Obama takes fireside chats digital, viral

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After posting more than 1,800 videos to YouTube during his campaign, president-elect Barack Obama will post weekly “fireside chats” to YouTube, TechCruch reports.

According to Wikipedia, the original fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio speeches given by president Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. Obama hopes to re-purpose this once-popular communication to reach the digital generation.

Much has been said about Obama’s success using social media to excite voters, but the president-elect has some work ahead to maintain the enthusiasm he earned from Americans during his campaign.

Of interest is Obama’s use of YouTube. Obama doesn’t need YouTube to host these videos because he will also host the videos on change.gov. His choosing a primarily amateur social media site to additionally host the presidential communications validates the use of YouTube as a mainstream communication channel and levels Obama to the common Americans who also post to and visit YouTube. YouTube also helps Obama leverage social media — change.gov doesn’t offer the interactivity of YouTube. By allowing people to comment on and repost the videos from YouTube, he’ll likely increase the visibility and impact of the digital fireside chats.

We still have yet to determine how much Obama’s successful social media campaign contributed to his campaign, but Obama is keeping to his winning formula and already rolling out social media in his transition to the presidency. These digital, viral fireside chats are just the start.

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I may be one of the most connected people you know.

Between WIB and presence in multiple social networks, I'm not hard to find and am frequently online.

This must be my American-mutt side coming through because, according to a Guardian article, Italians are shunning all that is online.

Although Internet connectivity is up in Italy, still only 32.8 percent of the population has access to the Internet, according to ComScore, and the median amount of time Italians spend online has actually decreased between 2007 and 2008, according to JupiterResearch.

Italian culture is slow and unhurried by reputation. But why so slow to adopt the online lifestyle?

Having had the sand of the Amalfi Coast between my toes and been drunk several times over by way of Tuscan Chianti, my guess is that there's no desire to escape online when reality is so sweet.

On the other side of that argument, it's no wonder why everyone's online in Seattle in November.

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You may have heard the story about a 16-year-old girl who lost control of her car and drove it into Green River last Friday. She was unable to remove two boys in the car with her, 2-year-old Hunter Beaupre and 13-year-old Austin Fuda, before the car completely submerged in the river.

Today, more than four days after the it went in Green River, rescuers were finally able to recover the car and the body of the 2-year-old inside it. Rescuers are now trying to find the body of the 13-year-old.

Danny (focuspoint drummer) is a friend of the family of the two boys and has been at the site of the accident since it happened, frequently providing interviews for press. He's kept us updated via texts.

On Sunday:

"I don't know if you have seen the news on all the channels, the other local jersey rat [Danny's biker crew] Nomad Chad's son was in a car that went into Green River Friday. I am here with them until the divers quit being [word deleted] and get his son's body recovered along with the other kid. Here last night, real cool cops, 60 abate members on bikes came through with coffee and food, huge out pour from so many people. See online komonews.com to get the story. We are on the bikes and rain is a drag! Watch the 5:00 news if you get a chance tonight too."

On Monday:

"Gonna be here through tonight too, just did komo and fox interviews and am zombie."

Today (Tuesday):

"Update from the Green River mud- Being awake consecutively for over 37 hours takes a lot of thermogenic pills and coffee! Up through last night manning the fire and keeping flares down the road so they could sleep without speeding cars. Also kept wandering chaplains from knocking... Some crazy [word deleted]... Then mobbed by the cameras and media clowns bringing me coffee. Can't remember what I said on the interviews but how they said, 'It's too high to go in; now it's too fast,' eight hours later. There will be more water tomorrow you political jackasses. Get them our of the damn river before you devastate fellow Jersey Rat Chad and both families even more... Bringing up the remains that resemble [word deleted] isn't good. They said recovery is at 8 and hope it is done by noon. Chad is a tough dude."

Please keep Chad and his family in your thoughts. Thanks.

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Well, the weekend basically went the way I expected.

Matt hit on The Wives.
Matt hit on The Wives some more. And then he went back to Omaha.

Good times, Matt. May Barack Obama be with you always!