TWITWITS

Dear Readers:

Twitter, the social medium of the masses, has certain inherent advantages and certain limitations.

On the asset side of the ledger:

1. It's free.

2. It's available to everyone.

3. Messages are limited to 140 characters, so there is no filibustering, monopolizing, or laborious waiting time for downloading.

4. It is a quick broadcast medium for anyone's use, either socially, commercially or politically.

5. It is a fine branding tool for achieving differentiation and name recognition through repetition.

On the liability side of the ledger:

1. It is difficult to express a thought clearly when you are limited to 140 characters. Posts are often misleading.

2. More than 1 in 5 tweets (Twitter posts) is either about Twitter-related devices and techniques, social media, or "get rich quick" business opportunities.

3. Tweeting is not truly engaging in a conversation -- it is a highly impersonal, public and overcrowded system of one-sided messaging. (Picture yelling in the middle of Grand Central Station during rush hour at Christmastime).

4. To gain and maintain brand identity or prominence on Twitter, you must post several times daily -- this can become quite a chore;

5. When you tweet, it becomes a part of the permanent archives of every search engine and data-mining device. There is no "erasing" or "eradicating" a tweet, once it has been posted.

Here's an excerpted article which demonstates that combining Twittering and political image-building, may not work out that well...

FROM YAHOO!

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TMT: Too much Twitter?
2 hrs 11 mins ago

If the medium is the message, then what's the message when politicians use 140-character tweets to talk about their state's dire economic circumstances or ethics charges?
Yesterday, embattled Govs. Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed career-changing (or ending) issues facing them...on Twitter. Palin was responding to a new report on ethics charges against her, tweeting:

Re inaccurate story floating re:ethics violation/Legal Defense Fund;matter is still pending;new info was just requested even;no final report.

Palin's Twitter feed currently has more than 100,000 followers, including Gawker.com, which follows her every tweet, calling the soon-to-be former governor's feed "the best thing to ever happen on the internet." And not in a nice way.

No doubt even the most talented wordsmith must find it difficult to be eloquent and informative in 140 characters or less, but for politicians using a social-media tool to confront serious issues, they also run the risk of diminishing the importance of their message.

After negotiating a deal that will close the gap on California's jaw-dropping $26 billion deficit, Schwarzenegger posted a puzzling video message on his Twitter page. In it, the governor is wielding a huge knife, talking about selling state cars signed by the "celebrity governor." Even the governor's press secretary couldn't explain the knife.

From KABC:
"I don't know why he is holding a knife. The message is in what he is saying, not what he is holding in his hand."

L.A. residents were not impressed with Schwarzenegger's message, or the medium:
"To me it's not offensive. I think it's a little bit beneath him, but that's the governor," said Bob Barnes.

"He should be focusing on other things besides signing cars and holding a knife ... and being on Twitter," said Giovanni Matallana.

Ever since politicians jumped on the social-media bandwagon, critics have been questioning the wisdom of elected officials using Twitter on the job. In March, columnist Charlie Cook of the National Journal wrote that he has "yet to hear a single intelligent remark twittered by an elected official."

Bloggers at the Christian Science Monitor compiled a few examples of political tweets in a post entitled, "Politicians using Twitter: Morons or visionaries?"

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., likes to tweet about golf and ballet camp:
Proud of Tom Watson's effort. So close....
Youngest daughter, dancing Lily all packed, ready to go to ballet camp in Vermont early in am.

Meanwhile, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine., tweeted recently about taping an appearance on "The Colbert Report": "Takes a lot of make-up to do these things! (And Moxie, we even drank a little, or I did!)."

(Can't get enough of the moment-by-moment goings-on of D.C. movers and shakers? Not to worry: You can follow your favorite senator or congressman at Tweetcongress.com).

Moronic or visionary tweets aside, what about national security? In February, CQ Politics reported that Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., broke a national security embargo when he tweeted the details of a secret congressional trip to Iraq: "Just landed in Baghdad."

From CQ Politics:

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page.
Did we mention that Hoesktra is a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee? Hoekstra's breach also happened to occur just months after the U.S. Army issued a report warning that Twitter was a "potential terrorist tool."

— Lili Ladaga

Yahoo! News bloggers compile the best news content from our providers and scour the Web for the most interesting news stories so you don't have to.

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Faithfully,

Douglas Castle,

For THE NATIONAL NETWORKER

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