I was thrilled to participate in this roundtable on the media reportage vis a vis Iran’s election on GritTV, featuring the fabulous independent filmmaker and educator Simin Farkondeh (who everyone should interview, btw), John MacArthur of Harper’s, and Robert Huesca, a professor of communications at Trinity University.
I’ve got more thoughts on the subject (if ya couldn’t tell by the look on my face at different points in the clip) that I hope to round up later this morningI wrote up here…
(This is part 2 of a chicken-’n'-egg series explaining the usefulness of Twitter. If you get what Twitter is, but need help getting started, you might want to look at “A non-fanatical beginner’s guide to Twitter.“)
I’m tapping away furiously on my Blackberry as a friend arrives to join me for coffee. “Whatcha working on?” he asks.
“Just updating my Twitter,” I say. “Two secs.”
“Twitter, huh? I just don’t get it, I guess.”
“Oh, my. Allow me to get you to ‘get’ it, my friend.”
This is a conversation I have often, and while it might make some diehard Twitterers cringe, I relish this moment to expound and explain this little phenomenon that’s happening around Twitter and services like it. I’ve clearly drunk the Kool-Aid of the micro-blogging revolution, and I’d love to walk you through some of the ways people are enjoying it.
Thanks to a bunch of mainstream media coverage, a lot of folks around me are becoming more interested in participating in the Twitterverse. “All right, all right,” they say. “You’ve convinced me. But how do I get started?” It’s almost like walking into a giant party for the first time: You’re not sure where your friends are, the bar is on the other side of the room, and the bathrooms are anyone’s guess. Allow me to be your party guide.
Sure, sure, you could also just Google “beginner’s guide to Twitter” and read a any number of other guides that have been written. Problem is, I feel like most of them focus on two niches: how to be a fanatical Twitterer, and/or how to be a really obnoxiously popular Twitterer. What I’m aiming for here is more for people who want to experiment a little and connect with other folks on a pretty direct level. We’ll talk later about different ways you can participate, but for now, let’s just get the basics down.
[Following is an email I sent out this morning...]
Good morning from the south side of Brooklyn, all!
Many of you know my commitment and activism around protecting voters from fraud, disenfranchisement and general craziness. In 2004, I traveled to Ohio to volunteer with the Election Protection coalition; this year, I wasn’t able to make it out of town (due to this lovely little addition to the family: meet Izzy Louise).
I’ve instead been working on a digital election protection project that uses a variety of tools to allow people to report on their voting experiences: check out Twitter Vote Report at http://twittervotereport.com/ . There are a couple amazing things about this project:
– you don’t have to use Twitter to report: text messages, phone calls, iPhones, Androids are all in play
– an *amazing* all-volunteer team came together from across the country to build out the coalition, site & tools in under two weeks
“This is a historic moment” is what we’re going to hear all day today, and I could be prouder to have played a part in making new technologies the means to a better end. (For those keeping score at home: I did the logo, design, website buildout, and helped make the maps and other bits look nice.)
Check me out on GRITtv discussing the pros and cons (well, mostly the cons) of electronic voting. Along with me in the segment are Steven Rosenfeld, senior fellow at AlterNet and the author of Count My Vote: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting, Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, and of course, host with the most, Laura Flanders.
I’m super excited to announce that my new segment on GRITtv with Laura Flanders has launched! I’ll be doing regular segments featuring all things tech: politics (like episode 1, here), life hacks, sanity checks, gadget giddiness, you name it. Have suggestions or hot tips? Send them to blog AT deannazandt.com!
