Government has gone Tweeting mad!

Remember those cute shots last year of some members of Congress madly tweeting on their smart phones during President Obama’s first address to them, and all of the stories that followed that marveled at their groundbreaking audacity? That was so yesterday.

Seems like Twitter is already considered a part of the daily ritual for many in Congress. There’s even a first overview report on the power of Twitter in Congress called – naturally – Twongress, which is usually the first step towards respectability.

The Congressional Research Services also came up with its own report.

Roll Call recently got into the act with a fairly detailed piece on who and who is not using Twitter, and who is considered the best tweeter (twitterer?) in Congress. It talks about the best strategies for congressional tweets, and even comes up with a list of the various types of tweets available for people to use.

And even space heroes are getting into the act. There have been various recent stories about what may or may not have been the first tweets from space, for example, and now NASA is hosting a “Tweetup” later this month. It’s seventh!

However, all things are relative, and the Pew Research Center recently reported on what could be a showstopper. Kids and young adults no longer think blogging is cool (gasp!), and don’t bother to Twitter much.

If it’s the young folks’ expectations that are driving the use of new media in government, which is what we are constantly being told, then what value do we place on all of this Twittering, which is obviously already a pastime for dinosaurs?