Have you heard of Twitter yet? If not, it's an online service where you leave very short messages that are sent out to all your subscribers. It's a little like a message board community, except you decide who to include. Everyone can speak with everyone, and (like a message board) the conversations are public. It's also "live", and you can chat with other people and they can respond "live" as quickly as you both can type.
Politicians have been using Twitter (and other sites like it) to communicate directly with voters and constituents. People like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have been using the service to keep voters up to date on what they are up to, and in some cases, directly answer people's questions.
In the current election in Canada, our politicians are also using the service to keep people up to date. Stephen Harper, Elizabeth May, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe all have a "feed" which you can check to see what they are up to. Some leaders, like Elizabeth May, are also responding to questions posed by people.
Obviously, the party leaders aren't the only people talking about the election, and you can find out what "the average joe" is saying, too!
Two entrepreneurs from Montreal have created electopinion.ca, a website that tracks everything being said about each political party on Twitter. You can follow conversations about each party as-it-happens on this page.
We have also created a small page similar to electopinion.ca, which tracks what is being said in Twitter about the election, specifically in regards to environmental topics.
You can follow Election Twitter Chat at the following page:
