Tweeters, bloggers and experts to choose the winners moving the political debate of a new cycle of 24 hours at 140 characters

In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, it is clearly the brief era of political blogs that make up the political narrative has passed and now we are in the era of Twitter. The proof is on Twitter important role in the coverage and the winners and losers of the presidential debates this month.

At a seminar on the impact of social media during the presidential election - was at the Democratic convention in Charlotte - Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor for the Atlantic, said

"[The] last cycle was all about blogs and blogging journalism more. This cycle really a campaign on Twitter, where much of the conversation has moved blogs on Twitter especially for political commentators. "

Hamish McKenzie, technology journalist who writes about Pandodaily website and social media policy, said that political blogs have gone from the "first and fast reactors" to "almost obsolete by Twitter."

defenders have a lot on their side. Adam Sharp, with the working title just tweetable "head of government, news and social innovation" Twitter said there were 360,000 tweets in total over the two conventions in 2008. Both in total 2012 was almost 14 meters. Mitt Romney speech peaked at 14,000 tweets per minute. (TPM) Michelle Obama convention speech than doubled to 28,000 -. And Barack Obama has taken 54,000 rpm

The first presidential debate crashed earlier this month these records. There was a total of 10.3 million tweets, with a peak of 159,000 rpm to moderator Jim Lehrer of "Better not" knockback a request for Romney. Personnel File Obama was raised to 153,000 rpm by his "I had five seconds to play" against Lehrer reminder regarding time.

Adam Sharp says that these figures are evidence of a "return to retail politics, the idea that people can participate directly in the political process more one-on-one and not the interaction with the candidates and issues, but on the other. "Twitter said shows when people across the country" have transformed the people next to her on the sofa world proverbial saying: "Did you see that? "Social media is" time measurement of natural conversation first ... a cycle of years would have been behind closed doors cafes and water coolers in the office. "

While some are skeptical - McKenzie says the number of tweets is a gross tonnage, while Carroll Doherty notes the Pew Research Center, only 13% of Americans use Twitter - while it is generally accepted that the main impact of Twitter has been accelerating the news cycle.

Obama supporters was a "style of relationship with online media" debate appearances following substance, but you could see his heart was not there.

Joe Rospars, campaign manager of Obama's digital, Charlotte argued that Twitter has "a conversation elite show much more now." He noted wryly that before, after a great speech, attention turned to the three or four experts react in each TV channel. But now: