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Archive for the 'Twitter' Category

Twitter Spam Gets Political

Published by William Beutler on April 1, 2008 in Hillary Clinton, Spam, Tech Blogosphere, Twitter, Web 2.0, White House '08 and William Beutler. 6 Comments

Last week, Mashable’s Adam Ostrow asked whether Twitter was facing a spam problem. I said it already does. Ostrow pointed to a Twitter account that seemed to be following far more people than anyone could know, and for purely promotional purposes.

As of today, that account follows (i.e. has friended) 13,000+ Twitterinos, only to tweet links to images of ho-hum abstract artwork. Amazingly, more than 800 people are still following this account. Shortly before reading his post, I found a teenager in Norway who seemed to be doing something similar. While he may in fact be using the service genuinely, he too was following thousands before he’d posted a single tweet. Today he’s following some 3,700+ others, but hasn’t updated for two days, when he was:

watching random crap on youtube :) — Flyaxe on Twitter

Now Twitter spam has taken a turn for the political. On Sunday, CQ’s Eric Pfeiffer told me that his account (which he updates only sporadically) had recently been followed by a horde of obviously fake accounts named for a current or former presidential candidate, plus a number. Most of the notification e-mails he had already deleted, but the others he forwarded to me. They are… interesting. For example, here’s the latest tweet from ChrisDodd53:

Twitter spammer rips off techPresident Daily Digest

I think we can safely assume there are not 52 other Chris Dodds on Twitter. But did you recognize the content of that tweet? I sure did: it was scraped from today’s techPresident Daily Digest. And this pattern is repeated across all the examples of spam accounts he sent my way.

Herewith, a list of these accounts, and a link to the blog whence its latest tweet was scraped:

You know, if these were simply attached to RSS feeds and genuine aggregators of political news, I wouldn’t mind so much. Yes, the aggressive, untargeted following is certainly annoying. But these accounts do not drive traffic to the sites where the words originated. This also makes the creator’s intent all the more inscrutable; they aren’t saying anything, they aren’t promoting anything, and they aren’t updated by hand. The only thing it’s good for, maybe, is souring users on Twitter. But I don’t believe Pownce or Google/Jaiku are really that underhanded. So I remain mystified.

Whatever the cause, this must stop. And it can. Unlike e-mail, which is traded from network to network across yon Internets around the globe, Twitter is administered entirely by Obvious, LLC. They have the same control over the Twitter network as Facebook has over its pages, and it’s within their power to stop it. I’ve previously suggested capping the number of users you can follow, relative to the number of users who are following you. Nothing too restrictive, but something flexible to keep Twitter accounts honest. Jack? Biz? Ev? Little help over here?

In the meantime, there is is already a website carrying the banner against this annoying menace. That’s Stop Twitter Spam, which is currently tracking complaints about spam on Twitter, including my post from last week. The site only barely gets into solutions, and mostly serves to highlight the problem. Most interesting of all is the Twitter Spammer List.

This list includes most of the candidate-based accounts I’ve noted here, and some others I hadn’t. It also mentions the examples from last week, but separates them into two apparent categories of problem Twitter accounts: outright spam and overactive followers. It also notes the number of follows vs. the number of followers and shows the difference as a ratio. The greatest disparity is HillaryClinton5. When the list was last updated, the account followed 2905 others, yet only 25 others followed “her” back. It’s not that HillaryClinton5 has friended the most people — that’s probably the design/art company mentioned above — but that she has the fewest followers. These numbers are a few days out of date, but still give a useful snapshot of the problem.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit nostalgic for the days when Brian Shaler was just following everybody in sight, like it was a game. But then, Shaler is an honest Twitterino. And almost everyone he follows also follows him back.

Twitter Already Has a Spam Problem

Published by William Beutler on March 25, 2008 in Facebook, Spam, Tech Blogosphere, Twitter, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Yesterday, Adam Ostrow at Mashable asked, “Is Twitter About to Have a Big Spam Problem?” Well, I wouldn’t yet call it “big,” but the problem is already here. Ostrow wrote:

[L]ately, I’ve been getting an influx of new followers that resemble this character to the right – someone who is following thousands of people, with only a couple hundred following back. In this case, the new follower seems to be a web design studio in Beverly Hills. While I can’t prove it, I have a feeling that this person used a bot to automatically follow me (and a lot of other people) in an effort to take advantage of the fact that a lot of people will simply return the follow – in turn giving this person a new platform to pump their marketing message.

Sidebar to Flyaxe, a suspicious account on TwitterI knew the account he spoke of; I am one of those also being followed by the “Tripix Designs” Twitter account he mentioned. Like Ostrow, I’ve been followed by a handful of these accounts. Aside from inflating my follower count, I didn’t consider it a problem. But this morning I’m convinced.

At right is the sidebar for “Flyaxe” — a Twitter account that added me sometime last night. That’s what it looked like at about 6:30 this morning, Eastern time. Just a couple hours later, Flyaxe is following more than twice as many. Unlike Tripix, it hasn’t even updated once, so it isn’t clearly promotional. Flyaxe appears to be a “19 year-old dude from norway,” as the matching, recent and similarly empty Digg account shows. At least Tripix was honest about its intentions; Flyaxe could be a Trojan horse for just about anything.

The only solution is for Obvious (the under-funded Twitter-makers) to impose restrictions on Twitter accounts. Facebook imposes all kinds of restrictions on its users, and the result is a better experience — at least for those of us who prefer it to MySpace. So let’s say, you cannot follow more than 75% of those following you. Add more followers, and you can follow more people. But we know already that Twitter doesn’t scale well, so anybody following 6,000 people is doing something other than keeping tabs on that many friends. If you want a macro view of Twitter, Twitter tracking exists and so does Tweetscan. The Twitter API and the myriad tools built using it obviate the need to create one account following thousands of other accounts.

Unless, of course, you’re trying to promote something. However, as I’ve written before, Twitter is not especially useful for broad marketing. Thanks to tracking, one could hand-build a targeted list that could be worthwhile for the marketer and the marketed-to. Flyaxe, on the other hand, is wasting my time and his.

Soren Dayton, John Sasso and the Twitter Election

Published by William Beutler on March 20, 2008 in John McCain, The Politico, Tough Crowd, Twitter, White House '08, William Beutler and YouTube. 5 Comments

Once, this new thing called blogosphere reshaped the 2004 presidential campaign. And then, this new thing called YouTube influenced several contests in the 2006 midterms. So what’s next? Could Twitter change the outcome of the 2008 White House race?

Probably not just yet, but one thing is clear: What’s said on Twitter does not stay on Twitter. My former Hotline colleague Jonathan Martin reports:

An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video that raises questions about Barack Obama’s patriotism.

Soren Dayton, who works in McCain’s political department, sent out the YouTube link of “Is Obama Wright?” on twitter at 12:31 today with the tag, “Good video on Obama and Wright.” It has since been taken down.

Twitter is an online device that allows users to send out short messages and links en masse through computers or PDAs.

An aside: The explanation of Twitter is cute; I remember not so long ago when they did that for blogs.

It should be clarified: the video is still on YouTube but Soren’s Twitter account — which I’ve followed since I first signed up — is gone. I like Soren and would like to think that he could post to his personal account whatever he’d like. The video highlights some Obama statements I think are objectionable and some where I think the outrage is overwrought; none of it strikes me as patently beyond the pale.

Then again, I remember well the controversy over John Edwards’ brief employment of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, bloggers like Soren, who embarrassed the campaign with their outlandish rhetoric. The issue is not whether the video Soren linked was less inflammatory than what they had written; that can be debated. The issue is that their public commentary (even if 140 characters or fewer) ran contrary to the standards of the campaign. In Edwards’ case, they were likely implied, not explicit standards. But as Martin notes,

McCain and his campaign have repeatedly said that they would stay away from personal attacks on Obama, but the temptation has increased as Wright’s words have dominated the race in recent days.

Last week, they included an op-ed that hammered Wright and Obama in their morning clip package emailed to reporters. The same day, a campaign aide they regretted doing so.

Informed that Dayton was circulating the video, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said he had been suspended and “reprimanded by campaign leadership.”

“We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy,” she said.

One difference may be that Marcotte/McEwan had already proved controversial, with conservative bloggers making considerable noise about their independent blogging. Dayton had not yet caused that sort of embarrassment, and I frankly find it unlikely that it would have.

So did the McCain campaign overreact? Probably. Was this unfair to Soren? Maybe. But I’ve spent the last couple days saying that the Obama campaign has been too slow to cover its bases on Jeremiah Wright and Black Theology, so I must note that here the McCain campaign was quick to get in front of a potentially damaging story. Perhaps Republicans should see this as a blessing in disguise.

With 20 years distance, it seems ridiculous that the Dukakis campaign dismissed campaign manager John Sasso for distributing oppo research on then-rival (and onetime 2008 hopeful) Joe Biden. If it’s any consolation to Soren, he shouldn’t forget that Sasso was eventually hired back.

Update: All that said, I’m still joining Trevino’s Support Soren Dayton group on Facebook, and recommend that you do so, if you’re so inclined. Soren is very smart and a good guy for McCain to have. I especially hope they reinstate him so he can post for the campaign on RedState. Their stand is clear; it would be a mistake to turn this suspension into a sacking.

A Match Made in Twitter

Published by William Beutler on March 18, 2008 in Barack Obama, Domains, Seriously and Twitter. 0 Comments

Someone out there knows I’m a connoisseur of “fake” Twitter accounts, and late this morning, forwarded me an e-mail that I cannot help but screencap and share:

E-mail of Barack Obama reciprocally following a fake Jeremiah Wright on Twitter

Twelve hours later, there is one perfunctory tweet. In fact, it appears this account was created with one purpose in mind. That’s reflected in the e-mail above and, publicly, in the sidebar:

Sidebar on fake Jeremiah Wright Twitter account shows only one follower: Obama

Count this as an overlooked reason why Twitter will succeed: its endless capacity for mischief.

The Wire Wire

Published by William Beutler on March 3, 2008 in Entertainment, Television, Twitter and Web 2.0. 6 Comments

Two of my (relatively) recent obsessions are fairly unrelated: HBO’s The Wire and Obvious’ Twitter. Since I started tracking “the wire” on Twitter, the two have converged.

For those whom I’ve just confused: Twitter-tracking is a neat and non-obvious function of the popular micro-blogging service. If you’re a casual Twitterino, you may not even know of it. Put as simply as possible, in addition to receiving every tweet from those I follow, I also receive tweets from users across the entire network whenever they use a phrase I’m tracking, whether I’m following them or not. Tracked tweets won’t show up in your web interface, but they will be delivered by IM or text message (and I get both).

With the fifth and final season nearing an end, I started tracking the show’s title about a week ago. I got about a dozen or so relevant tweets per day — until last night’s airing of the ninth and penultimate episode. Although most Wire-heads I know have been watching episodes early via On Demand this year, the avalanche of Wire-related tweets give me the impression that most people are still watching at the appointed hour.

And with three different air times across four time zones, some West Coast reactions didn’t arrive until well after I was asleep. Out of sheer novelty and devotion to the television show, here are the tracked feeds I got last night and early this morning. If you aren’t caught up, yes there are spoilers, and the whole thing continues below the jump.

And as you’ll quickly notice, not every mention of “wire” has to do with “The Wire”:

8:41 PM (marcowill): cooking red beans and rice and getting ready for The Wire. My name is my name!
8:50 PM (ChrisLove): Almost time for the Wire!!!!!!
8:56 PM (melanig): @arsepoetica We aren’t allowed to watch “The Wire” until 12am your time because it is not in HD until then, so don’t tell me if anyone dies.
8:59 PM (seedoflife): Off to strap in for THE WIRE:)
9:00 PM (freddymini): Did go fly the kite with my son. it crashed and the wire, in less than 2 secs, made a gazillion of nodes. Drove me nuts!
9:07 PM (codeslinger): watching ep 9 of The Wire
9:08 PM (arsepoetica): I’m out! “The Wire” beckons. ‘Night, all.
(deantrippe): Watching the scramble-HBO version of The Wire.
Continue reading ‘The Wire Wire’

CPAC: I Exit the Room, Romney Exits the Race

Published by William Beutler on February 7, 2008 in CPAC, Metapost, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Tech Blogosphere and Twitter. 0 Comments

I’ve lived in Washington for a good half-decade now, but today is the first time I’ve attended the event that everyone who asks “Where’s the conservative Yearly Kos?” should remind themselves of, CPAC. Luckily for me, this year New Media Strategies secured three-day passes to the event, and even luckier, this year it’s just across the bridge (in Woodley Park) from me (in Adams Morgan). But this is about where my luck ends.

I hopped a cab with the author of CQ’s Ground Game and made it to the Omni Shoreham a little after 10:30. In the Senate Room, I picked up my designer neckwear designating me as a “CO-SPONSOR,” then started looking for the Regency Ballroom in hopes of seeing Vice President Cheney’s 11:00 a.m. speech. I wandered around the labyrinthine Omni Shoreham for fifteen minutes before finally finding a short line leading up to the ballroom. The inertia of said queue informed me that I wasn’t getting in, while the avalanche of Romney signs, placards, stickers, thunder sticks and foam “mitts” informed me that I would see Mitt Romney speak.

That was fine; I was at CPAC to schmooze and even get a little work done between speeches. So I located an aisle seat, ejected my trusty MacBook Pro out of my backpack and sat down to get some typing done. I wasn’t able to get online, however. The free wifi at the Omni wasn’t taking, and AT&T’s EDGE network wasn’t available in the basement. Little did I know, @briandevine, my colleague referenced in the last post, was sending me this Twitterdirect message:

bloggers are saying you have a really good chance of watching Romney drop out at this speech

Alas, I didn’t see it until earlier this evening. And at 1:00 p.m., as Romney’s seemingly generic speech continued, I glanced at my pass schedule to see Mark Steyn was to speak in the Ambassador Ballroom starting now. So I folded up and made for the door in a hurry. At two checkpoints I was told, like the freshmen in Dazed and Confused:

If you leave, you can’t come back.

My response was more polite but no more apprehensive. And after a few more minutes of peripatetic perlplexedness, I realized the Ambassador Ballroom was in fact directly across the hall from the Regency Ballroom, and was the room where I’d spied an overflow crowd watching Romney projected on a large screen.

As soon as I went back upstairs to figure out where to go next, the tweets started flowing. I think the first was from Dave Winer, RSS inventor and not exactly a political blogger:

Romney is withdrawing. Giving speech at conservative group in Washington.

Damn.

Later, I rationalized my foolhardy decision to bolt the ballroom: If I’d seen Romney drop out of the race, I would have witnessed history, of a kind. I was never a supporter — obviously, or I would have remained. Meanwhile, I am a big fan of Steyn’s — his monthly obit feature in The Atlantic was my favorite part of that magazine while it ran.

Skipping out early, on the other hand, gave me a story to tell, and now I’ve told it.

The February 7th Sign or: Stop This Train, I Want to Get On

Published by William Beutler on January 31, 2008 in Barack Obama, Blog Consultants, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Patrick Ruffini has announced a new Rightroots-branded initiative called February7.org. The premise is simple: Republicans are likely to have a presumptive nominee by the morning after the morning after Super Tuesday (Tsunami Tuesday for you First Read fanboys and girls). This primary has not been as ugly as the Democrats’, but it has been ideologically dispiriting, mostly featuring candidates who fell short of conservative ideals. An early fundraising push could help rally the GOP while the Democrats are still fighting amongst themselves.

That nominee is most likely to be John McCain, while Ruffini has switched his support from “Rudy to Romney,” as he put it Tuesday night. Therefore, the most likely scenario is he will have to grudgingly switch again in about a week. If the move is a painful one for many, better then to get it over with. But there’s more to it, as he explains in the announcement on his own site:

You can probably tell that I have strong views about this nomination contest. Win or lose, I’m equally convinced of the importance of getting behind the eventual winner. A nation at war cannot afford Hillary or Obama in the White House. …

Beyond just showing support for our nominee, we’re doing this to help solve a concrete strategic problem for our Party during the month of February.

The simple fact is that when it comes to contributions from others, our candidates are broke. They’ve spent it all on Florida. No one is up on TV in any February 5th state, while Hillary and Obama have money to burn (I saw Clinton ads in California last weekend). Based on the fact that they have money to play with and have held a fundraising advantage throughout the cycle, there is a chance they could start pummeling our candidate with negative ads right away.

If we fundraise the same old traditional way — with fundraising events and direct mail early and banking on Internet enthusiasm late — we will lose. There is no way we’ll be able to get the money when and where we need it. On the Internet in particular, contributions come in late, often too late for the money to be spent effectively. We’re hoping to help frontload some of this money so that the candidate can use it against Hillary/Obama right away. When it comes to giving, early is the new late.

Well said. But for my money, the best part of the website is that one can toggle between “Stop Hillary” and “Stop Obama,” not unlike a blog that lets you change the background color:

Stop Hillary at February7.org             Stop Obama at February7.org

Please notice that no “Stop Edwards” version was created.

P.S. I first heard about this through a Twitter account Ruffini set up last week: Twitter.com/February7. I followed the account back, but of 111 users Ruffini followed, only 13 followed it back. That 11.7% rate would be terrific if it was direct mail, but it isn’t that. Twitter marketing has been the focus of much discussion over the past year, but here is some evidence that the medium strongly favors established personalities — Ruffini is one, but @February7 is not. And setting up new Twitter accounts is fun, but not all that effective.

Rightroots, Big Red Tent and Slatecard: An Assessment

Published by William Beutler on December 3, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Campaigns, Charts and Graphs, Fred Thompson, Internecine Battles, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Social Networking, Startups, Trend Tool, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 4 Comments

Logos for Slatecard, Rightroots and Big Red Tent

Online fundraising startups are a longstanding interest of Blog P.I. In our year and a half, we’ve devoted more than a few posts to the subject, including the progressive, Democrat-supporting ActBlue, the conservative, Republican-aligned newcomer ABC PAC/Rightroots, attendant security issues and flawed coverage often (but not exclusively) in the Washington Post. The last time I wrote about it, Rightroots had relaunched, and two similar Republican fundraising startups — Big Red Tent and Slatecard — were announced and on the way shortly.

Now, all three have been up for more than a month, which I think is enough time to make an early comparative assessment.

For those playing at home: Rightroots is a reboot of the ABC PAC/Rightroots slate that saw a trial run fairly late in the 2006 cycle, controlled by McCain adviser Becki Donatelli, former Giuliani Patrick Ruffini and Mike Turk, an outside adviser to the Thompson campaign. Big Red Tent is an outside-the-beltway venture by a pair of Austin, Texas web consultants Ryan Gravatt and Brad Jackson. Slatecard is the brainchild primarily of ubiquitous DC Internet guy David All and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram (who strangely has no website that I can find).

Last weekend, I signed up for each one and made some nominal contributions. Since then, I’ve continued poking and prodding. I thought about putting together an elaborate chart comparing their features side-by-side. Perhaps in a future post I will, but for now, but I don’t think that gives as clear a picture of what I thought about them. Instead, this post collects my observations, with screen captures. It’s a long one, so I’ve tucked the rest of this post below the fold. Follow me…

Continue reading ‘Rightroots, Big Red Tent and Slatecard: An Assessment’

Joe Trippi and Twitter’s Second Life

Published by William Beutler on November 11, 2007 in Howard Dean, Joe Trippi, John Edwards, Tech Blogosphere, Technology, Twitter, Web 2.0, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

It’s too soon to tell whether Twitter will break on through to the mainstream side; it has long since reached critical mass in the tech community, but the politico adoption rate remains low, and the entertainment ’sphere barely knows it exists. Blogging took this path to becoming a household word, so it seems reasonable to assume it might happen that way again with microblogging.

This is not to say it necessarily will, but we can mark one point in favor: after three and a half months away, Joe Trippi is Twittering again.

When he first signed up in July, his tweets (as messages sent through Twitter are called) merely answered the ubiquitous question hovering above the input space:

What are you doing?

This is what he was doing:

Hanging out with Ted! 07:54 PM July 14, 2007 from web
Participating in Live Earth today — Help spread the word. 08:45 AM July 07, 2007 from web
watching movies with my son Ted! 07:48 PM July 04, 2007 from web

He dutifully answered a few times, and then like most political types who have tried, merely set it aside, gave up entirely or just didn’t get it.

Here are two basic points about using Twitter: One, your best tweets will not come while sitting at a desk — in order to be interesting to others, you have to be doing something, which means getting out of doors, and this tends to mean sending text messages from your cell phone to Twitter. Two, sometimes you should just ignore the inquest about your current activities and just use Twitter to say something.

As for Trippi, his November Twittering has been done almost exclusively via SMS. And he most certainly is much busier now than he was in July, Noam Scheiber detailed last week. Trippi joined the Edwards campaign as a mere add-on adviser in April, but in recent months he has apparently taken a lead strategic role. (For what it’s worth, John Edwards himself has been on Twitter since January — Matt Gross’ handiwork, I pesume.)

This recent burst of Trippi tweets are both a glimpse inside the manic campaign schedule and a glimpse inside the frazzled psyche of its owner. They’re on the edge. In the moment. They don’t appear calculated, are not especially guarded, and sometimes they make no sense at all. This is, after all, the man who nearly went blind due to low blood sugar on the trail in 2003, and whose tearful exit from Burlington was broadcast live on national cable news.

A few tweets offer a keyhole view of the campaign:

up late working on a youtube video for John Edwards that will be released later today. Released our first Iowa ad earlier today. 01:32 AM November 02, 2007 from txt
Just finished another day in iowa. This time I really do know I won’t be doing this again. But Edwards was good all day 02:06 AM November 05

Others detail the life of Trippi:

Exhausted but still going. Actually went out and played pinball til 1am with a NY Times reporter last night in Iowa City. Had a lot of f … … 03:13 PM November 05, 2007 from txt
Off to Cedar Rapids for Edwards. Its my 10th wedding anniversary. I am so screwed 10:55 AM November 08, 2007 from txt

And still others… who knows?

price today 03:13 PM November 05, 2007 from txt
Stars 08:55 PM November 05, 2007 from txt

It almost dares you to ponder what he was thinking at the time. For the record, my guesses: Staring out a train window at night, standing in the grocery checkout line watching the total rise. Some people would call this bad Twittering, certainly for its incomprehensibility, but I disagree — this is more interesting than using it as a distribution list or RSS feed receptacle (perfectly legitimate uses, by the way).

Of course, there’s no reason he couldn’t drop it again just as quickly. An application like Twitter, which asks so little, is also easily forgotten. Twitter participation can be streaky, more so than blogs. Unless and until it develops into a full-blown next-generation instant messenger (my prediction) the site will remain erratic and insular. On the other hand, that’s why some of us pay attention in the first place.

P.S. Trippi isn’t the only person famous-within-his-respective-field to start tweeting again this month. Only Thursday, widely-heard tech podcaster Leo Laporte finally ran up the white flag:

I surrender Twitter. You win.

Laporte abandoned Twitter under entirely different circumstances. He ditched it for competing microblogging service Jaiku in April, citing fears of brand confusion. The flagship of Laporte’s podcast fleet is christened This Week in Tech, or TWiT for short. I assume he’ll explain in the next installment. Maybe there is hope yet that he will relent on the term podcasts, which he gave up for “netcasts,” which isn’t catching, and which I felt compelled to throw scare quotes around.

P.P.S. Aren’t you glad this post wasn’t actually about Second Life?

Playing Hard to Get

Published by William Beutler on May 23, 2007 in E-mail, Online Campaigns, Rudy Giuliani and Twitter. 3 Comments

As I wrote a couple months ago, I quite like the Rudy Giuliani campaign website — it’s much better than, say, the John McCain official site. In particular, they got a couple things very right about providing tools for supporters. However, two other aspects of the web operation have been bothering me.

First, and most importantly, I can’t seem to get on their e-mail list. When you visit their site, the first thing you’ll usually see is a splash page. This doesn’t thrill me, but I can accept its utility for… yes, building an e-mail list. But I have filled this form out at least three times in recent weeks, to no avail:

Rudy Giuliani e-mail sign-up form

I have tried signing up from different computers in different locations, entering addresses from the District, Arlington and Oregon. Nada, zip, zilch. What gives? Something is up with the database software managing their contact information, I presume. I’ve been going about signing up for e-mails from the Big Six and some of the others, but so far only the Giuliani campaign has kept me in the dark.

This reminds me a bit of my trouble getting approved for McCainSpace. I was eventually added, on the third try, but it’s not worth the trouble in any case.

And speaking of ill-implemented innovations, what pray tell, is going on with Giuliani’s Twitter account?

Rudy Giuliani Twitter account

I tried to add Giuliani as a Twitter friend several weeks ago, but nothing has changed. Moreover, it seems odd to be on Twitter but keep the updates private. I tried adding Giuliani again this past weekend, only to be informed that I had already submitted the request.

I’m guessing the campaign has a test post or two on Twitter, but are keeping it on hold until they’re ready to start using it. Compare with Mitt Romney, whose camp has either not yet claimed his account (Twitter has reserved the 2008 candidates’ names for them) or has simply decided it isn’t worth the effort. If the Giuliani campaign has in fact decided against Twittering, that’s perfectly fine, but quit teasing!

From a technical standpoint, these are obviously separate issues, but potential supporters who want to interact with the Giuliani campaign online are still getting the same mixed message.

Update: Blog P.I., with an an assist by techPresident, gets results! Or perhaps the third time really is a charm:

Dear William, Welcome to the Team Rudy weekly wrap up email. This email will give you a snap shot of what Rudy’s been doing in the past week and all of the latest news from the campaign. I hope you enjoy it. Sincerely, DuHaime Michael DuHaime Campaign Manager Rudy Giluiani Presidential Committee

“Sincerely, Duhaime”? Sort of like Morrissey or Liberace with the one-name moniker that’s a last name? If so, intriguing: first names are much more common (Beck, Madonna, Oprah, Cher, Penn, Teller).

Actually, I think what’s more likely is Gmail couldn’t load a signature image so displayed meta information instead. Just guessing, though. Maybe it’s more like a Van Halen-type thing.