Twitter: The “Little Deformed Screw Rattling Around” in the Online Toolbox

One highlight from Politics Online today: in a discussion with former Obama New Media Director Joe Rospars, McCain’s 2008 eCampaign Director Michael Palmer was listing various items in the online campaigner’s online toolkit, including email, fundraising, virtual phonebanking and more. Twitter? Here’s how he offhandedly described it: “Twitter is the little deformed screw that’s rattling around in the bottom” of the online toolbox.

Ouch! Of course he was being flippant, but Palmer’s comment does capture something valid, that Twitter doesn’t really fit neatly into a technological category. Part microblogging tool, part phone-to-web publishing tool, part social network, Twitter’s an odd duck all around — perhaps that explains some of the fascination about it.

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Written by
Colin Delany
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2 comments
  • Deformed? Yesterday I Tweeted a link to some video I’d shot/posted of U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson speaking at the Atlanta Press Club on Monday. About some very timely issues.

    Within the hour the AJC’s political columnist’s blog and Atlanta’s alt-weekly, Creative Loafing’s, news blog had embedded that video in their posts. Happens around here all the time.

    Deformed? I’d say it’s a streamlined, efficient and fast media delivery device!