In his most recent post, social media expert Stowe Boyd has called out John Edwards' now-defunct new media operation. The problem? When Edwards left the presidential race, he also vacated most of his impressive social media apparatus. Boyd states:

So, you opt to try to exploit the edglings by signing up to Twitter, and writing a blog, and all that newfangled web stuff, trying to mine the potential there with ersatz involvement and cheesy, inauthentic participation: cramming old one:many messaging into a conversationally rich environment.

Then, you drop out. And proof that it is totally bogus, you just stop. Bam. No 'thanks for the memories', no 'see you in the funny papers', and certainly no ongoing involvement, since after all, there really was no involvement involved.

There's a good bit of vitriol in Boyd's critique, and I disagree with a number of the points. The Edwards operation seemed very authentic, driven by experience and fundamental belief in the power of the technology. However, it is damning to look at Edwards' Twitter page, with 4,548 followers, and see that it was last updated 5 months ago.

An interesting post - read it here.