Obama Gets Twittered: Young Business Leaders Share Ideas with Dear Leader on Economy

When I think of Twitter, I don't think great economic success story. I think fad. It seems fitting that Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter, met with Obama in an economic adviser meeting of some of the nation's businesses yesterday.

Williams twittered, "Going to White House tomorrow for a meeting on the economy (which must mean they are *really* out of ideas. What should I tell them?"

I was a little late to the Twitter Dance. Here's the purpose Twitter displays on their homepage:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

In other words, Obama is asking for economic advise from a service that allows you to posts a simple line about what you are doing. It's a stripped down version of Facebook. There are no advertisements on the site (they do have limited ads in the United Kingdom), so it's unclear how they make money. They don't charge for the service. IT'S FREE FOR THE COLLECTIVE. Not exactly the type of business model that's going to pull the nation out of the the Obama depression, but a model Obama romances in his head as the government starts to nationalize industries and banks.

Many politicians are now using Twitter as well. I noticed Claire McCaskill twitters. (She probably thinks she's pretty darn hip as she types in her short communications with her constituents.)

This isn't the first time dot.com business men have gathered at the White House to contribute to economic thought. Bill Clinton invited some during his tenure, and shortly after most of them went bust. (See the movie Dot.Com.) In the 1990s, there were better ideas driving the Internet than a simple text messaging program called Twitter.

Twitter fits into the Obama agenda. It will provide the illusion Obama is transparent. Obama twitters. He's telling us what he is doing with his day so he must be transparent. Since I have already lost most Americans' attention spans in the first paragraph, Twitter is perfect for the Americans who find hope in Obama's 30-second sound bites. In fact, the way things are going, that's all the explaining Obama will want to put out there.