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Research into how the Obama and Romney campaigns used Twitter during the presidential election shows not only has the news cycle been compressed by a factor of ten, but the media echo chamber is also alive and well
Controversial internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is getting to take his political ambitions to stateside. Dotcom announced on Twitter Monday that his Internet Party is going to launch in the United States in 2015.
Tinder for politicians isn’t a terrible new Silicon Valley startup — it’s actually an exercise in editorial creativity. But will it work?
Nate Silver and his ilk have proven they can predict elections with high accuracy, so maybe it’s time to move on from focusing on the forecasts. I know Republicans will likely control Congress come January, but now I need to know what that means.
Mozilla’s new CEO Brendan Eich has officially resigned in the wake of protests over his support for a ban on gay marriage.
The move comes after heightening tension between the U.S. and Russia over the country’s aggressive actions toward Ukraine. Astronauts on the International Space Station will still work together.
Monday was a rough day for ridesharing companies in Seattle, as Geekwire reports that the city council voted to approve a cap…
No matter what you think of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, you have to admit that he has a talent to rally the…
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/new-york-lawmaker-pushes-bill-to-thwart-phone-theft/?_r=0 In New York, it’s not uncommon for someone to get their phone snatched right out of his hands on the subway,…
Is Twitter ruining America by making it easy for politicians to create a bubble in which they only communicate with fans? Actually, the transparency and lack of filters has as many positive aspects as it does negative ones.
High-profile eSports participants are finally getting recognition from the government, in the the form of travel visas reserved for pro athletes.
The country of Estonia has released its pioneering e-voting system on GitHub, opening the doors for citizens to see how the process works — and for programmers to explore and try to break things.
Gun Geo Marker is a new app that allows users to call out “unsafe” gun owners on a map.
Unsure about how the global economy works? GED-VIZ is an interactive graphic that maps how money funnels in and out of different countries.
Andy Murray’s big Wimbledon win made history in sports and on social media, earning a spot on the list of events with the most Tweets per minute.
A controversial abortion bill was headed for passage by the Texas legislature, until a tweet helped kill it at the last minute.
New research suggests that a phenomenon called biased assimilation makes people view new, inconclusive evidence in ways that support existing biases, leading to increased polarization on topics such as politics or even what we read online.
Guess what, accurately predicting the outcomes of elections really isn’t a partisan affair. What Nate Silver and several others accomplished in perfectly predicting the election isn’t about finding data to support their desired outcomes. It’s about processing reams of imperfect data and figuring out what matters.
It’s one day before the presidential election, and the results from computer models and other data analyses are in, with most experts giving President Obama a higher probability of winning than challenger Mitt Romney. That’s no lock, however: while data doesn’t lie, models sometimes do.
Monday night’s third presidential debate is your last chance to see Obama and Romney duke it out in front of an audience of millions before election night. Our ultimate debate watching guide lists all the live streams, apps and fact checking feeds you need to know.
As election season heats up, the Pew Internet & America Life Project looks at how democrats and republicans compare in their social behavior online. The study found that two-thirds of U.S. social media users have taken one of eight political or civic actions with social media.
Live streams of the presidential debate? Check. Second screen apps that let you voice your opinion about either candidate’s performance? Got it. Live-teweeting fact-checkers? Of course. A debate drinking game? Cheers! Our ultimate guide to watching the second presidential debate got all your needs covered.
Campaigns have been profiling potential voters for decades, but the glut of data available online changed the game in terms of how much they collect and how it’s used. Now, thanks to complex models and real-time ad platforms, poltiical advertising is becoming a personal affair.
The debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney was the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history — but is the kind of real-time commentary and instant analysis that Twitter provides a good thing or a bad thing for the political process or society as a whole?
Although Twitter is pushing itself as a platform to gauge public opinion around popular events — including the upcoming presidential election — not everyone is buying the hype. Stats about sentiment and tweet velocity are certainly interesting, but man cannot live on tweet data alone.
Yahoo fired its former Washington bureau chief on Wednesday for a joking comment he made during a video broadcast from the Republican convention. Isn’t it about time we admitted that journalists have emotions and opinions, rather than expecting them to be impartial robots?
There has been a rush of fact-checking of recent comments made by Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, but does this mean the traditional media’s obsession with objectivity and the “view from nowhere” has changed? Not really — which is why more alternative sources are necessary.
The rise of social media tools such as blogs and Twitter have changed the political landscape, in part by speeding up the news cycle and broadening the range of sources that are available. But are these developments good or bad for the practice of political journalism?
Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul took to the podium at a Heritage Foundation event last week to talk about tech policy. However, individual rights and less government regulation certainly are important to the future of the internet, there are necessary limits to that freedom.
There’s so much data available and such powerful tools for analyzing it that the world might be a lot better off if politicians listened to the data first, rather than their parties or constituents. Already, data is showing ways to limit everything from traffic to AIDS.
Amy Howe used to think 3,000 live blog participants was a lot. Thursday, more than 500,000 users tuned into SCOTUSblog to find out how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on health care and what it meant.
PoliticIt is a Logan, Utah-based startup that uses machine learning to gauge the popularity of political candidates by measuring their digital influence. Its system has proven remarkably accurate in predicting winners, but its real promise is in leveling the playing field between political haves and have-nots.
How have blogs and Twitter and other forms of social media changed the nature of the political process and the media reporting of that process? At paidContent 2012, I talked with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about that question.
With each passing elections season, we’re seeing more how social media is changing the political news coverage business. It’s not just sped up the news cycle, but it’s helped kill it, said Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com, at paidContent2012.
Don’t worry about losing access to the 24-hour cable news networks when you cut the cord – plento of their content, and…
Politico has a great post Wednesday that details how folks in Washington are astonished Apple isn’t blanketing Capitol Hill with lobbyists and money. It goes against standard procedure in our nation’s capital, but as is well known in tech, Apple doesn’t tend to follow standard procedures
The Atlantic recently published an article on what politicans know about voters, complete with market research data that breaks down consumer preferences by poltical party and likely turnout on voting day. There are some strong associations that lack political explanations. I want to know why.
One of the most disruptive aspects of social media is that it allows newsmakers such as politicians to reach an audience directly, instead of going through traditional channels. This is changing the relationship between sources and the media not just in the U.S. but everywhere.
The federal government talked a lot about grand scientific visions when it unveiled its big data agenda last week, but the government has consumers on its mind, too. Specifically, it doesn’t want to unduly hinder innovation, and it might even be willing to provide data.
I thought it would be cool to be retweeted by the President, but it kind of sucked.
Social media are a great source of information on consumer sentiment, but the next wave of analytics in social media will be influence. It’s easy to ridicule your friends and co-workers who are actually concerned with their Klout scores, but this stuff matters.
Atlantic Media continues its push to remake its properties with a digital-first business model with the hiring of Jessica Perry as Digital V…
Time Magazine is offering some special content to Foursquare users who check in at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August or…
On Super Tuesday, when 10 states hold their presidential primaries and 419 delegates are up for grabs, the election trackers at Yahoo and Fizziology have Mitt Romney as the favorite to win the day. The day might not go as well for Rick Santorum.
The White House announced major privacy initiatives this week amidst a growing hubbub over how technology companies use consumers’ personal data. The news sheds light on both the privacy debate and on how the players involved are attempting to maintain political control of the issue…
According to a predictive analysis experiment by a Yahoo data scientist, U.S. voters can expect to see either a Mitt Romney-Chris Christie or a Newt Gingrich-Marco Rubio ticket to face off against Obama-Biden in this year’s presidential election, if his data is accurate.
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has drawn the ire of many tech industry leaders for its potential to squash innovation. GigaOM talked to O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly about why SOPA is wrong and what the tech industry can do to stop it.
The Indian government is reportedly looking to back around eight smart grid pilot projects in the country worth close to $100 million. The country will need an updated grid if it’s going to add 20 GW of utility-scale solar by 2020.
Missing Keith Olbermann during Countdown-less Iowa caucus coverage on Current TV? Olbermann tweeted that he’ll be back Wednesday night but t…
With a competitive primary and caucus season upon us for the 2012 Republican Presidential race (the Democratic race is uncontested with President Obama running for re-election), your iPhone could be a handy guide in helping you decide whom to vote for.
Dozens of floats, all made entirely from flowers and other organic materials, marching bands, cheerleaders and… Occupy protesters? This year’s Tournament of the Roses parade promises to be a little different. But no worries: Both the parade and the surrounding protests will be streamed online.
As it has done on its website, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) is experimenting with a mix of free and paid content through its standalone ne…
Another election year is nearly upon us, and if the past is any lesson, new uses of technology will impact the outcome in many new and unpredictable ways.
The YouTube videos of a police officer using pepper spray on peaceful UC Davis protesters have gone around the world. The incident was captured by dozens of cameras, as the Occupy protests have become the birth place of a new citizen video journalism.
The Senate failed to stop the network neutrality rules enacted by the FCC. But for anyone who watched the hearings or sees how the vote split completely along partisan lines, the vote is a reminder of how easily the folks in D.C. can stymie innovation.
This summer, Politico signed a deal with Random House to publish four instant e-books about the 2012 presidential campaign. Now Politico has…
As election season approaches, Random House’s Crown Publishing is teaming up with political website RealClearPolitics to publish a four-book…
YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) is launching a new politics site today that it hopes will offer a “holistic” view of the candidates on the campaign tri…
Building on his social media success in 2008, it looks like big data will be a driving force behind President Obama’s reelection campaign. To that end, his team is taking to the streets to find data scientists and engineers, including at an event Tuesday at Stanford.
Usually my e-mail from Starbucks (NSDQ: SBUX) is about the new reserve coffee or some other promo about the company’s products. But the mess…
National Journal, the politics and public policy publisher headquartered in Washington, D.C. and owned by the Atlantic Media Group, is looki…
When most people think about Google and Facebook, they think about California’s Silicon Valley. But according to newly filed disclosure documents, the tech industry’s titans are spending increasing amounts of time and money making their voices heard in Washington, D.C. Are they crossing the line?
The Internet has been called many things over the years, but even its most vocal supporters and critics might have been surprised…
YouTube will stream one of the final pre-primary debates between the GOP’s contenders to challenge President Obama online, and the site will once again let users participate by asking the candidates questions. It’s part of a bigger plan to ramp up election coverage on the site.
Patch, which has continued to grow rapidly in the wake of AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post earlier this year, is launching 33 hyperloca…
The Grand Old Party is keen to look a little less, well, old: Republican politician Newt Gingrich plans to officially announce his candidacy for President on Wednesday through messages posted on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, signaling a sea-change in how Republicans run for President.
As violence against pro-democracy demonstrators and other civilians is intensifying in Syria, YouTube is increasingly becoming the primary media outlet to learn about the situation in the country. Censorship against YouTube was lifted only two months ago, but now reports about phone network outages emerge.
It has been slammed in the past for being the Internet’s most powerful echo chamber, but now a team of researchers from the U.K. and Korea have found that active Twitter users are exposed to a wider diversity of political viewpoints.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is being criticized for his close links to Google ahead of the UK’s review of intellectual property laws. His ties are real — but may be just another case of British politicians being entranced by technology’s most powerful companies.
Late Monday afternoon, Arianna Huffington tweeted a picture from AOL (NYSE: AOL) headquarters with the note “Valentine’s Day transition meet…
Tim Armstrong, already the largest individual shareholder in AOL (NYSE: AOL) as well as chairman and CEO, nearly doubled his stake in the co…
One joke from President Obama, made two weeks ago during a press conference, has kicked off a national branded campaign led by a daily episodic web series, thanks to 7-Eleven and Happy Little Guillotine Films. Obama, however, holds the key to the show being a success.
The Washington Post will be hawking its election day coverage by buying a “promoted trend” on Twitter, marking the first time that a news co…
Just in case it wasn’t abundantly obvious to any of the 200,000-plus in attendance how serious he was about his message, Jon Stewart closed…
Tomorrow is a big day. The individuals we vote into office will have a tremendous effect on the connected issues of pulling out of this years-old economic funk and advancing IT policy. Certain proof points suggest a stark contrast in how parties approach this nexus.
The period after Labor Day marks the official start of the political season, so Fox News believes it’s the right time to introduce its first…
Where there’s an incredibly successful advertising campaign, there are the unavoidable imitators. Last month’s Old Spice social media domination meant that rip-offs of the Isaiah Mustafa ads were inevitable. And it’s a rare thing when the copy is as good as the original.
When Robert Allbritton put the money and power of Allbritton Communications behind a new DC political news site in 2007, no one knew what to…
Since the Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate spending on political candidates ads, media companies have been salivating over the…
The Huffington Post is making its second acquisition in less than a month, buying up poll aggregator Pollster.com from polling firm YouGov P…
Nate Silver’s popular political blog, FiveThirtyEight, is moving over to the NYT just in time for election season. Silver says in a blog pos…
YouTube’s You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit, announced today, will allow any politician to apply for a Politician Channel, engage with voters via the Moderator platform and use paid campaign tools “to reach viewers with political ads, just like on TV,” according to Google’s blog.
Yesterday, a Israeli raid against an aid flotilla left 10 dead and 30 wounded, and public opinion on both sides of the incident is being shaped in part by YouTube, thanks to video of the incident providing different perspectives of what happened.
It doesn’t get much more surreal than this. I’m headed north from Miami on the second deck of the Tri-Rail train using an AT&T (NYSE: T) 3G…
While some web workers have made a niche for themselves by working exclusively with organizations representing one political point of view, most of us don’t have that option. And quite frankly, I’d get bored talking about the same issues, and presenting the same point of view.
Confirmed: The companies have confirmed the acquisition in a release. Bloggers Ed Morrissey and AllahPundit will join the new company, and t…
Several broadcast companies that reported earnings in the past few weeks have pointed out that TV station revenues were down due to the lack…
There’s one other big event going on today — a presentation of the state (as opposed to the slate, as Microsoft’s Lewis Shepherd helpfully…
With $3 million in venture-capital funding in the bank and 21 full-time reporters on its masthead, Tucker Carlson’s political news site, The…
The juggernaut called Politico keeps on rolling, nevermind the recession, thank you. And some changes in company structure may hint at what…
President Obama sent text messages to his supporters during the election, and now he’s preparing to send messages to all citizens regarding…
The government is working on “drastically amending” the Press and Registration of Books Act of 1867, which regulates the print media in the…
If you have a war chest of $16 billion to throw at TV and print advertising, you don’t need to mess around with piddly little banner ads, ri…
Updated: The Daily Caller, the Huffington Post-style political news site being set up by right wing pundit Tucker Carlson and former Dick Ch…
Left-leaning political blog Talking Points Memo (TPM) is losing its deputy publisher, Andrew Golis. Golis is headed over to Yahoo (NSDQ: YHO…
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is alienating its member companies with a hard-line stance it’s taken against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)…
The origins of Labor Day, which takes place the first Monday of September in North America, are somewhat uncertain. The holiday originated…
Polling firm Rasmussen Reports has received a “major growth capital investment” from media private equity firm Noson Lawen Partners. The com…
In Pakistan, it turns out, if you forward an SMS joke about President Asif Ali Zardari, you’ll have little to laugh about for 14 years. Paki…
The founders of SpinSpotter.com, a now-defunct website that let users flag cases of “bias” and “spin” on the internet, are trying anew with…
While online video coverage of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing is unlikely to drive the same spikes in traffic as…
When Al Gore-backed progressive, creative TV channel Current launched in 2005, the idea was to run on-air the best user-submitted videos fro…
It’s no easy feat to win approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee ahead of schedule. But that’s what the climate…
President Obama will give a news conference this evening to mark his first 100 days in office (ed. note: 100 days?! Dang,…
Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) and CNN have surveyed CNN’s online audience and found that of those people with mobile internet 56 percent access onli…
Updated: Click here for links to webcasts of Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address. Technically, President Obama’s speech tomorrow night isn’t…
Cellphone coverage during the inauguration was spotty and text messages arrived sometimes an hour after they were sent during today’s inaugu…
— The Orchard (NSDQ: ORCD) Moves Into Japan: The Orchard has formed a strategic alliance with Japanese company Avex, which is the key share…
There were two standout mobile events in 2008: The Beijing Olympics and the presidential election — in the latter, text was a critical comp…
UPDATED After we posted a story about a possible delay in the DTV transition earlier today, President-elect Obama’s transition team asked Congress…
Several of the mobile ad-technology companies that powered campaigns for Barack Obama are now using his success as a way to sell others on u…
Well, it certainly eliminates the problem of hanging chads. Starting with its 2011 election, the Estonian Parliament will allow citizens to…
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) this week published its annual prison census, which puts the spotlight on imprisoned journalists from around…
Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) issued a statement today that acknowledged some of its employees accessed the personal cell phone account of Pre…
Silicon Valley electric car startup Tesla Motors has applied for about $400 million of a $25 billion government loan package designed to…
BlackBerry may be losing at least one more high-profile user, but this time it’s not due to the competition. President-elect Barack Obama ha…
Change is on its way to the alphabet agencies with media, telecom, tech and internet oversight — but it’s taking two tracks. While the Obam…
There’s no question that between viral hits such as “Yes We Can” and his dramatic speech on race, YouTube helped President-elect Barack…
A day after the election, names are already being floated as to who will likely be on the president-elect’s transition team, including advis…
Yesterday, we wrote about the Twitter Vote Report which was a site built by volunteer developers to allow voters to provide live updates on…
In the final month leading up to the election, the Obama campaign used mobile advertising to target the youth demographic and voters in key…
In a critical day for the wireless industry, the FCC made three sweeping decisions today, pushing through two mergers and the approval of th…
The 2008 presidential vote may go down in history as being the first mobile-friendly elections of all time. You might argue that it started…
Tomorrow, no matter who wins the presidential election, there’s one group that will definitely be in a sad state — the intrepid…
Hey, that John McCain can be funny! And (shocker) Tina Fey came back for another show. The QVC bit was pretty good.…
Oh wait. Zach Braff wants me to vote. Let me rescue my mail-in ballot from the recycle bin then. Sigh. The one…
A new study from Compete and Cisco sheds light on exactly how U.S. voters were using online video and how that video was impacting how people followed the election.
Even though it is 18 days before the election, Barack Obama’s use of text messaging is already being held up as a successful way to reach ou…
The McCain campaign yesterday asked YouTube to reconsider its takedown policies out of frustration that its official videos have repeatedly been taken down by the site due to copyright claims by media companies. It asked for the side to “commit to a full legal review” upon receipt of takedown notices pertaining to videos posted by political candidates and campaigns.
Video interviews by confrontational Barack Obama supporters at John McCain rallies are shooting up the YouTube charts.
There’s growing concern that public opinion polls, which do not include cellphones aren’t accurate because of the rising number of younger p…
Online video has played a big part in this presidential election, but candidate Barack Obama has upped the ante by releasing a new short film through YouTube called KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis today (it’s also available at keatingeconomics.com).
This political cycle has seen an incredibly innovative use of online video, but they can’t all be winners. The latest Get Out…
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom sat down for a chat with YouTube co-founder Steve Chen last night to discuss the role of…
The job title of Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom John Edwards finally admitted to having an affair, keeps changing, from videographer…
I’m stunned to be asking myself this question, but here goes: “Do I have to like Paris Hilton now?” The “celebutard” is…
Speed, detail, taking risks, and just having a camera or five rolling have been key to Barack Obama’s success at engaging people…
With Gordon Brown‘s fiscal reputation following Dubya‘s own battered rep into a swirling black hole of oil prices and crunchy credit, it’s…
Hooray, it’s the Weekend of Women! As of this writing on Sunday afternoon, it looks like the Sex and the City movie…
Show me a circa-2008 satiric political web video, and I’ll show you well-meaning liberal media makers who, more likely than not, haven’t…
The Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal offers tips about talking politics in the workplace, including “If you do want to share your opinions,…
