention Hub is already drawing praise from one of C-SPAN’s (few) notable critics. The Sunlight Foundation has differed with C-SPAN before over distribution of copyrighted C-SPAN video, so they are enthusiastic about the open nature of the Convention Hubs:

The convention announcement marks a new moment for C-SPAN as a modern Internet information provider. Once a small cable channel with a dream; now with embeddable web video, Twitter hashtags, and aggregated blog posts.

As a longtime C-SPAN junkie, I couldn’t be more proud to play a small part in this project. How dependent am I on the C-SPAN network?

  • I wake up to Washington Journal every weekday morning (my Twitter account will bear this out).

  • Before I found podcasts, I’d listen to streaming Realplayer segments from the program (I still listen to the podcast of Brian Lamb’s Sunday night Q&A).

  • Back in college I would sometimes wake up early (4 a.m.) to catch particular episodes live, such as the first of the Hitchens-Sullivan conversations with Lamb, shortly after 9/11.

  • If it’s the weekend and my television is not on baseball or football, it’s on BookTV.

  • The tagline of my personal blog, The Washington Canard, is: “Where C-SPAN is the local TV news.”

The good news is that it’s a supportable addiction.

And by way of conclusion, a confession: I want this searchable video for my own reasons. On Election night 2004, The Hotline worked all through the night covering the coverage, as the election tipped from Kerry winning the exit polls to Bush winning the popular vote. If you’ve seen my Facebook photo, this is where that crazy image comes from.

As usual, C-SPAN cameras were in the office for Chuck Todd and Vaughn Ververs to offer recaps, also deep into the morning hours. Sometime around 3 o’clock in the morning, I informed friends watching the coverage from back on the West Coast to look carefully: As the cameras rolled, I picked up a plastic trash bin and… well, I danced through the background.

The waltz, I think.

I entered left with vulcanized dance partner, twirling across one shoulder, behind the talking head, past the other shoulder, exiting right. To this date, it’s still my best television appearance. And I look forward to the day, much sooner now, that I can embed this on Blog P.I.

Bloggingheads.tv: The Week in Twitter

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Bloggingheads.tv, John McCain, Metapost, Mitt Romney, New Media Strategies, Online Campaigns, Republicans, Seriously, Technology, Twitter, Web video, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Late last week I made my third appearance on Bloggingheads.tv with Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis; we talked about the politics of Twitter, whether #dontgo is a genuine movement or not, whether Obama is underperforming or overperforming, how to understand the different types of voters, why McCain’s “Celeb” ad was a success, veepstakes and the pointlessness thereof, including my favorite theory on why McCain will choose Romney. Check it out:

I might as well get this out of the way: I am not actually about to eat the viewer. It just looks that way.

When Not to Blog About the White House

Published by William Beutler on August 10, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Blogs vs. MSM, George W. Bush, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Metapost, National Politics, Newspaper Columnists, Newspapers, Startups, The Politico, Tough Crowd, Twitter, Washington Post, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Politico sign in DC Metro from David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Last week I traded a series of Twitter “@ messages” with Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor, blogger and media critic. The first one asked:

Maybe you know. Q: why doesn’t Politico have a Ben Smith for the White House? Bets on whether they’ll get one if Obama wins?
He’s got a point. The Politico lists the organization’s designated blogs on its front-page in this order: Ben Smith on Dems, Jonathan Martin on GOP, Shenanigans on Gossip, The Scorecard on Campaigns, The Crypt on Congress, Michael Calderone on Media, James Kotecki on whatever. The Politico is literally blogging about “whatever” but not about “the White House.” So I guessed, in fewer than 140 characters:
Smith-Martin are a package deal, covering both primaries. Politico: more campaign, less governing? But that’s a great idea.
Prof. Rosen suggested in turn:
How about a PI post? Politico columnists for the Dems, Reps, Congress, Media, Gossip, Campaign trail, but no White House?
To which I replied:
Mike Allen certainly covers the WH. But not in blog form, true. Have friends down there, so I can ask. Possible PI post indeed.

And so I did, getting in touch with a half-dozen or so current and former Politico writers, asking for their thoughts on background. I also made an effort to get VandeHarris on the record, but they did not return e-mails by my less-than-rigorously self-enforced deadline.

So here’s what I could piece together:

  • When the Politico launched a little under two years ago, the presidential campaign offered the biggest opportunity first. Politico was first conceived as a newspaper to be called Capitol Leader — “Yet Another Newspaper Aimed at Capitol Hill” as the Washington Post had it. The Executive branch wasn’t even in the picture until John Harris and Jim VandeHei were.

  • As noted above, the newspaper that did emerge hired the much-acclaimed, much-accosted former White House reporter for Time and WaPo, Mike Allen. He writes big stories, is in good with Drudge, and produces content on a daily basis like everyone else. The format of his output is a secondary matter.

  • Most everyone I talked to seemed to assume that no matter who won the presidential election, Politico would increase their White House coverage after the election. After all, it’s the logical continuation of the campaign stories they are covering now. Some said they thought a blog would be involved, and no one volunteered the opposite.

One thing that occurs to me is that other major newspapers have blogs covering the White House as a beat, as do regional newspapers with Washington correspondents, but none of them command major audiences (even when they resort to Olympics T&A).

People care about the big stories that emanate from the White House, and they’ll get that from every newspaper and every political blog inside the Beltway, but few are looking for the day-to-day minutiae. Bush is a lame duck, interest has waned even in some of the bigger stories, and other national newspapers have moved their White House correspondents to the campaign trail.

The answer given reminds me a bit of the response I got in the summer of 2006 when I first wrote about the opening for a “Republican ActBlue”, viz., just wait. It may be worth noting, the person who did finally create one was not yet working on it at that time.

So, yes, the Politico will probably have a White House blog next year. Whether Politico writes the one that Jay Rosen is hoping for remains to be seen.

Photograph by David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Will the Real Speaker Pelosi Please Stand Up?

Published by William Beutler on August 6, 2008 in Sock puppets, Twitter, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

I enjoy joke Twitter accounts as much as the next person. However, if you’re going to do one, you must be extra careful in keeping the account separate from your main account, which is why I also feel compelled to share the occasional cautionary tale.

Here’s one from today, noticed first by a colleague and concerning the Twitter account @speakerpelosi. Check out these two screen shots:

Speaker Pelosi’s #dontgo tweet

David All’s #dontgo tweet

Whoops! The two posts went up within minutes of each other, which you can’t tell on account of Twitter’s imprecise time stamping (instead it just says both went up 2 hours ago). The tweet is still available on David All’s account, but is now gone from the fake Pelosi account. I suppose that’s about all the proof we need.

Is this just a cheap gotcha? If you think he’s done anything wrong, then perhaps so. I’ve been following the Twitter debate over this, and I think it’s been overdone: I don’t see how it is a TOS violation, and calling it sock puppetry is defining socks down.

I think the only thing necessarily wrong here is carelessness. Fake websites and joke accounts are fun, but they require a degree of caution that not everyone is up for.

If there is one other thing that’s wrong here, it’s the violation of Egon Spengler’s good advice: don’t cross the streams.

Update: It appears that David is now turning into the skid — probably a better way to handle it.

Twitter Rapprochement: Personal Democracy Forum vs. Netroots Nation

Published by William Beutler on July 22, 2008 in #pdf2008, Blogs vs. MSM, Charts and Graphs, Democrats, Earned Media, Internet conferences, Netroots, Tech Blogosphere, Technology, Trend Tool, Twitter, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

While we’re running Twitter mentions of political blog conferences through Flaptor’s Twist, here’s Netroots Nation (#nn08) this weekend with Personal Democracy Forum (#pdf2008) two fortnights ago:

Twitter hashtags #pdf2008 and #nn08 via Twist by Flaptor.

Even at one day fewer (two if you don’t count #nn08’s low-key Sunday) the bipartisan-ish Personal Democracy Forum generated remarkably more Twitter noise than Netroots Nation, and apparently not much less in the rest of Internet news.

Netroots Nation had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivering a speech on the main stage, certain to be covered by political reporters on the beat, but PdF had Arianna Huffington, arguably more Internet-famous than anyone in congressional leadership. The partisan nature of Netroots Nation probably attracted many from the substantial New-Old-New Left netroots movement, more than Personal Democracy Forum’s awkward mix of Obama-emboldened NYC progressives and McCain-indifferent DC conservatives. This despite the minor Twitter scuffle over Huffington’s imperious remarks.

It’s worth noting that NN’s location — Austin, Texas — is the same as SXSW (#sxsw) and its Interactive Festival, the locus of Twitter’s first widespread adoption in March 2007. On the other hand, PdF took place in midtown Manhattan, which by virtue of population and proximity surely has more Twitterinos (also, Tweeps) close by enough to at least tweet about not making it up/down.

But I think the best explanation for PdF’s modest Twitter supremacy is that, like SXSW and unlike NN, the audience it attracts is younger and more reliably tech-oriented. After all, the surveys show that liberal blog readers are older and primarily motivated by politics than the average Valley startup founder. One was first about tech, the other politics.

Meanwhile, the ever more ubiquitous micro-blogging service’s strong showing at the political conference probably bodes well for its long-term mass acceptance.

Assuming Twitter isn’t down, of course.

Twitter Fight: Netroots Nation vs. Right Online

Published by William Beutler on July 21, 2008 in Internet conferences, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Metapost, Netroots, Social Networking, Trend Tool, Twitter and Web 2.0. 3 Comments

This past weekend, Austin hosted two conferences devoted to political blogging: the widely covered and heavily-attended liberal Netroots Nation (née Yearly Kos) and the brand new and under-the-radar conservative Right Online (at which I spoke on Friday).

Both conferences designated hashtags for attendees to use when tweeting their experiences and expoundances. For the Twitter illiterate, a hashtag is a short code word following a pound sign — #hashtag, for example — included in the 140-character message for the purposes of associating that particular tweet with a subject others are using the same hashtag to write about. For the conferences just concluded, the hashtags were #nn08 and #rton08.

Like we always do about this time, here’s a chart comparing their use over the past weekend. This time, we’re using Twist by Flaptor:

Twitter hashtags #nn08 and #rton08 via Twist by Flaptor.

According to the historically-fortunate assigned colors, of course. Also, it’s worth knowing that Netroots Nation ran July 17 to 20, while Right Online was only July 18 to 19. Taking that into consideration, the difference in activity is not especially surprising, considering this was Netroots Nation’s fourth year while being the first Right Online to date.

But the trend lines are still interesting, and I think we can tease out a few observations:

  • Friday late night through Saturday morning was the second-highest period of activity for #nn08 and the lowest for #rton08, at a total number of zero. Perchance the left went out partying while the right went to bed? This can’t be right. In fact, I know it’s not — for example, here’s E.M. Zanotti directing Friday night’s right-of-center bar traffic.
  • A similar thing happens 24 hours later, on Sunday morning, giving the impression that the entire Twittering contingent of each conference slept in with a hangover. While I am sure this was true for many, it’s flatly impossible that nobody tweeted during the late evening and early morning hours. So, I’ve sent an e-mail to the folks at Flaptor, and if I hear anything back, I’ll let you know.
  • Right Online activity is also likely underreported due to some confusion over which hashtag to use, although this probably doesn’t affect the overall trends greatly. Also worth mentioning, Twist doesn’t allow searching for symbols, so my real search terms were “nn08″ and “rton08″ — meaning even if some forgot the hash mark, as most assuredly happened, they’re included here.
  • It’s also possibly notable that #nn08 activity fell off severely on the last day. Is this evidence that four days is just too long for any convention? Or is it lower because people were busy leaving? I’m guessing it’s some of both. [Update: From the comments, it turns out the fourth day agenda included few events, compared to dozens on other days.]
  • Considering the reported attendance of each, the numbers don’t look so bad for #rton08. Local media reports put Netroots Nation at approximately 2,000, which apparently does not include reporters. Meanwhile, I’ve heard 500 showed up for Right Online, and based on the crowds I saw on Friday afternoon, this is plausible. However, with the exception of that curious Fri.-Sat. reporting period, #nn08 at most only quadrupled #rton08. At other times, it only doubled. Not quite a rallying cheer for Right Online, but that may be one to grow on.

See anything else worth mentioning? Feel free to add them in the comments.

P.S. FWIW, I believe I’m the first, as far as Google is aware, to use the word “expoundances.” Or should it be -ences? Again, your commentary is welcome.