Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The real Benn talks about Twitter

Interesting reading Iain Dale's transcript of part of an interview with Tony Benn in which they discuss Twitter

TB: That’s all fascinating. But you’re the great blogger. You’ve pioneered serious blogging.

ID: I didn’t pioneer it, but I get quite a big readership – about 80,000 people every month, 600,000 last year.

TB: That is real influence.

ID: But even if you only have a few hundred, tell me a politician who wouldn’t like to make a speech to several hundred people every day. I suspect if you were starting out in politics now, you would be a fanatical blogger.

TB: I have thought about that, but you can't write a diary and do a blog at the same time. If you are a diarist you have to be free to do it, and if you are a blogger you have a different audience. A blogger is addressing an audience whereas I am recording what has happened.


I am sure that if this was the start of Benn's career,the great politician would surely recognise the potential of this micro blogging tool for getting his message to the masses

2 comments:

Martin Belam said...

I'm interested there in what Iain Dale gives as his figures. Are those committed readers, or is he counting any old tom-dick-harry who arrives through the search long tail? Love to know - wish he would ABCe audit ;-)

Nigel Barlow said...

Agree Martin and I see that there is a bit of debate going on in his comments section on the very same topic