Posted by
tohu.vavohu on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 4:08:00 AM
Update: How to setup and watch/follow a "live feed" of HHRadio tweets via Firefox browser, text message, or iPhone.
what i want to do & why
I’m attempting to get people connected with Conservative radio talk show hosts via Web 2.0 [loosely inspired by Patrick Ruffini's Digital Democracy article in September 2008 Townhall magazine, Real-Time Representative]. It’s because many times I’ve personally wanted to call in and give my two cents, or tell someone what I’ve thought about them or their show, or wanted to give them information. But it’s hard when I’m working, or otherwise preoccupied with a hundred different things. Usually it’s after the show has long since turned the “on air” sign off and left the coffee stained cups to keep the phone switch board company that I have time to try and send an e-mail off. But I forget, or forget what I wanted to say, or the couple sentence response turns into a novel diatribe. Did they get it? Will they read it? Will they look up the info attached? [Conspiracy theory: I personally think my e-mail might be on their block/black list]
action plan
So how can we get around this? I’ve been eyeing Twitter for a possible answer/solution. Beyond my initial feelings that Twitter was an inane service, I’ve come to realize that it has the potential to be extremely amusing but at the same time can be utilized for action/activism/info dissemination as case in point #dontgo. Building off the #dontgo model, we could engage with Conservative hosts on another level and build an informed “community”. If your busy working, dealing with distractions, can’t find time to call and either try calling again for a dial tone or wait on hold, don’t have the time to type up an e-mail, send a tweet [twitter message]. If you want to tell them what you think about the show/guest, tweet ‘em.
But I’d really like to see it used for a greater purpose, and that is to give them our two cents, to offer links to information, to be a part of action/activism/info dissemination. If a host asks for people to give them instant feedback on an issue/topic, tweet ‘em. If a host asks for information on an issue/topic they are researching, tweet ‘em. If you have a news article you think might be useful to them, tweet ‘em with it. Hugh Hewitt points out that there is going to be an unprecedented level of smears coming. Update: Especially with the "'mini-army' of Democratic lawyers and operatives" up in Alaska.* I think Conservative hosts and the public are going to need all the help they can get for finding and getting out the right information. That’s were we and twitter can come in. It’s a level of audience participation I’ve haven’t seen utilized before. And I’m kicking it off with my favorite talk show host Hugh Hewitt as a beta test to see if it’ll work or is useful. I think he would be the most "connected" of hosts around. So how can you be a part of it?
sign up for twitter
This is self explanatory. Go to twitter’s sign up page and create/setup an account.
send @ reply to hugh
Update: Add/Follow Hugh's twitter account HHRadio and my RadioActEnMasse account [were tweet updates are specifically about the Hugh Hewitt show].
My personal account is at radioaction.
Obsolete: [The following muddied up the search.twitter HHRadio feed if a large group of listeners signed up at once and tweeted "@HHRadio Radio Action act participant". Retrospect, unnecessary tweets flooded feed. But do shoot an e-mail to Hugh nudging [as they say in twitterville] him to get involved on his HHRadio twitter account.]
Hugh Hewitt doesn’t know this is going on. I'm trying everything I can, but I hope that my contacting him and you contacting him, he’ll see the effort being put together and join/use it. So after you get a twitter account send a tweet reply message to @HHRadio saying “Radio Action act participant”. So your message should look like this [minus the quotes]:
“@HHRadio Radio Action act participant”
e-mail hugh
To get Hugh Hewitt on board, I’m going to try and contact him but it won’t hurt if you do the same. Send Hugh an e-mail or maybe Duane too telling him/them about this effort and they should keep tabs on this and tweet more [we would love to even hear what is going on behind the scenes, during commercial breaks. Take a picture of John Campbell's shirt when it's the Hawaii throw up one and post to TwitPic & twitter. Tell Hugh that kind of stuff. Let them know what you would like to see as far as interaction on twitter. But also...]. Send them a link to this post or to the website I’m getting together to track the twitter feeds for it. The more e-mails they get concerning this effort the greater the possibility they will check it out and in turn, keep tabs on it. Ask them to follow it during the show. Call Hugh up and mention it.
twitter messages with HHRadio
When you send/upload a tweet that is meant for this effort or communicating and participating with Hugh, include somewhere in the 140 character tweet “HHRadio”. I’m putting together a rss feed stream on a website that will track tweets that have “HHRadio” in them. If you don’t include this, it will not be tracked and followed for Hugh or others. Here are examples of possible tweets [minus quote marks]:
“HHRadio loved Hitchens, right again about terrorists.”
or
“HHRadio mGeG you should talk to Frank Luntz about that. Said words matter.” [mGeG=morning Glory evening Grace]
or
“HHRadio you’re talking about lastest Palin smear. It’s debunked by Dave Berry at www.link.com”
or
“found link to latest Obama connection to Rezko @ www.somewhere.com. check it out HHRadio.”
or
“yes, Palin has excited the base HHRadio. it’s the reformer ticket we’ve been waiting/hoping/wishing for.”
or
“if code pink did, it would only be for attention. HHRadio”
follow @ website
Update: search.twitter.com
I have a website that has a rss feed aggregator that will pull together the 15 latest tweets for Hugh Hewitt’s twitter account and any tweet with “HHRadio” in it. So check it out: http://sites.google.com/site/radioactionact. You can find the same feed here. I did have a couple cool widget’s and aggregators picked out to use but google limits you on the code you can do. So nearly everything planned went out the window. But I hope to have some more things on it down the road. Right now you will at least have the aggregator. Maybe if I can find a couple more pennies in the cushions and can put something together like N.Z. Bear has been doing. But keep an eye on the feeds for new information being passed around and stay connected with the host. We can interact and participate on a Web 2.0 platform. You can also set up your favorite communication program to track tweets. Most communication programs allow for this.
Update: Widgets giving me headaches you would not believe. Nothing wants to work for me. Google sites won't let you add certain code, townhall.com won't do scripts. Got a widget to upload to post but functionality was horrible. Until I can find a better work around, you can find the twitter feed on the website, at **search.twitter**, at escaloop preview widget, or RSS Mixer feed. Nice thing about RSS Mixer feed is you can click on links and will open pages but it doesn't seem to update in real time.
future
If this goes well, maybe it can be used and spread to different hosts. Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Laura Ingram, Bill Bennet, etc. Many times I hear Dennis Prager say he wishes he could get an instantaneous reaction to something. He can’t take to many calls before he has to move on. Think of the possibilities with using twitter. Then I hope to add from different sources like digg.com. When someone digg an article or news item, in the digg description they can put "HHRadio" and a feed could be setup to filter those stories out. The feed then could be used by HHRadio followers, public, and Hugh Hewitt. Let’s see what we can do, join me in being an active participant.
I’ve never seen the power of the people acted out until the last couple of years [i.e. immigration bill, drilling issue, Meir’s, etc]. I’ve never seen that power actually influencing events [as pointed out in an article in Townhall magazine February 2008 issue in an article by Jennifer Rubin titled “Who decides? What is Conservative?”]. Maybe I was to young to notice it before but it’s no longer a time to only hear that it’s possible to do.