Five days ago, during President Barack Obama’s inaugural address to Congress on February 24 (which for all intents and purposes can be called a State of the Union speech) and while watching a live TV feed on C-SPAN, I simultaneously monitored Twitterville.
Very knowledgeable about members of Congress using Twitter, stemmed from my creation last August of a Twitter Fan Wiki of U.S. Government users, I went back and forth between various sources to see which Senators and Representatives were writing what (if they wrote anything) while the President spoke.
That’s when I trended the country–but until now, few people know the truth. Allow me to recapture the relevant time line.
At 9:20 p.m., I wrote:
LEGISLATOR UPDATE: @clairecmc @johnculberson and @MarkWarner are live-tweeting from Congress
At 9:22 p.m., local social media colleague Cappy Popp retweeted me.
RT @ariherzog: LEGISLATOR UPDATE: @clairecmc @johnculberson and @MarkWarner are live-tweeting from Congress
At 9:25 p.m., techPresident co-founder Micah Sifry either retweeted me or Cappy but rewrote the beginning words:
Three Members are semi-live-tweeting from the floor (is that legal?) @clairecmc, @johnculberson, and @markwarner. Kudos to them all.
Within moments, dozens of other Twitter users retweeted Micah or Cappy, but in reality, they retweeted me. When Eric Etheridge of the New York Times blogged a live-tweeting recap, he attributed Micah.
Nobody knew the truth. Not in real-time, anyway. They never looked. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t have looked, either.
They focused on whoever tweeted or retweeted most recently. They never noticed the historical order; in reverse chronology, you can see me at the bottom of the list, which in Twitter language, puts me at ground zero.
About an hour later, after Obama’s speech ended, I reviewed the time line and tweeted a message. Micah noticed it and retweeted me at 10:27 p.m.:
RT @ariherzog: To anyone who questions how Twitter can be viral, click http://ad.vu/69pj and see the starting tweet! (Kudos @ariherzog)
I didn’t blog about this at the time because I was upholding my pledge not to blog about Twitter during the month of February.
I did pen a summary of the twittering Congress for the Huffington Post, though.
If you’re interested in reading my reflections on not blogging about Twitter, stay tuned later this week.
Photo credit: probek
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- Twitter Lists: A New Way to Follow
- Case Study: How 11 Mayors use Twitter
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 4 comments }
Why even point this out?
Jeremy´s last blog post..Constructive Capitalism
I point it out for journalists–who allegedly write with integrity–to grasp the latest information is not necessarily the source. I don’t need the credit, but others in similar situations might.
Ari,
#1 – Congrats for making it an entire month (albeit the shortest one of the year…) without talking about twitter
#2 – It is interesting to see where credit goes in a tech world. There are hundreds of people who often write about the same article, and it is usually quite hard to find the original author (as they get lost in the crowd)
What suggestion would you have to make it easier to keep the originator of an idea or a thought, known?
Kirsten Wright´s last blog post..7 ways to stay strong in your writing
Hmmm,
As Congress and Senate members begin tweeting in droves… Have there been cases of tweet slips? That is they tweeted something that should have not been read by the general public? Hmmm, a similar happened to some social media professional way back tweeting about his client’s hometown…
Yikes!!!, the thought of that happening…
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