How do Canadian Politicians on Twitter Compare to other Countries?

How do Canadian politicians on Twitter compare to other countries? As some of you may know other countries have national Twitter sites like politwitter that connect politicians with people. Tweetcongress in the US, Tweetminister in the UK and TweetMP in Austrailia are the most notable. Since these sites all started before politwitter and in the case of Tweetcongress and Tweetminsiter have large followings and have received a fair amount of press, I expected that these countries would have a fairly high participation rate amongst politicians.

Take Advantage of Facebook Changes

If you have checked your Facebook recently you may have noticed some pretty dramatic changes. We certainly have. To ensure that you and your organization continue to take advantage of the Facebook community, we've identified two key feature updates that occurred this weekend that you should know about.

Sign-in to Myspace...with Facebook?

It could be the ultimate admission of defeat, or, a pretty smart move given its current strategy. According to The Telgraph, MySpace is currently discussing a partnership with Facebook where music and video content published to MySpace could easily be shared on Facebook via Facebook Connect.

How Moms Use their iPhones

According to a new survey by mobile advertising network Greystripe, mothers with iPhones regularly let their children use their phones, download games specifically for their children and often use their phones at grocery stores to compare prices and check their grocery lists.

Not too long ago, mothers were still considered to be a hard group to reach through mobile applications because they tend to be late adopters. The iPhone's mainstream success has changed this, however, and iPhone moms have now become a desirable target demographic for marketers.

CMF: People Like Online Townhalls, They Really Do

The Congressional Management Foundation has been tracking how Congress uses the web since before most members of Congress had websites. (That may or may not be true.)  But they've found something that seems to have even surprised them. The set up is that CMF, curious about how people responded to online townhalls, organized 21 such events -- 20 with representatives in 2006, and one event with a senator in 2008. They invited a bunch of people, told some of those who were interested that they couldn't come (control group!) and then assessed what was different amongst those who had had the pleasure of kibitzing with their congressperson online and those who hadn't.

A First Look at Facebook Fan Box

I had five separate people email me this week about the launch of Facebook Fan Box, which is a widget that allows you to integrate your Facebook fan page into your website. The Fan Box shows the avatars of a select number of your fans as well as a news feed of your most recent page updates. Given the buzz about the tool, I spent some time playing with it. Here are some quick thoughts on it...

Facebook Lures Advertisers at Myspace's Expense

Facebook has won over millions of users from social networking pioneer MySpace. It's becoming more alluring to advertisers, too.

Even as overall U.S. advertising spending on social networks declines this year, ad sales are on the rise at Facebook, and the company is gaining a larger slice of the pie at the expense of News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, according to a new report from marketing researcher eMarketer. 

HOW TO: Manage Social Media Goals & Expectations

You have insightful tweets, write amazing blog posts, and can make a viral video like it’s nobody’s business. So why don’t you have 500,000 followers, 50,000 views per video, and your own personal social media army?

People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media. While you might believe that you’re only worth something in social media if you have a huge audience, the simple fact is that it’s not true. Understanding what you want out of social media and having smart goals can mean the difference between frustration and enjoyment. This guide provides and overview of some ways to avoid the pitfalls of social media expectations and how to manage smart goals on the social web.

MySpace v. Facebook Advertising Showdown. Which Platform Is Better?, TechCrunch.

The guest post below is written by Ryan Hupfer at HubPages. A couple of weeks ago HubPages ads were blocked from MySpace’s new self serve ad platform, MyAds, as being competitive to MySpace. That problem was fixed, but we asked Ryan, who advertises on both MySpace and Facebook, to write a guest post comparing the two platforms.

iPhone app navigates Obama inauguration, CNET News.

The free 2009 Presidential Inauguration Guide landing screen features an inauguration countdown, as well as the distance the user is from the steps of the Capitol building, where the event takes place.

From Mashable:

Facebook had already shared its plans to help you clean up your now-cluttered profile, thanks to all those applications, and today the new feature has arrived. A new option for an extended profile basically offers a “page 2″ of sorts, so visitors to your profile can choose to see all those extra, bottom rung applications if they want to. Instead of seeing an ongoing stream of applications on your profile, they’ll now see a truncated version, with the option to see more.

From the looks of it, Facebook will detect which applications display at the bottom of your profile. You can select to move one or all of these apps to your extended profile. This can be edited at any time, in case you tire of another application that’s showing on your profile. A link on your profile will let you view your extended profile as well.

I've been watching the MySpaceification of Facebook for a while now, and shaking my head the whole time. It's proven to me very clearly that a lot of people, simply put, have no taste.

From a Facebook user's perspective this is great news, more control over my own profile to highlight what content I care about.

But from the perspective of someone who builds applications, this makes my life that much more difficult. Having your application shunted to the bottom/second page of a profile reduces its visibility exponentially.

But all is not lost, you just have to build an App that's cool and engaging enough that a user will want to place it on their profile's mainpage.

I just received an email from Lee Brenner of MySpace noting the launch of a Presidential Primary on the site.

The point of this Primary? "For America’s youth to voice their opinion on the candidate best qualified to lead the nation as President of the United States."

To vote and participate, visit impact.myspace.com.

The "polling booth" launched at 3:01 AM EST on January 1 and closes at 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 2.

Sounds good. Now, go vote and be heard.

In regards, to the post below - my thoughts are this. Talk about John McCain on MySpace tonight, please....

Here's a poll with cool music to convince you.

John McCain is on a roll. The New Hampshire Union Leader has strongly endorsed his candidacy and Fox News' Carl Cameron called this endorsement "significant" and the "buzz" on the campaign trail (watch YouTube clip here).

That's all fine and dandy for the folks that a.) Read and care about a New Hampshire Union Leader endorsement, and 2.) Watch Fox News and care about what Carl Cameron has to say. I'm not saying these things aren't important (they are), but they don't really thrill me...

What I am more interested in is what voters think about John McCain (and the rest of the field) and whether those voters will have a chance to participate in the democratic process.

That is why today I'm going to serve a helping of porridge to McCain because tonight he'll be the first Republican to participate in the MySpace/MTV Presidential Forum. You can watch it and participate online tonight.

The details as provided by Lee Brenner, Executive Producer of Political Programming & Director of IMPACT at MySpace:

The MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue with Sen. McCain is happening live on Monday, December 3rd, at 7pm EST. The one-hour event will be broadcast live on MTV, live on MySpace.com/election2008, live on mobile carriers, live on XM, and live and translated into Spanish on LaVibra.com/candidatos.

The first truly interactive, multi-media Presidential forum series continues to include unfiltered questions from young voters (students) in the audience (questions are unknown to the MySpace/MTV editorial team--only general topics are known), live IM and email questions from the online viewing audience, a user-generated (and user-generated rated/chosen) video question from myspace.com/election2008, and a first-of-its-kind, real-time online polling tool.

We've extended invitations to all of the leading Presidential candidates and are looking forward to hearing from those candidates about scheduling their Dialogues.

Good work John McCain. We'll tune in.

TechRepublican contributor James Durbin first blogged about McCain's willingness to step up to the plate in mid-November and I'm hopeful he has some thoughts to include in this discussion as someone with intimate knowledge of how this will all work out.

MySpace and MTV just announced that John McCain is going to be the next contender in Presidential Dialogues in New Hampshire on December 3rd, 7 p.m.EST. If you're in New Hampshire, there is still room in the audience - check in to the myspace.com/election2008 website to get selected.

So why is this important to the TechRepublican audience? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's because this event is the largest online audience of the youth vote, and the two previous speakers, Obama and Edwards, drew large numbers and had overwhelmingly positive response on the Flektor polling widget, which took real time voting results and broadcast them as the event went on.

Much of that was due to their online organization. If you can drive 10,000 people online at a specific moment, you can affect the polls. We've seen this online many, many times. My concern, is what happens when those same people go online to vote negatively.

I don't want to see either of these story lines on December 4. McCain fails to draw youth reponse to MTV appearance, and Youth Vote mainly negative for Republicans.

Check out the statistics: Since their debut, the video highlights from the two previous dialogues have been streamed approximately 700,000 times, and nearly 3.3 million people viewed the event on television

So if you're near a computer on Dec 3rd in the evening, make sure to sign on and watch the event. And if you're a McCain staffer - make sure you're organizing your e-mail list to drive supporters online.

Full Disclosure: Flektor is a client of Durbin Media Group, but this post is solely a personal message, and not authorized by Flektor or Fox Interactive Media, or indicative of their opinions.

The next presidential dialogue for the MySpace/MTV crowd is set. It's October 29th in Cedar Rapids. Information here at the Flektor-Blog. Why is this important?

The inaugural MySpace / MTV Presidential Dialogue, with former Senator John Edwards, reached a wide audience on-air, online and on mobile phones. Held September 27 at the University of New Hampshire, the event was broadcast live on MySpace and www.ChooseorLose.com, and since its online premiere, has been streamed approximately 350,000 times. The on-air broadcast (7-8 pm ET) was the #1 program for viewers aged 18-24 across all of cable for the time period, and was seen by a total of nearly two million viewers overall (all ages). Nearly 2,300 questions were submitted for Senator Edwards by online viewers during the course of the one hour Dialogue. Adding to its historical significance, the Dialogue with John Edwards was the first-ever Presidential forum to be broadcast live on mobile phones, via MTV Mobile.

That's a lot of young voters, and Edwards and Obama are getting first crack at them. There are Republicans that will be a part of the process, but it's clearly not as big of a deal. Republican candidates should be clamoring to get in front of this audience, and they're not.

Some of us may think it's because MTV is so liberal. Well, the liberals think MySpace is dominated by Murdoch rightwingers, and it's not stopping them. It's a space we need to be more active in, and if you any influence on a candidate, now is the time to be speaking up.

Flektor's polling tool has been a good story, and there's more to come after the event. Full disclosure: Flektor is a client of mine, but in this case, I'm posting not to push Flektor, but to let conservatives know there are tools and events out there we should be taking advantage of.

An excellent example is Doug Ross's Journal, and his post on Unintended Consequences, which discussed the wiretapping law and the holdup by the Democrats. I took his post and made it into a video, complete with music from Chopin and some slick transitions. Took me thirty minutes. If you are struggling to come up with online content - check out Flektor. It's free, and easy to use and embed on your site.

And for Obama's event. Here's a chance to hear him speak in an hour long format. It's a lot of information, and gives you a much better sense of what you're up against. Edwards event was a real eye-opener. It wasn't all soundbites and set piece speeches, which itself is extraordinary in presidential campaigns.

The Wall Street Journal is free today. Perusing through the site today, I found this nugget worth noting:

Pact Brings Skype Service to MySpace
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN and ETHAN SMITH
October 16, 2007 5:59 p.m.

News Corp.'s MySpace and eBay Inc.'s Skype have agreed to put Internet calls into MySpace's instant-messaging feature to gain more users and broaden the distribution of their two services.

The companies will share revenue from the partnership. Other terms weren't disclosed.

MySpace, which is the largest social-networking Web site with 110 million members, and Skype, which lets consumers call other users via computer free, have been trying to broaden their networks. Skype has 220 million registered users. The companies benefit from having more people join their communities and connect to people they know.

Voice communication is "a competitive advantage to us for gaining users and keeping users," said Kyle Brinkman, vice president of product development at MySpace.

Hmmmm... Get-out-the-vote calls from your MySpace profile? Now we're talking.