The Intersection of Online and Offline

I have a love-hate relationship with politics, and I get jazzed about social media.  In the Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable I did last week, all of us predicted that we won’t have solid analysis for probably a few months in terms of the “youth vote” - what so many people are attributing to the rise of social media.

I have been watching the tea leaves a little, and thanks to Neville Hobson’s Tweet today, discovered that according to Valleywag, Obama’s Twitter account has gone silent since Election Day.  So before you guys start jumping all over me about transition, etc., don’t think for a minute that President-elect Obama was himself tweeting over a cup of joe (the plumber?) in the morning.  Valleywag says:

He didn’t even use Twitter to announce his transition website, change.gov — and what is Twitter for, really, if not spamming your friends with your latest URL? There’s no better sign that his 127,196 followers have been pumped and dumped.”

What I found equally interesting is that Newt Gingrich now has a Twitter account.  By all accounts in the use of social media, the political Left is WAY ahead of the political Right, but the next two years are going to be interesting.

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Mark

I have not had time to write in-depth about the intersection of social media and the recent U.S. elections, but had some fun doing a Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable (.mp3 file) yesterday.

We talked about:

• An Internet election?
• The dark side of of online reputation management
• Blogging and corporate layoffs

It was, as usual fun, and simultaneously enlightening.  Thanks, Chip and Jen.

Mark

Like many other people who are my peeps, I start my day off with some online news, peruse a couple of blogs, check Twitter (my tweeps), and sometimes even jump over to Facebook.

But I think that I am going to opt out of social media for the next month or so.  For me, it’s pretty simple.

I am hatin’ the hatin’.

Believe me, I am a First Amendment guy.  Most of the free world does not enjoy the freedoms that we do (read: China) when it comes to expressing individual opinion, especially via a vehicle that is targeted for mass distribution, like blogs, Twitter or Facebook.  But for me, it’s depressing as hell to open up social media tools and see so much venom spewed regarding the upcoming elections.  Again, see above — I am a First Amendment guy — but I am so tired of reading what are supposed to be either pithy or downright mean-spirited comments from both sides of the political aisle.  It’s a depressing way to start the day.

For example?

• “If I was [sic] John McCain, I would have insisted that the debates not be shot in HD.”
• “All of the McCain-Palin signs have gone missing from my neighborhood. And I thought Obama transcended politics.”
• “My neighbor got a new McCain-Palin sign. In fact, now he has two. Take that Obama sign stealers.”
• “Example #4980 why Congress is broken: The bailout vote was technically on the “Paul Wellstone Mental Health & Addiction Equity Act of 2007.”
• “Is the economy fixed yet?”
• “Is there anything about McC that you find NOT hypocritical lately?”

All of these represent Tweets or status updates that I have seen in the last week - hence, my decision to try to Opt Out of Ugliness.  You see, I have lived and worked in the nation’s capital since 1987 and have never — ever– seen such venom on both sides of the political aisle.  I am pretty sure that it was always there, it is just that the social-media-Hyde-Park-Speaker’s-Corner-Soap-Boxes did not yet exist.

So for all of you out there who are exercising your constitutionally-given right to express your political views, have at it.

But I can’t believe that I would EVER quote him — but of all of people, Howard Stern often said “if you don’t like what you are hearing, turn the radio dial.”  So for a while, I am out of the ugliness.

Mark

When your party summons you, you answer the call of destiny.  So who am I to say no?

Click on the image below.

Mark

I’m sorry if there are any Senator Ted Stevens fans out there, but with his recent political (and perhaps) legal troubles, I cannot get enough of Ted Stevens.

I wrote about it a few times, most recently in “Rubes, Boobs and Tubes,” but as a laugh, here’s a “Ted Stevens The Internet is Not a Series of Tubes” mix.

Mark