Goodbye from Ger_Watch

The last post about German politicians, trying to use web 2.0. How can I summarize the last eleven entries? At first, I want to apologize if we have have affronted anybody, but actually we had no other choice. If you want to see boring politics, you can watch the German "Bundestag", but we wanted to entertain you.
Obviously, not everything's bad about German politicians on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. Maybe, the German mentality does not even want blogging politicians and an enthusiasm towards politicians as it could be seen during Obama's election. But I personally think that it is important to improve the online performance as there are less and less young voters.

Now, enough from this theoretical thinking. In the end, I'll show you some online statistics and articles which weren't included on the last eleven posts, but are worth mentioning.

1) Welt Online has just written yesterday about a current study of the university Ilmenau. Therefore, only one third of all politicians, which have a Facebook-account, is communicating several times a week, only a fifth is reacting on other users.

2) On this link, you can see, the ten politicians with the most followers. Number one is Kristina Schröder (simply scroll back to the post), numer two is Jörg Tauss (former SPD-politician, on whose server were found child-pornography for "research" as he says) an number three is young Julia Klöckner (CDU), who wants to become state premier of Rheinland-Pfalz.

3) An interesting article: Author Tobias Moorstedt argues that German politicians should not try to copy the Obama style and that he can't understand the tone of German newspapers who make fun of the online performance.

4) We have made fun of politicians of Twitter, but of course, there are also people making fun of Twitter. Watch "Klaas" from MTV home.

5) And if you don't know what Facebook is, watch this video.Don't be scared of the creepy voice;)

By Ger_Watch

Last words...

I could start this last post with some nice words. Words, that we all probably heard too often, but that still give us a little peace of mind when saying them. I could start by saying: All good things have to come to an end. I could say: It was my pleasure, but it had to end eventually. But as I have learned sometimes it is better to say nothing at all. I wish someone would have given this piece of advice to the following lady. She’s as pretty as she is dumb. Check this out! 

This doesn’t look like it would have something to do with this blog? Well, I just wanted to show you how much more intelligent every single one of you is out there. I bet this young lady would know how to use facebook or other social networks. But I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know a lot about politics. As these two might seem to be two totally different things, I hope we could show you how much intertwined politics and social media really are. I, personally, found it very interesting to dig down deep in this topic. I enjoyed it to really look at it and compare it to Germany. And for the most part it was very entertaining as well. I had some good laughs and I hope you did too. If you want to know how it looks like to be a facebook-addict in real life, click here. Want some more?

 My personal résumé about how American politicians use the internet for their purpose is fairly positive. I found that most of them are doing a fine job. Especially president Obama seems to have a competent staff to keep his facebook profile up to date.

 Another finding was that the time of blogging politicians seems to come to an end. They tend to concentrate more on facebook or twitter as those aren’t as time-consuming. Though some politicians do better than others, there’s one thing that unites them all. It appears to me that they don’t grasp the spirit of web 2.0. To them the internet is a one-way street. A channel to call out to the world and their voters, but when it comes to virtually interact with them, most of them don’t seem to be that interested anymore.

That’s why I’d like to end my US-part of the blog with a plea to all politicians out there. Talk less, listen more and the explore the fine chances that you have not taken so far.

It was my pleasure. Good night and good luck.

By US_watch

Dirk Niebel and his "Edelprofil" on MeinVZ

MeinVZ is a German version of Facebook. Every famous politician has an “Edelprofil”, which does not mean, he or she is a better person. By the way: The person with most of the friends is the "politician" Horst Schlämmer, the invention of comedy star Hape Kerkeling. Horst Schlämmer is a little bit liberal, but also left-sided, and, not to forget, conservative as well.

But let's come to Dirk Niebel. At first, who is Dirk Niebel. Good question: Dirk Niebel is the secretary for development. The funny thing is, Dirk Niebel actually wanted to close this ministry, unless he became the secretary for development. As he is therefore listed  as an “Edelprofil”, he can use some more features. And of course Dirk Niebel makes use of it.

I can watch a “youtube”-video. Awesome, I mean, that is so nice for those people who forget the URL of youtube all the time, now they can watch the videos on MeinVZ. But that’s not the end of innovation. There is also a very very special webside: a link to the homepage of his dog. And for everybody, who is not impressed enough, I can also recommend his pictures: Dirk Niebel behind a speaker’s desk, Dirk Niebel behind a microphone and Dirk Niebel in front of a TV camera.

And on his “Pinnwand” are mainly insults and no controversial discussions. I don’t think there is a big benefit for German democracy, if people write on his wall about issues as Dirk Niebel’s “bedraggled fingernails”, or suits, which are too narrow. But as his profile hasn’t been updated for more than six months, and as there are no reactions on serious issues raised on his wall, the chaos on his wall is not such a big surprise.
Obviously, politicians as Dirk Niebel only care about their profile during election time.

P.S.: Only Guido Westerwelle and Christian Lindner have more fans than any other FDP-politician. But honestly, do you know any other FDP-politician? 

By Ger_Watch

Ken Salazar on Facebook *yawn*

Kenneth Lee Salazar - Secretary of the Interior

Let’s take a look at another politician’s facebook account: Ken Salazar. The 56-year old Democrat is Secretary of the Interior. He was one of the first Hispanic U.S. Senators. Other than Hilda Solis he does not emphasize his origins. There’s no mention of it on facebook. One of the interesting things you can find there is that he is Catholic. But that’s no huge revelation either.

 

Most of his status posts start with “Today” or once in a while “Yesterday”. As I scrolled down the page I read “Today I did this”, “today I announced that”, “today I promised to do this and that”. It seemed to be a very very serious facebook account. I got the impression that updating his facebook profile is a dull duty to him. But then I found something that I did no longer expect after all the dull posts. Something, that didn’t seem to fit in there. Either someone hacked his account or he had a good day: “Check out some photos from today's Panda event at the National Zoo.” Well isn’t that something?

 

Anyway, more than 2,700 people like this page. It didn’t take me long to find that Salazar has one special “friend”. There’s one person that comments every post. He is all over the page. And his comments are not nice. He criticizes everything Salazar says or does. One of the comments was: “Fire Ken Salazar.” Salazar does not respond to that.

 

The photo section is pretty dull as well. Six pictures – that’s it. One with Schwarzenegger, but other than that. Nothing special. But you should take a look at his profile picture: a crowd of kids cheering as Salazar shakes their hands. What it means to make such a picture your profile pic?! No comments – decide for yourselves…! But at least it's one of the few pictures, where he actually smiles.

I’ll just leave you with a short youtube video about the oil spill. Salazar looks astonishingly unimpressed during a woman’s protest. Judging from his online presence he doesn’t seem to be the most cheerful dude in Washington D.C. But hey, you should always consider his age. To actually HAVE a facebook account at his age, should count for s o m e t h i n g.

by US_watch

Kristina Schröder: German secretary on Twitter

Kristina Schröder is one of the few secretaries, who use twitter for their reputation. Nearly 15.000 people are following her – although she is still twittering under her maiden name “Kristina Köhler”. And so she writes on New Year’s Day: “My intention for the new year is to find a new twitter name, as Kristina Schroeder is too long”. A few hours later she posts: “Thank you for your proposals, apart from the one with the new marriage.” This little anecdote shows, that she does not only repeat political statements of her party, but also gives her followers the opportunity to follow her personal development.

She often tweets, what she is at the moment doing at which place. I think that’s quite important, as not many people now what a secretary is actually doing the whole day.

A second plus point is her transparency. When she is not twittering, but someone from her office, they introduce themselves (“account of secretary is captured") and sign every tweet.

But as most of the other famous twitterer, she engages not much with her followers. One time she answers to a tweet – but that came from a journalist of the famous BILD-Zeitung. What does he have, that all the other do not have? In an interview with “Spiegel Online” she admits that she does not often react on tweets from others – because of her lack of time.
Maybe she’ll learn, that she better does not fight with Twitter-users, because her social-media-life has had some serious consequences in “real” politics.


P.S.: A little disappointment that she has not tweeted a single detail about her baby. Not even, that she's pregnant.

By Ger_Watch

Hilda Solis: American woman in cabinet on twitter

Hilda L. Solis: Secretary of Labor

There are few women in the United States Cabinet. One of them is Hilda Solis, the Secretary of Labor. But she knows how to be heard. She has an active and verified twitter profile with more than 7.700 followers, where she tweets regularly. 

 Every once in a while she tweets in Spanish. This came quite as a surprise to me. But it makes sense: Solis’ parents came from Nicaragua and Mexico. Considering the high number of people in the U.S. whose native tongue is Spanish, this comes in handy. Solis tries to build a bridge between those two languages and both ethnic groups.

She has two main topics: immigration and women. She stands up for successful immigration: “#Immigration has been kicked dn the rd for far 2 long. Partisan obstructionism can't be allowed to derail change that is right & necessary”  Other than that she’s encouraging women and points to topics related to women and work-life. Like in this tweet: “Shared stories of our journeys, common theme to success = hard work, drive, education and passion. Our message to girls: go for it!”

 

Solis also seems to have a passion for shiny cars. It was one of her latest tweets that kind of looked funny to me: “Personal faves were the @FordMustang, @Chevrolet Equinox and @Chrysler 300. @WashAutoShow“  How much money did she get for all the tweets about Ford and new cars? Do I smell the scent of advertisement here?! Or is it just the enthusiasm of a woman for nice cars?

I can’t tell. But what I can tell is that this Secretary has done her twitter-homework. Or what do you think?

by US_watch

German parties on youtube: Which performance is most embarassing?

Everyone loves seeing politicians on youtube. My personal favorite is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icOO7Ut1P4Y. German EU-commissar Günter Oettinger speaks English (better: tries to speak, even better: fails in doing so). Maybe he went to the same school as Guido Westerwelle (watch out for our post about the fake profile "Westerwave"). The video has been posted in blogs, on Twitter on Facebook and nearly every German knows it. Sometimes some politicians wish, youtube wouldn’t be the memory of every embarrassing performance.

But parties do also love youtube. They can upload videos of their greatest speeches, funniest slogans and most embarrassing performances of political enemies. Honestly, they concentrate on their greatest speeches, or what they think to be the greatest speeches. And sometimes it seems as if they'd simply upload every speech. The question is, do the voters love the parties who  love youtube?

Two years ago, the famous German magazine “Focus” has analyzed the youtube-situation on three pages with examples of awful youtube-performances. They come to the conclusion: Only printed election-programs are more boring. But what has changed since then?

Simple answer: It can be even more embarrassing. Believe it or not.

Just one example: election-songs. The CDU has called their song for the parliament in NRW: “NRW in guten Händen”. Honestly, I am not sure, whether they have asked Dieter Bohlen or Ralph Siegel to write the song, but the melody consists of not more than three different notes. The performer obviously failed in one of the first rounds of any of the hundred casting shows. Okay, it is not easy to write a song which includes words like “Nordrhein-Westfalen”. But rhyming “mehr” und “fair” in a political song is as cool as rhyming “Herz” und “Schmerz” in a love song.

But take a look on your own, here are the links for CDU, SPD, Green Party , FDP, Linke.

P.S.: Watch a Netherland's journalist becoming a youtube-star with the help of German chancellor Angela Merkel. He asked, how the hell she could give the job of the finance minister to Wolfgang Schäuble who has once forgotten 100.000 DM in his drawer. And please, if you watch it, look for Horst Seehofer, who is sitting at the left side, how he is actually smiling and then trying to have a serious glance.

By Ger_Watch