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Bill Richardson was nominated to be the country’s next commerce secretary yesterday by President-elect Barack Obama. And it was not only noticed here on the pages of the New Mexico Independent or in the New Mexico media in general. It was news all across the nation.
And that includes Twitter.
The Twitter Web site describes itself as “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
It has since evolved beyond that, and has become a social networking site despite the 140-character limitation it imposes on writers (or “Tweeters”). Links, usually using services like TinyUrl or SnipUrl to shorten URLS, point those who follow a writer to a certain article or Web site.
The site TwitScoop tracks trends on Twitter over the past 6 hours, one day and three days. Below is the Twitter trend for yesterday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
Can you guess the time where the Richardson/Barack Obama press conference was going on?
The one day and three day graphs are, frankly, not as interesting. They show slight upticks on Tuesday when it was announced that Richardson would be named secretary of commerce the following day.
Another site which shows longer Twitter trends (seven days and 30 days) is Twist. This functions more like Google Trends for Twitter than Twitscoop does.
The seven-day trend shows, unsurprisingly, a big jump for Richardson yesterday, with the peak at the time of the new conference.
In this case, the 30-day chart is just as interesting as the seven-day chart. On Nov. 21, the day it was first reported that Richardson was the likely choice for secretary of commerce, Richardson’s Twitter mentions peaked. And again on Nov. 23 when more reports came out saying it was even more likely.
But most interesting is Nov. 14. What happened on Nov. 14? Well, that was the day, according to CNN, that Richardson spoke to Barack Obama.
So what does this show? Well, it mainly shows when people are interested in Richardson. Or at least people who use Twitter. And those times look to be when Richardson is in the news in conjunction with Obama.
What sort of tweets were being sent out? Beyond your normal basic announcement of “Obama names Bill Richardson to head Commerce Dept.” there were two main points of discussion.
One was the question of should Richardson be named secretary of state — or was he positioning himself for a future stint as secretary of state.
The other point of discussion was typified by a post by seanovanaman that the writer was
deeply disappointed that gov. bill richardson has shaved his beard
Not everyone was enamored with the beard talk.
Raewhitlock rebelled against the beard debate, writing, “OMG WOLF BITZER WHO CARES ABOUT BILL RICHARDSON’S BEARD?!”
In case you were wondering, politicians utilize Twitter as well. Barack Obama has over 146,000 followers. The account has not sent a message to followers since a Nov. 5 tweet that said:
We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks
Closer to home, Senator-elect Tom Udall has 322 followers, but has not sent a tweet since Oct. 20.
All trend data accessed at or around 4:00 Mountain time on Dec. 3, 2008.
You can find the New Mexico Independent on Twitter at twitter.com/nmindependent.
