Twitter and the Australian election #ausvotes #ozpolitics

I'll be heading off to Media140 OzPolitics in Canberra on 23 September 2010 (the Twitter hashtag is #OzPolitics). It fits nicely into many of the  discussions I've had about the recent Australian federal election

Some of the big questions I've been thinking about include:

• Was the realtime web important in the outcome of the election?
• Did Twitter play a major role in election discussions?
• If there was significant conversation about the election on Twitter did the politicians listen to it?

I'm going to be exploring these questions over the next two weeks.

In the meantime I've been checking out some of the analysis of the election Twitter stream (mainly around the #ausvotes hashtag) done before, during and since the election.

• Tim Bull has done some interesting analysis of highly engaged people on Twitter who used the hashtag #ausvotes for their discussions about the election. His analysis is summarised nicely in his blog post. He also created a list of the most engaged Tweeters for #ausvotes.
• Axel Bruns from QUT also has some interesting analysis of the #ausvotes twitter stream
• Our Twitter election by Bella Counihan
• What the Hashtag
• Australian Election 2010 - Social Media Match Fitness by Tiphereth Gloria
• The 2010 Australian Twitter Election by Andrew Grill
• Twitter and the Australian Election 2010 by Matthew Gain
• Buzz Election by Buzz Numbers