election.twitter

Continuing with my example from last week, twitter has made it possible for users to continuously update thoughts and links about the election. Twitter has created one site that is aggregating all of updates. http://election.twitter.com/ Any 'tweet' that includes a presidential candidates name is being included. One can also filter updates by candidates name to see what is currently being said. Tweets range from support for candidates to rally updates.

"We’re filtering hundreds of Twitter updates per minute to create a new source for gathering public opinion about the election and a new way for you to share your thoughts."

During the debates Current TV teamed up with twitter to broadcast tweets live during the debate. Check out Current TV Tweets to see some of them. People have continued to post comments long after the debates have ended. During the debates, I followed the posts online as I watched. It was great to see the responses from others and what responses received the most comments.

The Current TV is teaming up with Twitter again for election day. They have created a site http://twittervotereport.com/ to track voting problems or polling issues. They want people to know of voting issues and allow others to track the election updates beginning at 9am on Tuesday. To hear more on the initiative, watch this video:
http://current.com/items/89476668_twitter_vote_report

Twitter.

Because, I don't talk about Twitter enough...

What is twitter, watch this video.


Since I found out that WCCO had a twitter, I have been following them. Yes, all 'tweets' give a link to the website, but it alerts you to stories that have just or recently been published allowing one to keep up on all the latest WCCO stories. Along with that, Jason DeRusha has a twitter account http://twitter.com/DeRushaJ and he often asks question about stories he is doing. Here are a couple of his 'tweets' from this week:

Anyone know how much yard signs actually cost campaigns? I'm doing a Good Question on political yard signs tonight. 10:19 AM Oct 20th from web

I'm on a CBS conference call about our blogs. Anyone have any features they'd like added? I want video comments a la seesmic 2:28 PM Oct 22nd from

Today's Good Question: Why do people text instead of call? E-mail me a video, or DM me if you want to answer on camera. 10:56 AM Oct 21st from web

While his stories are not about the hard news pieces, he is reaching out to his followers for help or advice. In my opinion it helps work as another form of tip line since people can instantly say something and it can be picked up on by a news professional. The article.
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/01/18/why-journalists-should-use-twitter/, discusses how citizen journalist can use twitter too. Users were polling voters after the Iowa caucuses to see who they voted for and then twittered out the results, or had others twitter directly to one source who aggregated all the results. For citizen journalists, twitter can also act as another source to inform others that they have a blog and can quickly send out links of their stories drawing traffic back to their site and eventually gaining a following.

Twitter News Feeds

Going back to our first class, we were discussing how to follow news. We were throwing around 'new media' ways to stay informed. There was some complaints about finding the right people to follow on twitter. Here is a short list of some news twitters that I found if anyone is interested.

NPR: http://twitter.com/nprnews
CNN Newsroom: http://twitter.com/CNN_Newsroom
CNN International: http://twitter.com/cnni
CNN Breaking News: http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
MSNBC: http://twitter.com/msnbc
BBC: http://twitter.com/BBC
Fox News: http://twitter.com/foxnews
AP News: http://twitter.com/APNews

WCCO: http://twitter.com/WCCOBreaking
Minn Post: http://twitter.com/MinnPost
Star Tribune: http://twitter.com/startribune

A couple of political ones for good measure
John McCain: http://twitter.com/McCainNews
Barack Obama: http://twitter.com/ObamaNews