Go back.

Way back to your childhood.

Before you were allowed to watch the Simpsons.

That’s it.

Think of that movie with the little deer, the rabbit, the skunk, the owl, the birds, and more importantly the one scene where the little deer’s mother got shot which sealed your convictions about the long gun registry….

WAIT!!  I thought we were talking about Bambi!!!  Not politics!!!

We are talking about Bambi… AND politics.

I know what you are thinking.  How is he possibly going to tie this together with this week’s topic – Tablets and Media?

I can’t go to any event anymore without several people Tweeting providing up to the second reporting. There’s even a screen at these events showing the Tweets in real time.

I would venture to say that one factor that has helped Twitter grow so fast is that it’s just plain easy to tweet on a mobile device.  From my perspective, mobile devices and tablets are now the platform of choice for Twitter.

Moving on to the next piece of the puzzle… Unless you have been locked in a room with your new Playbook, you may have noticed that there is another election going on.  You can bet that the Tweeting at each political event is furious, and every political leader must make sure they have a presence in the Tweetosphere.

And they do.

I’ve saved you some trouble and have found the Twitter accounts for each of the party leaders. (Elizabeth, even though they kept you out of the debate, I’ll include you here)   In order not to skew your opinion, I’ll present the candidates in alphabetical order (by last name). All numbers are as of 04/28/2011:

Gilles Duceppe: @GillesDuceppe  Not surprisingly his tweets are mostly (all) en Francais.
Tweets: 509  Following: 7,353  Followers: 56,798  Listed: 1,431

Stephen Harper: @pmharper  These are mainly tweets coming from the Conservative Party since Mr. Harper does not carry a Blackberry or other mobile device. http://www.thestar.com/article/576610
Tweets: 418  Following: 12,366  Followers: 132,304  Listed: 4,346

Michael Ignatieff: @M_Ignatieff  Mr. Ignatieff’s tweets are mostly written in the first person format.  There is evidence that some of them are sent from a Blackberry
Tweets: 473  Following: 9,729  Followers: 96,696  Listed: 3,059

Jack Layton: @jacklayton Mr. Layton also tweets in first person.  Couldn’t find any news stories about what kind of device (if any) he carries.
Tweets: 907  Following: 11,379  Followers: 91,174  Listed: 2,756

Elizabeth May: @ElizabethMay Ms.May’s Tweets contain several direct replies.  Like Mr. Layton, I couldn’t find any news stories about what kind of device (if any) she carries.
Tweets: 1,148  Following: 4,229  Followers: 23,278  Listed: 1,551

While there is relatively little scientific process involved, one cannot help but notice (if you really squint) a wee bit of correlation between their online Twitter presence and their current standing in the polls.   But I’m not going to draw any conclusions on your behalf, because I know that the type of person who actually chooses to read a technology blog post  (even if it has cute animals) is likely someone who is good at math and statistics, and will have already created the algorythm to cruch the numbers above to prove (or disprove) correlation.   [See endnote comment]

Now the Bambi connection. There is one scene (not the one I mentioned above) where it is spring, and Thumper the rabbit (Bambi’s best bud) has lost his marbles and goes all goofy. There’s a simple explanation says the wise old owl, “He’s TWITTERPATED”. Please note that the movie came out in 1942, which is a long time before Twitter, Tweeps, and Tweetups, and Hashtags. According to the Urban Dictionary, which is the ultimate source I go to when I see a phrase I don’t understand, twitterpated means “the flighty exciting feeling you get when you think about/see the object of your affection”. Watching a certain candidate who’s poll numbers have suddenly skyrocketed would be a good visual to go along with that. (And you thought I couldn’t do it.)

Make sure you vote on Monday for the party of your choice. You can bet I’ll be back to this posting on Tuesday morning to compare the actual results and see if I have a new theory to publish.

 

Update!  Less than 8 hours after posting this, I received a link to a great blog that aggregates all the current poll data albeit without the Twitter connection. (See http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com ).