Edwards, Obama A-Twitter Over Election

ABC News’ Jennifer Parker Reports: Want to know what your favorite ’08 presidential candidate is doing? A new social-networking site called Twitter.com, may be able to tell you.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., are "twitter-ing" — dashing off pithy sentences about where they are and even, what they’re thinking.

"Preparing for 1pm policy speech today on the need for a strong military in the new century," reads a Twitter from the Edwards campaign posted Wednesday.

"In Indianola, Iowa and heading to Des Moines," reads a Twitter from Obama, from earlier in the month. "Thinking the President’s word is not the last word on Iraq," reads another Obama posting.

The website asks users the question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be kept under 140 letters or characters. Users can get and send the messages via cell phone text message, computer instant message or regular email.

"A short Twitter update while on the road is entirely within the realm of possibility for a candidate." said Biz Stone, who co-founded Twitter in San Francisco with fellow entrepreneur Jack Dorsey.

Stone said three campaigns — Edwards, Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. — contacted Twitter asking them how it works.

Clinton has signed up for a Twitter account, but so far, hasn’t posted any musings.

The democratic candidates’  interest is another example of the new reality of Campaign 2.0, where web-savvy campaigns are trying to attach themselves to as many social networking sites as possible in the race for votes.

Edwards was the first candidate to sign up to the site in January. When he can’t post a message, a dedicated staffer writes one, and indicates that it’s ‘from staff’.

Obama started on the site a month ago. According to the site, Obama has about 2,200 "friends" who are signed up to receive his "twitters".

So far, the candidates aren’t offering deep insights.  The messages are in the same vein as the candidates’ profiles on more popular social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace and the video-sharing site YouTube.

It’s unclear whether the bulk of Twitter users are even of voting age. However, Stone swears his user base has been doubling every month.

He argues his website is perfect for keeping up with the ’08 candidates because sending the messages takes less time than, say, blogging on the candidates’ website.

"Twitter updates are for the most part rhetorical so creating them is less formal and less demanding of the recipients," said Stone.