(Image source: The White House)

BY JIM FLINK
 

You're watching multisource video news analysis from Newsy. 

Forget Fireside Chats. Face to face is so passe. Wanna talk to the Tech Prez? Hashtag Ask Obama -- on Twitter.  The president will hold the first-ever -- Twitter Town Hall July 6th.

Here’s Venture Beat.

“The White House has created a new twitter account, @townhall, that will serve as a central source of updates for the event. Twitter has also set up a special site for the event to promote the #AskObama hashtag, which will be the way for Twitter users to submit questions for the event.”

If this all sounds familiar -- it is. Mr. Obama already did YouTube and Facebook town halls. This one will be moderated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey --- or @Jack.

Tech President notes, these Town Halls have a geeky, friendly feel for the President.

“He has appeared on Google’s YouTube multiple times to field questions....In April, he went to Facebook headquarters... in another event hosted by Mark Zuckerberg, who did more joking around with Obama — than real moderation.”

Mashable says, politicians get it -- lots of people get their news in the palms of their hands.
And they’re not letting go.

“Politicians are increasingly using Twitter to connect with constituents, announce their plans to run for higher office and share important news. In many ways, Twitter is the perfect digital version of a traditional town hall. It allows users to voice their questions not just to the politician but to the community at large.”

So who’s gonna be in the audience? The Wall Street Journal takes a guess.

“The White House has embraced social media to get out its message, particularly to young people who don’t often use traditional news sources...Along with its own Twitter account and Facebook pages, it frequent posts to its blog. The White House’s official Twitter feed is among the most widely followed, with 2.2 million followers as of Thursday morning.”

But enough about the medium -- what about the message? Mr. Obama will respond via live webcast, so he won’t be limited to 140 characters. And Gov Fresh questions -- just how informative this town hall will be.

“....the interesting detail will be in how much transparency goes into question selection, particularly with respect to how exact or tough they are. When the White House turned to Twitter to discuss President Obama’s Middle East speech, they included NPR’s Andy Carvin and Foreign Policy’s Mark Lynch as trusted interlocutors. It’s less clear how Dorsey will moderate, given his considerable different style of tweeting, but on one count there is no doubt: this will be interesting.”

The Twitter Town Hall commences at 2 pm Eastern -- 11 Pacific July 6th.  You can view the discussion at #AskObama.

Transcript by Newsy.