As part of his mayoral campaign, Brian Paddick has announced that he'll be giving an interview through Twitter - the first time this has been done by a UK politician. Anyone can ask him a question via Twitter, he'll answer through twitter and copy the whole thing to his website.
Jolly good. But while the concept of being open to any questions is commendable and the idea of connecting to voters through the new media all well and good, there's one problem I can see, and that is with brevity. Twitter is known for it's belief that short is sweet. Politicians? Not so much.
For those unaware of the medium, Twitter is a social software and communication tool. Twitter asks the question: "What are you doing?"; you post quick updates on your activities, location or mood to a group of people who choose to "follow" you, and they receive your updates through visiting the website, getting them by instant messenger or delivered as a text on their phone [see better explanation here] .
Now, because this is a nice little tool for making brief announcements, points of policy change and making your loyal fans aware of media and public appearances, this has proved a useful campaign companion, first for US politicians and now for Brian. But an interview?
See, the USP of Twitter is that unlike every other medium on the web, where you have the space and opportunity to go on as much as you want, when you "tweet" you only get 140 characters to do it in. And while that's great for points of information, I'm not exactly sure it's perfect for the long and complex answers loved - and required - in politics. 140 characters? It's not really that long.
"questioner: @brianpaddick: what do you intend to do about bendy bus crime?"
"brianpaddick: @questioner: Thanks for asking. Good question. The very first and most important thing I hope to achieve as Mayor of London is a greater emp"
"Oh."
And unless he's going to spend hours distilling every answer down to a perfect piquant sentence, it seems that to try and answer complex queries in the form will only end up in anyone following on phone getting an unending stream of beeping... "You have 57 new messages from Twitter. "1/57: @questioner: An interesting premise, I'd like to first approach this from the angle of ..."
Still - I'm sure they must have thought this through. Perhaps Brian will prove to be quite the captain of curtailed understatement, perfect for the form and an example to all politicians everywhere. Well, maybe.
[You can find out yourself by visiting Brian Paddick's twitter stream here, or finding out more about how to follow him and join in the interview here]
