This is definitely not politics as usual. The old way of getting yourself elected meant years of hard work, compromise and most importantly sacrifice (and possibly a family dynasty) to rule the Second City.
But New York-based Foursquare has changed all that, swooping into town giving average Joe's control of a new political system, where they don't have to glad hand and kiss babies, raise mountains of cash to run ads and print campaign signs they can tack on foreclosed homes. It's ingenious, really. You don't have to bother influencing people. You just elect yourself.
In classic Chicago tradition, you vote early (or late) and often. As often as possible. For yourself. So get on it Daley!
Chicago's lovable Mayor Richard M. Daley is something of a social media maven. He has a Youtube channel. And a Facebook page. And he may or may not have a Twitter account. But this, this goes beyond the pale. Recently, someone unseated him as mayor of City Hall.
This someone is Jim. B. Who hasn't stopped at city hall. He's the mayor of 23 other locations in and around Chicago.
The city recently announced a partnership with Foursquare minting a new set of Chicago-specific badges. But I wonder if they checked to see how folks were already using the service.
I tried finding out who our other self-elected officials are, but alas,
my coding skills are like my tight-rope-walking skills, they don't
exist. I managed to pull some of them via a twitter search, as you can see below, but if anyone knows how to implement the FourSquare API to query for Chicago's mayors, I'd love to see it. I can't seem to figure it out through the site. Are you a mayor too?
Filed under: Politics, Social media
Tags: Daley, Foursquare, mayor, social media, technology
