Twitter’s announcement that it will be hiring someone to set up a DC outpost generated some interesting reactions around the web.  Yesterday, @sarmje over at the Hillicon Valley blog linked to my post from yesterday on this topic and raised some interesting questions:

“It raises some questions: Can lawmakers keep a wall between their reliance on applications and the lobbying efforts of the Internet companies themselves? In other words, when lawmakers rely on Google, does it help Google’s public policy efforts? If so, why is it any different from lawmakers’ decades-long reliance on services provided by, for instance, phone companies?”

Then later in the day, @abrahamhyatt, an editor at ReadWriteWeb, Tweeted about it as well:

“A budding war between Twitter, Google, etc. and Washington DC lobbyists? Interesting”

I think it’s worth clarifying at least one point:  My post wasn’t intended as a criticism of Twitter, merely an observation of what they seem to be up to.

And as for the questions raised by Sara, I have a few thoughts.

First, to me, it’s not a matter of whether a politician can use a particular piece of technology and still be objective about policy that may impact it.  The more interesting question comes when the DC presence of these companies is presented as a “free service provider” to offer guidance about how its particular tool can be used to help policymakers with what I’ll call the “Three Ps”: Politics, Promotion and Policymaking.  What’s the impact of that?

As for the analogy to phone companies, the principal difference is that to my knowledge, the phone companies have never taken the pose that the principal purpose of their advocacy efforts in DC is to teach policymakers how to better use phones for the Three Ps.

In a blog post this morning, Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky), of Microsoft, comes at this topic from a different perspective and questions whether Twitter is just hopelessly behind the times.

“Twitter, Inc. needs a dose of reality here. Besides people like me who were using Twitter and other tools in and near government two years ago and more, there are now countless consultants working inside the Beltway to develop and carry out plans for using the service in combination with other tools for diverse government missions ranging for public affairs to military recruiting to national security. And while savvy senior leaders may certainly meet with someone from Twitter, they certainly don’t really need Twitter’s help to figure out how to use it for diplomatic relations; sorry, the State Department is better at using new media in a holistic manner than any group I know.”

Mark correctly  points to a tremendous amount of activity that is going on within government in furtherance of President Obama’s objectives related to Gov 2.0 (a topic I will return to soon).  However, I think his Microsoft perspective may be coloring his take on what Twitter is up to.  Microsoft sees government as a business market (rightfully so) and pays lots of attention to executive branch agencies.  Though, I will say, Microsoft is bumping up its activity in the political technology space as well.

I suspect Twitter’s initial foray is much more targeted towards the legislative branch, and there, in contrast to Mark’s examples, there is still room for Twitter to perform tutorials on how to use Twitter for the Three Ps and to create some goodwill in the process.

I bet they are looking for examples like this one from the Washington Post on the the efforts by @adamconner on behalf of Facebook in Washington:

“Inside the headquarters of the National Republican Congressional Committee, 25-year-old Adam Conner — registered Facebook lobbyist, poster of multiple Obama attaboys and a guy whose Facebook photo is a grizzly bear wielding two chain saws — sits to teach a course. The subject: How to use Facebook better. His student: Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.).

“If we’re going to improve our presence on Facebook and really maximize it, what would you recommend as tangible steps?” Roskam asks, thumbing his BlackBerry.”

My simple point is this: That’s just not a scenario frequently replicated by the typical lobbying effort of a non-tech company.  But it sure seems like the direction that things are headed.