Here I stray from the business of politics:

Recently, I joined twitter.  And like the many other people using this online social networking / information pushing platform, I have an opinion.  

I was hesitant at first to join twitter.  My first taste of this online platform was not inspiring.  I read a colleague’s cross twitter posts on facebook, covering all details of personal travel, fast food preferences, home supply store visits and what they were serving for breakfast and dinner.  Not only could I care less, I was quickly becoming annoyed.  

While I appreciate online social networking for the ease by which I can follow friends, family and colleagues’ lives personal and professional, I really don’t care to receive a running commentary on their every move or the minutiae of their daily decisions.  I was reluctant to join twitter, as I believed this was another online place encouraging useless and time consuming social commentary.

It wasn’t until recently, on an outing with a small group of new media specialist friends of mine, did I get a taste of the type of important and interesting information being produced on twitter.  

I was encouraged so I joined.

At first, admittedly, I was a bit lost.  While, I take pride in my understanding of a vast array of online platforms and new media technology, I was perplexed by the almost bare bones format and feel of twitter.  I was eager to figure out how I fit in with all the other twitterers.  What did they gain by their participation and who cared to read what I was doing?

I turned to my friend, Liz Mair, who gave me a quick tutorial on twitter’s most relevant features and characteristics.  I was making my entrance and I sure didn’t want to trip onto the main stage.  If you do join, I recommend calling someone you know who is on and ask them a few questions…I’m sure they’ll be happy to guide you.

So here’s what I learned.  I hope these tips on initial steps help some of my other friends considering joining twitter.

1. When you join twitter pick a recognizable handle (meaning: one that best displays the closest recognition of your name)
2. Allow twitter to rummage through your contacts, like facebook friend finder, so you can view who else is on twitter that you know.  This will allow you to instantly begin following what others, who you know, are saying.  By doing so, you can quickly pick up on the lingo, etiquette  and culture of the twitter platform.
3. Use the “find people” feature to look up your favorite news sites, blogs, websites, celebrities and anyone else of interest to you  professionally or personally.  You might be surprised to see who is on.  Follow them.
4. Set your preferences on how you would like people to view your tweets (messages).  Some people are open others are more private, choose what fits your personality.
5. Start writing tweets.  These are short messages that allow you to convey anything to the world or to your “followers” (people who have shown interest in seeing what you write). The more you write, the more comfortable you get with the platform.
6. Use good judgement on your posts.  I liken information sharing on social networks to behavior you would expect in any public square.  Most people in a public setting would not choose to say wildly inappropriate or offensive things.  Also, in public settings people tend to not take interest in every minor detail of your existence.  These same truths tend to hold true in the online social interactive domain.  Often times this behavior leads to a lonely online experience…and who wants that?

From my short time on twitter, I’ve found it to be, not only interesting and fun, but very helpful in getting news and information at a very fast  pace.  I always enjoyed learning from collective wisdom.  As a political operative and consultant, I rely heavily on collective wisdom for better understanding news, people, events and cultural implications.

Twitter allows you to be hand fed information, commentary and links to articles on the many things you may find interesting and moving.  I chose people and entities to follow, whom I already knew and trust.  I now surf the web less, because these respected sources are gathering and sharing much of the information that I would normally hunt for on bulky websites.  

I’ll leave this last example of a recent event that really hit home twitter for me.  Earlier this week, I found out about the US Airways flight going down in the Hudson river, by the many tweets of the people I’ve been following.  I quickly went on news sites to find out more details and information.  The news didn’t even make most of the sites I quickly scanned.  The ones that did report that quickly, had no photos and little information.  Then I saw someone on twitter post a link to guy whom they knew, also on twitter, who was on the ferry closest to the plane in the water.

This guy had posted up close and personal pictures that he took from his handheld.  His quick comments also provided a feeling of excitement and concern as he was first on the scene to the crash landing.

See my twitter post: defining moment in twitter history ***http://tinyurl.com/8hj3ru***

This guy, whom I didn’t know had scooped all the media – in NYC no less!!!  It was then, an hour later, did I see his very images on the homepage of drudgereport.  

Not all posts are this exciting or interesting.  Some are funny and some are boring.  But my conclusion: tail is starting to wag the dog.

Find me on twitter…..http://twitter.com/BrianFDonahue.

As you know, I can’t enough Nielsen stats lately.  Here’s some interesting new information Nielsen produced illustrating TV viewership and online activity on Election Day.  This information was used to generate an understanding of where individuals got their Election coverage and gathered their news.  

According to Nielsen, “By combining television and Internet samples through a process known as fusion, Nielsen provides new data showing how the two media worked together to meet the demand for election news updates.”

Nielsen’s Total Estimate of Individual Activity

A total of 163.6 million adults sought election coverage from either television or the Internet — or both. This shows the unduplicated or cumulative audience that used one or the other medium for at least one minute.

158.3 million watched Election Day coverage on television. Of those, 134.8 million only watched TV coverage.

28.8 million used the Internet to get Election Day coverage from major news websites. Of those, 5.2 million only used the Internet for election coverage.

23.6 million got Election Day coverage from both TV and the Internet. Of these, 48% of these accessed online Election Day coverage only while at work; 42% got their online coverage only at home; and 10% checked online coverage both at home and at work.

Demographic Breakdown

From an overall reach perspective, adults aged 50+ were more likely than younger adults to seek Election Day news from TV or Internet — 80% of these adults were reached by one or the other medium, compared to 60% for 18-34s and 76% for 35-49s.

The demographic difference between the TV audience and the online audience wasn’t “younger” versus “older” — but rather, “middle-aged” versus “older.”

Younger adults between the ages of 18-34 made up about a quarter of the audience for both television and the Internet, but from there online coverage skewed younger than television:

-Adults 18-34 were 24.8% of the TV audience and 24.4% of the online audience.

-Adults 35-49 made up 40.7% of the online audience, but only 29.5% of the TV audience.

-Adults over the age of 50 made up 46% of the TV audience and accounted for 35% of the Internet users.

In addition, there are decided differences in demographic composition, based on whether people accessed election coverage online only, on TV only, or both on TV and online:

-Internet Only Users were the youngest: 34.5% were aged 18-34, compared to 34.0% for 35-49 and 31.5% for 50+.

-TV Only Users were the oldest: 25.3% were aged 18-34, 27.3% were aged 35-49, 47.4% were 50+.

-People who accessed Election coverage on both TV and online skewed 35-49: 22.2% were aged 18-34, 42.2% were 35-49, 35.6% were 50+.

Convergence Panel Results

A new Nielsen sample tracks both Internet and television usage with a single sample, making it possible to see how people used the two media simultaneously to check Election Day results.  This “convergence panel” shows that while simultaneous use of TV and Internet for Election Day coverage was limited, TV and online news outlets drew larger than average audiences:

-Only 1% of TV viewers on Election Night were simultaneously searching news websites — three times greater than the prior Tuesday night.

-On the other hand, 25.5% of news website visitors on Election Night were also watching TV election coverage — 2.5 times greater than the normal simultaneous traffic.