A Twitter interview must have sounded great to all involved at first blush — Everyone’s talking bout this Twitter! We gotta get in on this! — but if they’d given it any thought, they’d would realize it’s pointless: Twitter is a great broadcast system, but a lousy tool for one-to-one communication.

So conducting an interview using Twitter is like eating soup with a fork. You can do it if you really want. but there’s no reason to do so.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the transcript, which you’re supposed to read from the bottom up. But if you read it from the top down, it’s just as valuable.

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos Thanks a lot george, let’s do it again soon. now i look forward to reading our followers comments and insults.2 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Thanks for your time Senator.You’re a good sport I know I’m not getting anymore on Coulter and Ingraham Happy St Pat’s again4 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others.5 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos I’m proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions.9 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Lots of twitterers want to know: what do you think of Meghans’s feud with Coulter and Ingraham?10 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos too early to draw that conclusion.13 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohMcCain Cheney said on CNN that Obama putting US at risk of new terror attack Agree?16 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos both. the challenges are different but both significant.17 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain What worries you more: Pakistan or Iran?18 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos I’m working with others on alternatives – cong paul ryan has some great ideas.19 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Take point on 1st AIG bailout How about budget? Will you offer alternative?19 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos to follow up – first AIG bailout was pre-tarp.21 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Obama says GOP can’t “just say no” on budget Will you offer a full alternative to Obama budget?22 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCaini voted for first tarp but that doesn’t mean i voted to bail out AIG.24 minutes ago from web

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain RIght, but didn’t you vote for first TARP, which went to AIG?26 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos i haven’t seen it but i would explore every option. i repeat, we wouldn’t have this problem if we hadn’t bailed them out35 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain ok, but today: should bonus contracts be broken? Dodd wants a targeted tax on bonuses OK with that?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos i would have never bailed out AIG, the real scandal is billions to foreign banks.38 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain AIG: Would a President McCain break bonus contracts? Obama teams says that would cause more harm than good

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos Happy St. Patrick’s day – slow, sometimes pc somtimes bb41 minutes ago from web in reply to GStephanopoulos

SenJohnMcCainHappy St. Patricks day43 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCainboth, usually pc sometimes bb.43 minutes ago from web

SenJohnMcCainhi george im a little slowabout 1 hour ago from web

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Happy St Patrick’s Day! First things first: How do u tweet — dictate or type? Blackberry or pc?about 1 hour ago from web

GStephanopoulosFinal call for McCain questions. Interview at noon. You can follow on abcnews.com Go to This Week pageabout 1 hour ago from web

[Image credit: soggydan]

But you don’t care about that. You’d like to know about the relationship between the former presidential candidate and his 42-year-old daughter from his first marriage, who works in rock and roll. OK. We can oblige. Neither EMI nor the McCain campaign spent much time talking about the link during the campaign, for what I imagine are sensible reasons. But it wasn’t a secret, either.

A quick Google search, for instance, will get you write-ups in the New Yorker (circa 2000) and the New York Times (2007):

New Yorker:

In recent weeks, while John McCain has been defending himself against accusations of ill temper, Sid, who is a senior publicity director at Capitol Records, has been overseeing the winter press campaign for the rock band Megadeth. ‘If I ever have to have Secret Service,’ she said the other day, they’d better be ready for a lot of late nights.’… ‘We’ve all experienced his “quick” temper,’ she continued. ‘He’ll snap at you, but it never lasts more than a minute. And he’s much better than he used to be. Now he softens it with humor. When I was a kid, it would be “Damn it, if I have to tell you to sweep that driveway one more time!”’… John McCain recently got a taste of his daughter’s professional life when she escorted him to the MTV Video Music Awards…. The Senator returned for an interview at the music network the other day. He avoided the boxers-or-briefs issue, but he did say he would consider inviting Nine Inch Nails to his inaugural.”

NYT:

His relationship with Sidney…is perhaps the most politically interesting. Sidney, a registered Democrat until recently, has worked in the music business for years, and was the child who challenged Mr. McCain’s authority the most. She continues to debate him on a wide variety of issues.

‘Sidney is a character,’ [former McCain staffer Grants Woods] said. ‘I think she stretched him a lot. When I was hanging around John, his favorite movie was “Gigi.” Sidney has been very involved in the entertainment industry and taken him to the award shows even though her interests have been quite divergent from his. He is very close to her as well.’

By many accounts, Mr. McCain’s daughters were the most resistant to his authority. ‘I was the boundary pusher,’ Sidney said. ‘In high school I was very rebellious. I needed to look at all sides. At least he would hear me out.’”

Here’s the promotion email from EMI, which doesn’t happen to mention Sid’s father:

Sid McCain has been appointed as Vice President, Label Services, North America, EMI Music, part of EMI’s Music Services unit. In this role, Sid will report to Dominic Pandiscia, GM, Label Services. She will draw upon her significant music industry experience and relationships to work with the labels within Caroline and a growing roster of EMI’s distributed independent labels. She will also drive our effort to offer EMI’s unique one-stop global capabilities for distribution, marketing, promotion and digital resources to new independent label partners and artists who want to reach a worldwide marketplace.

Most recently, Sid was a marketing consultant at EMI Music Canada, where she oversaw campaigns for EMI’s distributed labels in that territory, which included Curb, Labworks SideOne Dummy, Stereo Dynamite and Century Media. She also liaised with EMI’s territories on behalf of EMI Music Canada artists including Pride Tiger, Skye Sweetnam, Alpha Galates and Jesse Cook.

Prior to EMI, Sid held a number of senior posts at V2 Records, including as General Manager of V2 Records in Canada from 2003-2007 and as Head of Media for V2 Records in America from 1999-2003. While there, she worked closely with artists including The White Stripes, Raconteurs, Moby, Stereophonics, Ray Davies and Paul Weller. She also worked in media positions at EMI’s Capitol Records, Arista and Columbia Records.”

That was fast.

The recent resurgence of "Saturday Night Live," spurred by Republican VP candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her comic doppelgänger, Tina Fey, may already be over.

How do I know? Well, there's the gut check--I watched most of Saturday's show, which didn't feature Palin or Fey, and it was a snoozer (the absence of new mom Amy Poehler probably didn't help either).

But we can also gauge the reaction of Internet users, thanks to the good folks at TubeMogul, a small start-up that specializes in tracking Web video views.

While SNL's sketches this season have become watercooler hits in both legal form (NBC.com, Hulu) and not-so legal form (YouTube), this weekend's show isn't making an impact, at least so far: TubeMogul says YouTube users are only trying to post SNL clips at the rate of about one per hour, since the show aired Saturday night.

That's down from an average of about six per hour for the other shows SNL has aired this season.

Could it be that NBC--owned by GE (GE)--is just doing an extra-zealous job of keeping illegal copies of its clips off of a video site owned by Google (GOOG)? Mmmmmmaybe.

But probably not: Last Thursday's SNL special, which featured not only Tina Fey, but also show veteran Will Ferrell as President George W. Bush, was a huge YouTube hit, generating 9.5 videos per hour and 1.85 million views in 24 hours.

Meanwhile NBC.com's own data confirm that this weekend's show fell flat: The site says the two political clips posted below have generated a mere 460,000 views since Saturday.

Compare that to Thursday's showstopper, currently at 1.5 million and counting.

I'd bet the remainder of our 401(k) that SNL's staff and cast are going to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama next month.

But the bean counters behind the show are obviously rooting for the ticket of Sen. John McCain and Palin.