Is Facebook Changing the Way You Vote?

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter will play a massive role in reelecting President Barack Obama or voting in a new President of the United States, in Mitt Romney. How is it affecting your voting habits?

Voters are less than a week away from hitting the polls, in hopes of voting in a new president or giving the current one another four-year term. Chances are, they've already influenced the outcome whether the meant to or not. According to a Pew Research Centerstudy, 66 percent of social media users—or 39 percent of all American adults—have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media. Those activities include things such as posting one's thoughts about issues, posting links to political material, encouraging others to take political action, following elected officials on social media and liking or promoting political material others have posted. If you've logged onto your own Facebook page, you already know …

Candidates Get Social As Campaigns Slog On

Plus: Santorum surges, while Martin and Koster make news for different reasons.

Campaigns these days can no longer just rely on advertisements and direct mail to deliver a message. They need to have a quick-fire presence on the web, online. This information is not necessarily revolutionary.  Campaigns have utilized the web as both a messaging tool and an opposition research mechanism for well over a decade. But with more and more people getting information about politics and politicians through the web, the demand is high for manpower to update Twitter pages, fill Facebook pages, manage e-mail lists and organize YouTube videos. For instance, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill announced—via, of course, Twitter—that Blue State Digital’s Alex Kellner would be joining her re-election campaign as a digital director. The Missouri …

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Fifty Signs of Twitter Addiction, But It Only Takes 15 to Qualify

Is it all that bad?

Patch Political Potpourri

Still A Rumpus Over Carnahan and Congressional Districts

A tweet over an aide's comment brings out the no-decision-yet fix.

This writer often uses Twitter to follow reactions to notable events, as well as to catch the latest news about the Chicago White Sox and professional wrestling. But the social media service can often break news, as was the case earlier this week when politico Patricia Bynes tweeted during a meeting of the St. Louis County Central Committee. KMOX noted that when an aide to U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan was asked about where the St. Louis Democrat was running this year, he responded “I'm not trying to be flippant, but he will run in the district he lives in.” If Missouri's congressional map survives a court challenge, that would mean that Carnahan would live in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. And both Roll Call and KMOX noted that would …

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I'm Following You On Twitter Cardinals Fans

Relive the thrill of the Cardinals' 2011 World Series win through the tweets of fans throughout the season.

Whether you're a serious baseball fan or a data nerd (or both), these clear and colorful graphics of St. Louis tweets about the Cardinals during the 2011 World Series are for you. Infuz, a creative digital agency owned by Jason Fiehler, mined through the hundreds of thousands of tweets about the Cardinals within a 50-mile radius of St. Louis city from Feb. 1, 2011 to Nov. 3, 2011. "By telling the story of the season through the conversations on Twitter we can start to see the living, breathing soul of the Cardinals as seen through the eyes of its fans," said O'Fallon resident Brad Hogenmiller, who oversaw the project as Infuz's director of social media, on the company's blog. "Twitter presents us with a new channel of discussion, not …

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Thanksgiving in St. Louis Tweets

Thanksgiving in St. Louis brings back all sorts of emotions. Here are some of those emotions expressed in <140 characters. Keep tweeting, and we'll keep adding you to our list.

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St. Louis Band Names Sweep Twitter

Search #STLbandnames to see a hilarious local Twitter trend.

Eleven Magazine, a St. Louis music monthly, started the latest local Twitter trend: band names that could only happen in St. Louis. Here are our favorites: And the winner: Mayor Slayer, @Caron. It’s creative, but it’s the winner because Mayor Francis Slay (@MayorSlay) added to the online convo, “Already the name of an ARRG skater/lawyer.”

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Kurt Greenbaum

3:06 pm on Thursday, November 3, 2011

OK...how about "Dougherty," with frontman Chris Dougherty. Or Des Peres Jam?   more ›

Chesterfield Police Use Twitter to Communicate with Residents

The Police Department was one of the first law enforcement agencies in the St. Louis area to join the social networking site.

When a string of burglaries happened in Chesterfield overnight on June 30, residents might have found out from talking to their neighbors or watching a local news station. Or, they could have seen it on Twitter. This summer, the Chesterfield Police Department began using the social media website that allows users to send 140-character updates to followers. The department was one of the first in the region to join the site, but several others have followed suit, Lt. Steven Lewis said. "Being the first of doing something like that makes it a bit iffy," Lewis said. "We talked about it and looked at the positive implications and any potential negatives and decided to go forward." Lewis said the main goal of the account, @ChesterfieldPD, is to …

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