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Election News Kept Online Community Buzzing

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By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: November 5, 2008

Yesterday, we sent out a request for how people tuned into election news – on TV, online, through social media sites, text messages, etc.

A flood of responses came back. Most came from marketing or public relations professionals (because they try to publicize their clients). But they mentioned their own personal experiences.

Here are a few. We'd like to hear yours too. Feel free to comment on this story, or send me an e-mail.

***

I was dead set on not casting a ballot yesterday but was tuned in to Twitter all day long. By 8:30 p.m. I decided (after some banter with fellow "tweeters") to go down to the polling place and register my vote. Imagine my consternation when they didn't have my name in the book and I had to fill out a provisional ballot. But when I tweeted about that, I was sent to CNN, where I learned that I was not the only one to experience that phenom.

I didn't bother watching the election returns come in - I just sat in front of twitter and clicked on all the links I was getting. I knew the results before my friends who were doing it the "old fashioned way" and watching television.

Ya gotta love it!

Judith S. Lederman
Scarsdale, N.Y.

***

A colleague of mine sat in my apartment watching MSNBC for election coverage while checking and updating Twitter the entire time. For the most part, we got news the quickest via Twitter. Other than that, MSNBC was way ahead of the game in reporting, with CNN lagging by a lot.

We're in PR and, when we took a step back, we were absolutely amazed at the realization that we were getting news from people all over the world in real time during such an extraordinary election.

Lee Makofsky
Upper Montclair, N.J.

***

I was glued to Twitter during our election watch party and the tweets were flying fast and furious throughout the night, except for one moment, that lasted about 15 minutes. When President-elect Obama started his victory speech, I almost felt the collective closing of notebook computers and Twitter went completely silent. The rapt attention of the citizenry was palpable.

Obie Fernandez
Jacksonville Beach, FL

***

For what its worth -- We used Internet streaming on the radio to remind people to vote and then used text to share when the polling booth lines in our precinct were the lightest. It was kind of funny, texting people saying vote now the lines is down to a 5 minute wait! Then instead of relying on TV and waiting for the numbers many of us did winter snow activities (we got 4 inches here and roads were icy) and relied on updates through texts.

Kim Power Stilson

***

As a fellow Trib reader and subscriber as well as a Tampa based entrepreneurial company that reaches thousands around the world, I tweeted on Twitter during the election results - keeping a pretty decent dialogue going between us entrepreneurs about the results.

One Latina amiga who now lives in Tennessee (a state that stayed Red) said her Latino familia in South Florida will most likely not accept her phone calls nor allow her to stay with them when visiting our state, to which I tweeted back to her an open invitation to bunk here in Tampa with us!

Beth Butler
Founder of The Boca Beth Program

***

I came across your HARO request about how people communicated on election day. I was a volunteer in Miami-Dade this week, but I live in Washington, D.C. I am a prolific Twitter user and blogged about the win from my Blackberry last night.

Jennifer Nedeau
Womensrights.change.org

***

I'm no techy (nor is my wife) but we had the laptop open all night as the cable channels droned on and on, watching to see what our "friends" were saying about the results via their Facebook status updates. It was telling.

Jason Hughes
Lynn University

***

Twitter was essentially my TV remote control. Most of the people I follow were Tweeting about the election and when some key states were being called for Obama or McCain, they would Tweet which network was making the call. I would hit the remote and go to that network.

John Myers
Paragon IT Professionals

***

On World of Warcraft –a popular MMORPG, in the main social chat channel people were discussing the election all night.

Sabrina Sumsion
Lincoln, NE

***

Twitter.com had to be one of the top new ways that Americans communicated during election night as well as the preceding days. Twitterville was all the buzz and although it seemed to be dominated more by the one party over another and show some surprising vicious statements from time to time – it offered a great deal of information and rising trends as well as a clear indication regarding the outcome of the election. I have been using Twitter a great deal for business as of late but really tuned in to what the Tweeple were saying about the election. Very interesting.

Sarah M. Place

***

Nothing excites me more than sitting on the coach during a huge news cycle, with my laptop and cell phone and see who reaches out to me, and in what fashion. The beauty of it is it's all there for me, and all relatively cheap. My parents use the phone. My in-laws love text messages. My friends stick with e-mail, while my network of business contacts really love Twitter. Twitter is my instantaneous ticker of how they're feeling, as well as basically a rapid-fire swap meet of trends about to take off.

Jason Chupick
New Jersey

***

First of all, I can't BELIEVE I was laying in my bed TWITTERING with esteemed colleagues, reporters, media gurus, etc all over the country and even internationally! I was able to see the tweets of an American in Tel Aviv, a friend in Chicago, etc. It was an unreal experience….

Frani Lieberman
Upper Montclair, N.J.

***

Twitter and election nights were made for each other--I could post quickie observations on anchors, CNN charts, Obama, etc and post links to other things as well, like Tom Friedman's great article posted on the N.Y. Times Web site that provides historical perspective on the election....

Chris Martin
Chris Martin Public Relations

***

When the election was called, I was Twittering with my network of contacts (actually, there was a weekly event called Girls Night Out - #GNO - happening at the time). However, the spate of Twitters from both sides caused Twitter to come to a virtual standstill almost immediately -- There was at least a 10 minute delay at one point. But, fortunately, my best friend instant messaged me on Google Talk and we were able to share the excitement together, thanks to technology.

Oh, and I watched all night on NBC. It's my go-to station for news and whatnot. And I monitored several local, regional and national newspaper Web sites. It was too important not to be 100 percent connected.

Sarah Caron
Writer/Editor
www.sarahscucinabella.com
www.thevoiceofmom.com
www.wellfed.net
www.sheknows.com

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

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