TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

obama

Barack Obama pushes the button on his first tweet

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If you were one of the people shocked and appalled when it was revealed that President Barack Obama never actually used his Twitter account to chat to his 2 million + followers, then you’ll be happy to know he’s now a published Twitter user.

President Obama ‘pushed the button’ on a message on the @redcross account “President Obama and the First Lady are here visiting our disaster operation center right now.” I’d guess the reason it’s in the third person is that it was probably written by someone else, rather than any bizarre third-person view the President has of himself. The next tweet confirmed the historic event: “President Obama pushed the button on the last tweet. It was his first ever tweet!”

It’s interesting that someone persuaded him to tweet on behalf of the Red Cross and perhaps raise a little more awareness and support for their work dealing with the Haiti disaster – it’s got 50,000 followers as opposed to ‘his’ own account @barackobama with over two million, which surely would have raised more funds?

Barack Obama pushes the button on his first tweet
Barack Obama pushes the button on his first tweet

And before anyone starts getting their hopes up that they’ll be exchanging @ replies and DMs with the President himself from now on – I suspect there are still a number of reasons why we won’t see him regularly tweeting – not least the potential security risk of disclosing his location. Which I guess also rules out Foursquare…

My Dopplr personal travel report for 2008

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I’m quite a fan of Dopplr as a way to track my travels, and those of my friends and contacts, so we can improve the chances of meeting up in person.

You may have already heard that they have produced personal reports for each user’s travel in 2008, and seen the Barack Obama one they’ve created as an interesting example.

Barack Obama Dopplr report (Click to enlarge)
Barack Obama Dopplr report (Click to enlarge)

Well, mine has arrived, and although it’s nowhere near as interesting as Obama, or some of my more well-travelled contacts, it’s still cool for me on a personal level. Plus it’s reminded me to put some more effort into adding journeys and switching on the carbon calculation.

Dan Thorntons personal Dopplr 2008 report (Click to enlarge)
Dan Thornton’s personal Dopplr 2008 report (Click to enlarge)

One of my aims for this year should be to get some trips on there which aren’t commuting to London!

No post today due to #inaug09

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If you’re wondering what #inaug09 means, it’s the hashtag for people tweeting about the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

So aside from keeping an eye on Twitter stability, I’m taking a break.

Strangely it was actually coping well until the moment before I started blogging when an ominous 4 minute lag appeared – if it survives at 4 minutes considering the huge amount of usage it’s experiencing I’ll be mightily impressed!

Just one last thought – the experience of being able to share in the event through Twitter and throughout the web is definitely affecting other UK tweeters, and other people around the world. It seems that the convergence of technology and Obama is connecting people in a new way – perhaps because previous large scale events tended to be around nation-specific sports (e.g. The Superbowl), or large scale tragedies as occurred in Mumbai.

This time it’s a positive event in the messages of everyone I’m witnessing. And that can only be a good thing.

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