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This article was published on AFR.com

By Rick Ridder and Per Tenggren

The meteoric rise in the popularity of social media and its applications has brought with it some major successes and epic failures. Much of the misuse stems from poor choices of platform and a fundamental misunderstanding of the tools themselves.

To assess the beneficial use of social networking tools, ask yourself the following questions:

Politicians from President Barack Obama to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter have more ways than ever to spread their personalized messages.

Shortly after Barack Obama assumed the presidency, there was some interest in whether the Secret Service would allow him to keep his BlackBerry. On the face of it, this seemed a quirky sideshow, or — at best — a pocket-sized symbol of the "change" that had come to Washington.

RBI Strategies and Research conducted a survey for the Pew Environment Group between August 18 and August 24, 2008 asking 500 voters likely to participate in the 2008 Colorado General Election about conservation and roadless issues in the State of Colorado. An additional 200 interviews were conducted on the Western Slope to provide a sample of 250 voters from that area. Respondents were selected at random from a list of registered voters. A sample of this size has a margin of error of ±4.38% at the 95% confidence level. The Western Slope sample has a margin of error of ±6.2%.