For most of the afternoon, I've been following the hashtag #tcot or #TCOT on Twitter. TCOT stands for "Top Conservatives on Twitter" and is an "action project" of one Michael Leahy (@michaelpleahy). This appears to be an attempt to give the GOP a hip, new look using "grassroots" social media tools like Twitter--tools that traditionally have been the realm of the Democrats. Looks like the Republicans have been studying.
Rumor has it that the #TCOTs were trying to control access to the hashtag telling people they weren't authorized to use it in their Tweets. (That's not very "authentic," guys and gals.) And not surprisingly, the #TCOT hashtag was instantly hijacked by Twitter's band of merry pranksters and if you search it now, well, you'll just have to see for yourself.
The pranksters got bored, as pranksters do :} It all looks legit now.
Posted by: Backpacking Dad | December 09, 2008 at 08:01 PM
All he asked was if people that put out primarily RSS feeds ask if they can use the tag on the feed first. As a member of TCOT I don't want to see all the non-relevant feeds coming through a hashtag when I'm trying to keep up with the organizations messages. If I want to follow the RSS feed, I will. He wasn't trying to keep people from using it, he made a request, big difference...
Posted by: LaMonte Forthun | December 09, 2008 at 11:24 PM
Looks fine now.
Looks like Twitter beat the blog to the draw on this story. :-)
Posted by: Jozet | December 10, 2008 at 05:53 AM
It was much more entertaining when I thought tcot meant "The Conservatives of Tomorrow" (add creepy theramin music background.)
Now it's just boring and poorly planned/executed.
Posted by: John J. | December 10, 2008 at 08:05 AM
hilarious!
Posted by: Aimee Greeblemonkey | December 10, 2008 at 03:19 PM