Governor Cuomo's 'Best Social Media People Around' Claim Parody Account Is The Real Governor

from the if-they're-the-best-around,-expand-your-circle dept

Tue, Jan 4th 2011 6:30am — Mike Masnick

Via Jeff Nolan, we learn that the new Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who has a history of misguided attacks on social networks, apparently isn't very good with social media personally. In setting up the new website of the governor, the staff linked to a parody Twitter account as the official Twitter account of the governor. Rather than the real account, the supremely boring and corporate @NYGovCuomo, the website linked to @NYGovernor, which was an amusing parody account. Not surprisingly, whoever is behind @NYGovernor had a lot of fun with it, while people thought it was the official account.

While this may seem like a minor slip up, it's indicative of a larger problem. In the same article, Cuomo's staff apparently told reporters that "Cuomo did not have time to 'twitter on his own' and that the 'best web and social media people around' were now in charge of his personal account." Of course, those "best web and social media people around," apparently couldn't even figure out which account was their own, and have followed it up with perhaps one of the most boring Twitter feeds around. Perhaps Cuomo could take a lesson from Cory Booker, who despite working over 20 hours a day while helping to shovel people out of the recent blizzard, was still able to tweet basic updates.

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Filed Under: andrew cuomo, new york, social media

22 Comments

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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 6:42am

Excuse
Sounds like the Governor has another excuse to bash a technology he doesn't understand. Call for action coming soon!!!
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Todd McKinney (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 6:49am

Censored
Apparently being funny and having the governor's social media experts get confused was enough to get the account killed. I can't find the @NYGovernor account now, other than in a couple of search results that have noticed that the account disappeared.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2011 @ 6:51am

God forbids he has a life. I mean.. of course stop shoveling to tweet or the world will implode instantly.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 6:58am

Re:
Did you read the snowstorm/twitter story? He wasn't "stopping shoveling to tweet" - it was twitter that enabled him to get out on the streets and help people in the most direct way possible.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2011 @ 7:06am

Re: Re:
That's another debate for another time... and the point still stands. People have lives. If you don't spend every spare minute on twitter or facebook then you're not cool. Sigh. I agree that "hiring" people to "represent" him seems "odd" but other than the abominable snow man that uses twitter, do you know many 50+ year olds and politicians that do? No. So because Frosty was able to go help tech savvy people, he left the others helpless... Did you hear about the mayor that answered the phone? No because it's not social networking and geeks don't care.
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The eejit (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 7:26am

Re: Re: Re:
that's not the point. This is the guy who keeps claiming he understands all social media. This disproves his claim utterly.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 7:26am

Re: Re: Re:
Doesn't matter that someone else is running it. If he is so detached from social media to not even know that his 'best web and social media people around' don't know what they're doing, why is the account there?

As for "Frosty", he has the account, may as well use it properly.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 8:25am

Re:
God forbids he has a life. I mean.. of course stop shoveling to tweet or the world will implode instantly.

Always amusing to watch people condemn what they don't understand, thereby making themselves appear that much more clueless.

If you believe that the people who use Twitter well have no life, you're not paying attention.
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Trails (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 8:39am

Re: Re: Re:
Holy curmudgeon!! Were those damnable teenagers on your lawn again?

Stories about new media being used in different ways is part of what techdirt is about. If you get annoyed, why do you come here?

The idea of using something like twitter to do what the mayor did is interesting, and wouldn't be practical with a phone. One of your points appears to be "it's just another communication mmedium" which is right (and oft-mentioned by Mike) but that story highlights some of the advantages of that medium. Why wouldn't this be interesting to people who read a blog about communication and technology?

Anyway, lest you prematurely mess your Depends, perhaps you'd find this site more to your liking? http://www.senior.com/
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2011 @ 9:09am

Re: Re:
Yes, everyone that thinks people that use twitter have to much time on their hands are definitely clueless. That was enlightening.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 9:10am

Re: Re: Re:
A whole generation is discovering new and different ways to communicate - and those new platforms are fast becoming some of the most pervasive means of communication in the world.

You should learn a bit before getting all curmudgeonly.
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Re:
Why would they have to much time in their hands? Isn't time already muched enough?
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Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 9:19am

Re: Re: Re:
Yes, everyone that thinks people that use twitter have to much time on their hands are definitely clueless

If they haven't actually used Twitter and experienced its massive potential for communication, real-time search, news monitoring and other great functions, then yes, they are clueless, because they don't have a clue. They are just jumping to conclusions.

Have you immersed yourself in Twitter to see what it's all about? I was skeptical at first, and I even almost fell into the "waste of time" crowd, but I forced myself to experience it first-hand, and then I realized very quickly how wrong I was.

So tell us - what is your experience with Twitter? Do you have an account? Have you explored the people that can follow, including personalities, organizations and curated feeds? Have you tried reaching out to public figures, reporters, publications, etc. to understand this new and direct means of communication? Have you tried using it to request tech support or other customer service (certain companies are phenomenal at responding to this)? Have you tried its search function during an in-progress event or breaking news? Have you monitored the hash-tag for a major conference or panel discussion that you were unable to attend? Have you tried out some of the many data visualizations that build on twitter, to get insight into broad trends over time and geography? Have you tried using third-party search engines like Topsy to see what kind of results come from social search?

When you can answer yes to even half of those questions, then go ahead and make your case for why you still think Twitter is a waste of time. Until then, yes, you are very much clueless
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reechard (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 10:23am

account suspended
What a pity... "Hold up! Sorry, the profile you are trying to view has been suspended"
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2011 @ 10:56am

He may not be able to properly use Twitter (directly or indirectly), but you've got to admit he's great at censoring anyone that criticizes him or parodies him.
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btr1701 (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 3:13pm

Surprised
I'm just surprised they didn't try and trump up some bogus charge against the guy with the fake account for embarrassing the elites. That's usually how this kind of thing plays out.
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btr1701 (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 3:14pm

Re: Excuse
> Sounds like the Governor has another excuse to bash a
> technology he doesn't understand. Call for action coming soon!!!

I'm sure he'll say that some children somewhere were harmed when they were fooled into believing the governor was suddenly more entertaining than he really was.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 8:57pm

Re: Re: Excuse
See, that's why Clinton was so popular. Good, bad, whatever... He was guaranteed to be entertaining.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 4 Jan 2011 @ 9:09pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I can answer yes to pretty much all of those questions. Hell, I even wrote my own Twitter client. Yet I still think Twitter is mostly a huge time sink that very little useful or worthwhile comes out of. Much like most of the rest of the Internet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of wasting time on something you enjoy. I'm just honest enough with myself to not say that Twitter, Facebook, ICanHasCheezburger, or commenting on TD are productive uses of my time.
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techflaws.org (profile), 5 Jan 2011 @ 2:02am

Re: Re: Re:
Apparently it had to be spelled out for you.
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btrussell (profile), 5 Jan 2011 @ 3:11am

Shouldn't his website be seized for linking to copyrighted material?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2014 @ 9:18am

Do you have people of color in higher titles of Information Technology Specialist? In Cuomo's government, are they smart enough to hold higher Information Technology Specialist or Manager titles? Does Cuomo's government think they have higher degrees and they can be Managers? I don't think they have a single black person in Information Technology at the Department of Transportation
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