Is Your Congressman Social?

TechCrunch today is cashing in on the high volume of political chatter today in the wake of President Bush’s exit press conference today by asking with the headline today: “Is your senator on YouTube?”

Erick Schonefield there talks about two new directories that YouTube has launched that allow you to find your Senator and your Congressman, if they’re on the site putting out videos.

I was at Alex Muse’s happy hour down at the Infomart last week, and met up with Squeejee’s Chris McCroskey, who’s been working on a similar project with relationship to Twitter.

Their directory is called Tweet Congress, and essentially performs the same function for Twitter as YouTube’s new hub. You simply enter your zip code, and it’ll pop up all the congressmen from your area, and if applicable, their Twitter address.

It’s an odd transition from the debates politicos seemed to be having about social media just a few scant months ago. Back in July, I covered (along with several other tech and political bloggers) the goal of censoring Twitter and other social media presences by some in Congress through the use of obscure franking and postal rules.

Very soon after it became clear from the press coverage in the blogosphere that this was a decision that would not pass muster with the public, Representative Michael Capuano quickly changed his tune on his intent no longer being to censor (even though he was suddenly becoming interested in enforcing these rules that would have that same net effect).

Suddenly, though, since the election of Barack Obama, it seems that social media has received authentication somehow, and if you’re inside the beltway, you’re suddenly uncool if you don’t at least understand what’s going on in the tubes.

Odd how things work, but if there is one good thing (heh – from my perspective, anyway) to come out of Barack Obama being elected president, that might be it: social media savvy being considered a required skill.