Last weekend, Minneapolis hosted dueling conferences for online political activists. Netroots Nation, the progressive conference, was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, while RightOnline, its conservative counterpart was just a couple blocks away at the Hilton. While the short distance was enough to keep the orange lanyards separated from the green, a quick twitter search of the conferences’ hashtags (#nn11 & #ro11) shows that some partygoers were as interested in each other’s conference as their own.
Unfortunately, much of the Tweetage is negative – from both sides. There are tweets about crashing and disrupting each other’s conferences, about whose speakers were better, who had smarter attendees, which conference was better attended….
But if you sift through the combative and the contentious, you’ll find some peacemakers in the stream, tweeting across the aisles, seeking common ground in Minneapolis, including one from an unlikely source.
From airport on way home, very much enjoying reading #NN11 and #RO11 threads. Meanwhile watching POTUS & Boehner golf together on TV. Anyone else concerned the lame "glitter toss" at Bachmann at #ro11 will ignite revenge at #nn11? Lets keep things professional ppl #nn11lgbt Seems there's more bipartisanship at #MSP than in DC or St. Paul. Maybe pols could learn from new media peeps. #RO11 #nn11 #tcot (more…)
