No, President Obama won’t be restricted to 140-character answers at today’s Twitter forum. In fact, Obama can speak for as long as he wants as he fields questions from Twitter users during the event at 2 p.m. today at the White House.

The event is supposed to be devoted to jobs and the economy, through tweets to the hashtag #AskObama cover issues ranging from Afghanistan and education to the quality of school lunches and whether to legalize marijuana.

The goal is “to try and find new opportunities to connect with Americans throughout the country,” said Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House. “The focus is to bring in a lot of new perspectives.”

Jack Dorsey, the founder and executive chairman of Twitter, will moderate the event, condensing thousands of tweets into specific, individual questions.

The town-hall-style forum is only the latest foray into social media from a White House that has long cultivated a presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

In previous months, Obama has conducted similar forums, using both Facebook and YouTube.

Communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the outreach is being done in recognition of “a different information age,” one in which many people are bypassing traditional media and “getting their information in different ways, from difference sources.”

Radian6, a company that will analyze the questions at the White House forum, reported that recent studies show that “financial security” is indeed an issue of intense interest to Twitter users, along with “national protection.”

Saying it has analyzed 1.2 million tweets over the past eight weeks, Radian6 reported that “the economy is as big a conversation on Twitter as Osama bin Laden.”

Some other conclusions, according to Radian6:

• News of the raid on Osama bin Laden caused the single biggest spike in sustained conversation in Twitter history.

• Obama’s speeches drive significant conversation on Twitter.

• Men tweet about politics slightly more than women.

The official White House Twitter account has more than 2 million followers; officials said 30 selected followers will attend the Twitter forum.

“They’ll also be tweeting about what they’re seeing,” Phillips said.

(Source: USA Today)