Yesterday when Malcolm Turnbull announced his resignation from parliament first via Twitter he was not the first Qwitter to have ever tweeted a resignation.
US chief executive Jonathan Schwartz' infamous resignation from Sun Microsystems was announced not only via Twitter but in Haiku form.
The tweet read -
Financial crisis
Stalled too many customers
CEO no more
Perhaps if Turnbull had gone for the Twitter Haiku option it would have read something like -
Rejected by Monk
Have fun Wentworth Liberals
with no ETS
Turnbull's actual non-Haiku tweet was simple enough, "I have announced I will not recontest Wentworth at the election this year." All you need to say really, but does Australia's first political twitter resignation indicate a trend for the future? Is this how it's going to be from now on, the end of long serving careers or even their beginnings announced just like that in less than 140 characters?
Nearly as exciting for pundits as the former Opposition leader leaving after long speculation about his future within the party, was the fact that it was announced it on Twitter. The excitement was such that it in fact crashed Turnbull's site, where the full announcement was on display under his latest news section. Twitter itself was alive with instant comment on the former leader's announcement, hypotheticals around a Wentworth by-election and what potential jobs were available for Turnbull in the future. Turnbull for premier? A Rudd appointment to London perhaps? Even a fake Alex Hawke suggested Alan Jones for the seat of Wentworth. The silliness of it all was let loose.
But on top of all that there was also plenty of questions about whether this was in fact a Twitter first. As the haiku resignation above shows it is certainly not the first twitter resignation but first twitter Australian political resignation? Looks likely. In the end I suppose Twitter was the only way the tech savvy Turnbull could have gone. He was well known for his addiction to his Blackberry and permanent electronic communication; compared to most pollies understanding of social media he was practically futuristic.
His resignation tweet linked to a full media release on Turnbull.com (yes, that's right he had his own domain) explaining in more than the 140 characters allowed on Twitter his reasons for the departure, noting in particular his achievements in the Howard government and his disappointment around the ETS. He said that despite encouragement from his colleagues and constituents to run again he had chosen not to recontest, adding that "a decision like this is a very personal and heartfelt one which can only be made by me and my family''.
One certainly can't imagine Howard going out that way, maybe Rudd if he's in a particular "down with the kids" kind of mood. But maybe increasingly with the tech prone gen Xs and Ys coming into the parliament in the coming years this may well be par for the course. Increasingly it seems social media is how big announcements, both political and personal ones are made and there are more and more social media firsts all the time.
There was the first live tweeted birth, the first live tweetedsurgery and even the first live tweeted abortion. There was a famous case of a couple updating their relationship status on Facebook right at the altar as they were exchanging vows. A candidate for governor of Wisconsin announced his candidacyon twitter with only a casual 10 words.
Deaths, marriages and births once relegated to a phone call or an ad in the paper is done with a click, a status update or a tweet. As social media is more and more the way we monitor information and indeed one another I suppose the future we will reach for the mouse before we reach for the phone. After all, we've had the first political Qwitter, the firsts will surely just keep coming.
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