UPDATED 06:31 EDT / JULY 06 2011

Obama’s Twitter Town Hall: Will You Be Heard?

President Barack Obama is holding a first ever Twitter Town Hall at the White House on July 6 at 2 PM EDT. Obama will discuss more on the progress of struggling American economy and jobs. He will answer questions put to him by Twitter users and the event will be streamed live from the White House at askobama.twitter.com. The event is co-hosted by Twitter and Angel, a leading provider of enterprise-focused, cloud-based Customer Experience solutions.

Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey will moderate today’s meeting. “Today’s Presidential Town Hall event marks a major milestone in the intersection of social media, technology, and politics,” said Dave Rennyson, President of Angel.  “This hotline broadens the Twitter audience, increases accessibility, and allows for personal expression in a very American way. We’re opening up the discussion to Twitter users and non-Twitter users alike by allowing anyone with a phone to ask the President a question in their own voice.”

“We’ve entered a different information age where people get news and information in a different way than they did in the past,” explained White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. The questioners would be of 140 characters, Twitter’s maximum message length, but President will go traditional way and answers to the live audience. “He’s the leader of the free world. He decides how short his answers will be,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Today’s Twitter event is the latest example of Obama’s use of new, socially oriented technology, as his administration is trying different practices to woo American voters for the upcoming 2012 election.  Obama has used Facebook and YouTube social media hubs for various purposes in the past. He was quite active on YouTube, from his run for office to answering questions submitted on YouTube, similar to today’s Town Hall meeting. Earlier this year the President went west to Facebook headquarters, holding He held similar meeting in California, moderated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In the Facebook town hall, Obama answered questions ranging from debt, rising health care costs, buying a home, to his dream act.

But the looming question that’s drawing press and media attention is, can today’s Twitter event will help Obama reach American voters? Over the last two years, Americans are more worried about the sluggish economy, increased job loss, and their economic future. No doubt, today’s Twitter town hall would be a win-win situation; a major opportunity for the White House to communicate and convince the American people.  But it’s not clear whether or not anything Obama will tweet on Wednesday can change his ultimate fate.


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU