Michelle Obama’s Tuesday speech drives 28K tweets per minute

Michelle Obama's keynote speech at last night's Democratic National Convention provoked almost twice as much conversation on Twitter as Mitt Romney's address to the Republican Convention last week. Is there a message in there about who the Internet is more interested in?

The people have spoken – Well, Tweeted  – and it’s official: America prefers Obama to Romney. Michelle Obama, that is.

According to a post on Twitter’s official blog, last night’s Democratic National Convention keynote speech by the First Lady resulted in an impressive 28,003 Tweets Per Minute, almost double that of the Republican National Convention speech from Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney last week (He peaked at 14,289 Tweets Per Minute).

The most popular line from Obama’s speech was “We’ve got so much more to do,” which Twitter reported had 22,004 TPM – Something not entirely surprising, considering the bipartisan appeal of the line (“We’re not done yet!” for the Democrats in the crowd, while the Republicans could take it to mean “We haven’t managed to do what we promised in the last three years.” Would thatall speeches offered quite so much to everyone listening) – while the second most popular line was the equally-agreeable “Living the American Dream,” with 21,577 TPM. Third place went to “How hard you work matters,” which scored 18,669 TPM.

If Romney feels bad about being overshadowed by Mrs. Obama, perhaps he can take some solace in the fact that her 28K TPM last night also scored significantly higher than President Obama’s last State of The Union address, which only managed to reach 14,131 TPM as its peak – 156 TPM lower than Romney’s keynote from last week, should such things matter.

Overall, Twitter engagement with this week’s DNC seems up on last week’s RNC, Twitter’s Head of Government, News and Social Innovation Adam Sharp reported. “Although it’s just the first night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte,” he wrote, “people have already posted more than 3 million Tweets, including #DNC2012 and related terms. In comparison, there were 4 million Tweets sent throughout the three days of last week’s Republican National Convention (#RNC2012).”

It wasn’t just Mrs. Obama raising the numbers, either; Mayor Julian Castro, considered by many pundits to be an up-and-comer akin to President Obama’s status back in 2004, reached the Tweets Per Minute total of 11,503 during his much-anticipated speech. That number puts him higher than any individual speaker at the RNC last week with the exception of Mitt Romney, surprisingly (Somewhere, Paul Ryan is very upset… or else, working out for his P90X for the day). Last night’s other speakers Massuchussets Governor Deval Patrick and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley also hit worthy numbers, with 6.909 and 7,502 TPM respectively.

All of which raises the question: Why?

It’s not that the Republicans are necessarily any less of a force on Twitter; Romney’s numbers have been rising impressively over the last few months, and he’s expected to reach parity with the President before too long in terms of TPM about their respective campaigns, so… Are people just more engaged with the DNC as a topic this year? And if so, why? Expect experts from both sides of the political divide trying to work that one out over the next few days, if not weeks.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

GaymerCon is go!

The gaming world gets its own Pride Parade in GaymerCon: a special convention just for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community.

Gamers who’ve been ignored at best or persecuted at worst will finally have a chance to let their colors fly; GaymerCon, the first gaming and geek culture convention for LGBT gamers, is officially happening. Thanks in part to vocal support from Microsoft, GaymerCon’s Kickstarter has brought in $86,000 — more than three times its original goal.  GaymerCon co-founder Jack DeVries has already recorded a sweet thank-you message to all the event’s supporters, and has now announced an official time and location for the event: August 2013, in sunny and welcoming San Francisco.

The GaymerCon Kickstarter page promised that $35k would pay for a concert and a “night of drinking, dancing, and socializing,” $50k would make possible a free “brunchfast” for those who contributed more than $100, and $60k would pay for “a celebrity boss of honor.”  With all those targets hit and surpassed, the only question is which celebrities and bands will have the honor of appearing at what promises to be a major event.

In a thoughtful interview at 1UP, the organizers made clear that GaymerCon would be about inclusion, not exclusion. “GaymerCon is about adding MORE gamer space, not taking people away from established gamer spaces,” said public relations director Benjamin Williams. “I think gaming culture has grown to the point where subcultures appearing within it is a natural and healthy progression. We are not separating from gaming culture — we are growing it in our own unique way.”

Speaking to GayGamer.com, event founder Matt Conn also talked about how he has been active for years in creating space for “gay geeks,” feeling like the nerd scene was often openly homophobic, while the gay scene didn’t always have room for his love of anime, video games, and similar subcultural pursuits. 

Conn recently spoke to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), stressing the importance of the event as a tool for improving the visibility of LGBT gamers within the industry. “Historically, there has been very little content with [LGBT] themes or options in video games and other geek media,” he said. “We hope to show the world that that this audience not only exists, but is flourishing.” Many game companies justify their uniformity of content by saying that most of their customers are young, white, straight males, and a big showing at GaymerCon could go a long way to changing that belief.

As in many other aspects of American life, LGBT gamers have been making their presence felt in the gaming industry.  The Mass Effect trilogy went from explicitly refusing to include gay content to putting serious thought into how to implement same-sex romance that was respectful and smart.  The Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO was so gay-friendly that professional hater Tony Perkins condemned it on the radio.  And even the notoriously narrow-minded Street Fighter community now has a celebrated champion who cheerfully describes himself as a “fierce bitch.”  We may not have jet packs or laser pistols (yet)… but the future is definitely here.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com