The blogosphere is abuzz in the wake of President Barack Obama's statement in Shanghai Sunday night that he doesn't use Twitter, nor has he ever typed a tweet. MG Siegler at TechCrunch reacts and opines:
This is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency. Obviously, he had a killer team around him that was able to embrace the web without the then-Senator getting too much involved. Still, it's somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries.
The Presidency comprises more than the person elected to the office, but also includes aides and assistants and directors and managers. Macon Phillips is one. Vivek Kundra is another. Bev Godwin is a third. They are individuals appointed to roles that (in)directly support the President and are allowed to speak on his behalf -- or the Presidency's behalf.
Should it matter that Obama never tweeted?
Pay attention to the following comment by Brian Ahier, an Oregon city councilor:
As an important clarification to an error in the article, the White House communications team only send tweets from the official White House Twitter account. There are very strict rules that regulate the mingling of official accounts with campaign and personal accounts. @BarackObama is the account of the Obama political campaign. @WhiteHouse is the account of the Whitehouse.
I wrote about the connection between social media and the presidential election 12 months ago, and compared the number of Obama and McCain followers on various social media sites between August and November 2008.
It's no more surprising that @BarackObama's Twitter followers jumped from 111,000 in November 2008 to over 2.6 million today, than to read about the President not tweeting himself.
It's also not important that he doesn't tweet. He has more important things to do. Your thoughts?
The above previously appeared here on AriWriter.