Was the New Brunswick election of 2010 the first election that made good use of social media?

No.

Social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook) were used, but they didn’t meet the expectations of the average voter who wanted to engage the candidates. The average voter wishes to be educated about the issues and interact with candidates by having them answer specific questions about the policies they are proposing. The technology to do this is here right now, we just aren’t using it properly. Some candidates did a great job at responding to questions on Twitter, however, most just used it as another broadcast medium.

One other problem with Twitter is the sheer amount of noise generated with the #nbvotes hashtag. Mostly partisan hackery, the noise made it difficult for people to follow active debates. Similar to a vuvuzela, each individual tweet wasn’t significant, but with hundreds of people tweeting and re-tweeting insignificant things, it became hard to hear the real conversation.

Some people could dismiss Twitter as a debating platform by claiming that 140 characters just isn’t enough for a proper debate, however, a candidate can provide a long-winded answer on a blog and reply to that user with the URL of the blog in the tweet.

The fact of the matter is that most of the candidates and parties have no interest in using social media properly. They prefer to do politics the old-fashioned way, with negative ads on TV and going door-to-door.

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Remember those ads from the US last year that talked about the conversion of TV signals to digital? It’s going to happen here too, however, what you have to do depends on your situation:

I have Satellite or IPTV

You won’t have to do a thing, you are already 100% digital. Really, you’re fine. Really. Stop worrying.

I have Cable TV

All my TVs already have digital cable boxes attached to them

You won’t need to do anything

My cable goes right into the back of my TV

You will need to get a digital cable box. All cable companies will have different timelines on forcing it onto you, but will probably be in 2013.  Some parts of Nova Scotia already require digital boxes. You will get plenty of letters and phone calls from them before they do the cutover and they will help you hook everything up (but probably not for free).  Newer HDTVs have a built-in digital tuner, but they don’t work when the cable company encrypts the channels.  As of now, all cable companies are encrypting all their channels.

I have a VCR

Sorry, but this is really going to complicate your life. You’ll have to program your VCR to record at the time you want, then program your digital cable box to set the channel to auto-tune.  Some cable companies offer boxes that have the ability to tell your VCR to record.  The cable company will be able to offer you a PVR, which would be a lot less complicated, but can cost as much as $25/month.

I have split the line to many TVs but I’m only paying for one outlet

This will be the end of the line for moochers like you. You’ll be forced to pay for all your outlets now.

I have an antenna (rabbit ears)

I have an HDTV

You should be OK unless your HDTV is really old (from before 2007). You’ll just have to do a channel scan and the digital channels will show up. You may need to get a different antenna because they are removing channels 2-6 and moving them to UHF (just like they did to channels 1 and 70-83).

I have an older TV

You have until August 2011 (or 2012 if the broadcasters get their way) to get a digital converter box.  You may also need to get a different antenna because they are removing channels 2-6 and moving them to UHF (just like they did to channels 1 and 70-83).

I have a VCR

Sorry, but this is really going to complicate your life. You’ll have to program your VCR to record at the time you want, then program your digital converter box to set the channel to auto-tune.  Some higher-end digital converter boxes may have the ability to tell your VCR to record. Some low-end digital converter boxes may not have the ability to change channels on their own.

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