Microblogging the Campaign Trail

Of course the “staff” here around the East Coast Blogging offices are well engaged in all things Twitter, but I am not so sure about the rest of the mainstream population. Twitter has become a valuable tool in tracking and following the Presidential campaigns, but until now I think it was mainly to a rather niche audience. Not that this will change anything, but the NY Times ran a piece today about journalists using Twitter following the ongoing events. The piece is titled “Campaign Reporting in Under 140 Taps“.

It starts by showing an update by John Dickerson, chief political correspondent for the online magazine Slate:

NASHUA: Just saw Bill O’reily misbehaving at Obama rallly. Shoving Obama staffer.

And from there goes on to mention others, to include Time reporters who have begun using the tool. I was just imagining non-tech saavy people getting up this morning to read about this “Twitter” thing those crazy kids are using these days. We are in it and know it, but to others it must seem as foreign as aliens.

I found a quote by Olivier Knox, a White House correspondent for Agence France-Presse very interesting. He stated

Despite the new gadgetry, these journalists are actually rediscovering telegraphese — the clipped (ideally witty) style that flourished because of word limits imposed by an earlier technology, the telegraph. Today, it is the limits imposed by text-messaging.

Interesting how we see Twitter as new technology, the underlying message snippet is actually older than most of us using it today. I can see all of us now, in the backroom, visor on our heads, tapping away on the telegraph machine as the letters goes racing across the cable to its destination. Odd irony isnt it ?

Anyway, its pretty cool to see a new technology hit the mainstream news. Hope everyone doesn’t rush to use it … I don’t know if Twitter can handle it ….