Congress on Web 2.0 – FAIL (so far)

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Senator Kerry and Congressman Markey, I have gifts for you.

I know, it’s awkward for someone in the media to give members of Congress things – but it’s the least I could do, and your Twitter names are free, anyway.

This all started with a segment idea to talk about the new Senate and House channels on YouTube. The site this week launched its House and Senate channels, at youtube.com/househub and youtube.com/senatehub, where your Congressional delegation can post their own videos – and many, well actually not that many, of them have done that.

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Barackberrygate… and the kids making change.gov

November 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

So, I discussed White House communications today on NECN – including whether Barack Obama should have a Blackberry. He really wants one. He even told Barbara Walters that. But it’s still up in the air because of security and legal concerns.

Maybe I’m slow, but I don’t quite get it. It’s easy to save every “I <3 change” e-mail, SMS or IM he sends or receives – and from a security standpoint, if it’s good enough for all the members of Congress, and all the President’s staff – one would think there would be a way to make the Blackberry secure enough for the future Commander-in-Chief.

If not – that’s troubling to me in many ways.

What else is troubling? The fact that every now and then I realize just how badly people less than half my age are kicking my tech butt. (Heck, there are probably kids out there a quarter of my age who can kick it, too, but I choose not to think about that.) Take IntenseDebate. The company is providing the commenting infrastructure for change.gov. And as Micah Sifry points out, one of the four developers who made this platform possible is 17.

I’d send a quick Blackberry message to Barack Obama noting that the administration needs to help get older people more effectively plugged in to technology. But he might not be allowed to get it.

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Obama ‘Change.gov’ site is now up and running

November 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Shortly after receiving a boatload of crap for having a 401 message up for their new citizen involvement, the office of the President-Elect has launched Change.gov, the Obama-Biden administration’s effort to grab as many ideas from the people as possible, taking the concept of ‘Open Government’ to its natural next step from a campaign that was driven by grassroots involvement.

The initial centerpiece of the site (much of which is still being built out) is a section called ‘The American Moment’. Clicking there bring up this message:

The story of the campaign and this historic moment has been your story. It is about the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose. The story of bringing this country together as a healed and united nation will be led by President-Elect Obama, but written by you. The millions of you who built this campaign from the ground up, and echoed your call for the change you wanted to see implemented by the Obama Administration – this process of setting up that new government is about you.

This transition is about selecting a new staff and agenda that will help reclaim the American dream and bring about positive lasting change to this country. In order to do that, we want to hear from you.

Tell us your story and the issues that matter most to you. Share with us your concerns and hopes. – the policies you want to see carried out in the next four years.

I look forward to seeing the sharing – this could actually be a very powerful section of the site.

A service-driven component, “America Serves” is just a paragraph of Obama platform text, with the assumption that more will come.

And under everyone’s favorite header: jobs (all four letters of it), there’s an initial application form, with the promise that candidates will later receive an email through which they can access a more complete application.

Keep an eye on the site – I have a feeling there will be more coming.

Filed Under: Politics, Random Thoughts Tagged With: , ,

Change you can believe in… well, soon.

November 6, 2008 By 2 Comments

After two days where I was bumped off the morning program here because of time concerns – and oh, yes, I did give the producers a hard time for deciding that the campaign news didn’t need to include the ‘Net (since there wasn’t much going on there, right?) – I was back today to check out the new Obama-Biden Transition Team website, change.gov.

So far – it’s a 401 error I can believe in. But I’m looking forward to it – and if the new administration can figure out how to tap into the grassroots online energy of the campaign, we are on the cusp of a watershed moment in political history. (Notice the gesturing in the thumbnail here. *That’s* how important this is. No kidding around…)

But that is one heck of an ‘if.’

And I had to note that the First Dog is getting more selection feedback in the blogosphere than the new Chief of Staff, and give proper props to the New Hampshire State Senate, the first majority-female legislative body in U.S. history.

I’m feeling a need to make change – not just report on it… which will segway segue into my next post/assignment for you all.

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Vote early – everyone else is…

October 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment

So this morning, I took time on-air to talk about early voting. I had to after seeing this picture from the New York Times of supermarket voting in Nevada – groceries, slots and voting machines all in one shot. It was fabulous.

And more people were voting than playing slots, which was heartening to see for my belief in democracy.

The numbers are impressive, and since the story went up on NECN, they have grown more so. Professor Michael McCormick at George Mason Universityreports that in Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee, among others, have already sailed past the early voting numbers for 2004 – and by the time it’s over – it’s estimated a third of the voters in the U.S. will have cast their ballots.

Here’s the clip from this morning.

In New England, without a true swing state and with just two no-excuse-needed early voting states (Maine and Vermont), we aren’t getting the full experience.

I for one, voted absentee, since work will keep me out of my town all day on Election Day. It was kind of fun, but a little anticlimactic, since I didn’t get to spell my name 11 times to the precinct clerk or get the cheesy little ‘I Voted’ sticker.

That saddens me a bit. But let’s face it, when it comes to voting, New England is behind the convenience curve.

Oh – another good place to keep up with the early voters? Reed College, where the Early Voting Information Center has switched from ‘How to?’ to ‘How’s it going?’ mode.

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The Angry Left? Wait until November 5 (maybe)

October 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 07: People watch Re...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I talked about this today on NECN.com, but there were some technical issues, so you just have to deal with a print version. It’s no surprise that liberals are more active than conservatives on the blogosphere, given the nature of the Obama campaign – but a couple of stats in the new survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press jumped out at me.

The survey finds that liberals and conservatives are actively following the campaign – liberals are twice as likely to be engaged in the blogosphere. But that’s just the beginning.

The survey found that self-described liberals were more than two-and-a-half times as likely as conservatives to have donated to a Presidential campaign (and I’m guessing not John McCain). In fact, 34 percent of them had donated. Think about that. One-in-three liberals have *given money* to the Democrats. Compare that with the 13 percent of conservatives who have given to Republican presidential campaigns.

Suddenly that $150 million September for Obama makes more sense.

Of course, where there is passion, there can also be disappointment. If John McCain is right and he can pull off a November surprise – he’ll get to see that “Angry Left” that conservatives have discussed in the campaign.

Pew found that while about 80 percent of McCain an Obama supporters say they’ll be “disappointed” if their candidate doesn’t win – 37 percent of Obama supporters say they’ll be “angry”, and 33 percent say they will be “depressed.” Just 18 percent of McCain’s backers will be “angry”, and 17 percent will be “depressed.”

I know what I’ll be after this campaign and a late night next Tuesday – exhausted.

Filed Under: Journalism, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Want to watch? Election Day ways to report poll issues

October 23, 2008 By 2 Comments

So, we have 12 days left until Election Day. Truth is, I’m not sure if I’ll miss it. But with 12 days and counting until the election, and early voting already underway, a number of places on the web are working to use technology to keep an eye on the polling places.

One of my favorite sites (thanks to Steve Garfield for pointing me there a while back), techpresident.com, is working to organize a feed system on Twitter for voters and pollwatchers to tweet their concerns, so they can be followed up.

TechPresident is working with a number of non-partisan pollwatching organizations to set this up, and there is a programmer "jam session" Friday for anyone who wants to help crank out some code for the effort.

That Twitter plan will join a vast array of other information sharing available – one I’ll be curious about is the PBS/YouTube effort to get voters to videotape their poll efforts at Video Your Vote.

Of course, laws about videotaping at the polls vary widely by state – so if the concept of taping at the polls intrigues you, take a trip to the Citizen Media Law Project, based at Harvard. The project has compiled a list of suggestions and applicable state laws.

UPDATE: Steve Garfield has already gotten all the information you could need on other voter videos efforts on his blog, as well as getting the official word from Massachusetts on what you can and cannot do video-wise in your polling place. Kudos as always. Click here to check it out.

All in all, there’s a lot of ways to watch what’s happening. I’m hoping it won’t generate weeks of follow-up — but I have a feeling, we’ll be reviewing this election for some time to come.

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Vote. It feels good. Oh, and eBay bans ivory trade

October 21, 2008 By Leave a Comment
eBay Inc.

Image via Wikipedia

My segment this morning, which I am just getting to posting now, focuses on eBay. But first, I have to say I just colored in the ovals on my absentee ballot. And it felt great. Look, I live in Massachusetts – I could vote for McCain, Obama, Colin Powell or Mickey Mouse and my Presidential ballot wouldn’t make a lick of difference. But, it still was fun to color in the bubbles and all that. (I vote absentee, by the way because election night will be all hands on deck from 7am-midnight, and darn it, I want to vote.)

Vote – it does a body good.

So, then there was ebay – I focused this morning on eBay’s decision to ban ivory products from its auctions – after a report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare found thousands of ivory and other wildlife items of somewhat questionable origins on the site. Good for IFAW, good for eBay.

Here, just watch it below:

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Weekend grab bag – debate chats, and the Sox win Game 7 if…

October 19, 2008 By Leave a Comment

So, I have been a little lax over the past few days – between being busy, getting bumped off my NECN slot on Thursday (I’ll be back on Monday) and then taking a weekend in Maine where I actually got a chance to breathe and relax, I have neglected the Yankee 2.0 faithful. But I have been thinking about you.

So, a few things. First, an overdue thank you to the people who helped with and took part in our chat around Obama-McCain 3: “The Wrath of Bob”. Steve Safran joined me to co-moderate a debate discussion and livestream from Hofstra that was both fun to do and really interesting. After a couple of little issues with integrating Mogulus and CoverItLive, we just kept them separate, and people were able to watch a kick-ass livestream and comment, take polls, and all that on NECN.com. In short, both platforms did what they were supposed to do – video and chat – wonderfully, and the audience (a few hundred who came into the chat), were well-behaved, thoughtful and at times more interesting than the debate itself.

We may try the same for the Mass. Senate debate Monday night and the N.H. Senate debate on Tuesday night.

I do have to note that we are wicked busy with webstreams this week. We’ll livestream the Kerry-Beatty debate on Monday at 8pm, the Shaheen-Sununu debate on Tuesday at 8pm, and then the NH 1st and 2nd district debates which we recorded with NH Public TV will air simultaneously on NECN and NECN.com on Wednesday and Thursday at 2pm.

Next – let’s talk Sox. You went to bed, didn’t you? That’s OK. You didn’t miss much. And it was funny. I commented before the game that I felt like I did in 2004. I didn’t feel in my head that the Sox could turn it around, but in my heart, I just couldn’t quite not watch. So I stayed up. I said I’d watch the bottom of the 6th, and that ended so fast, I decided to stay up for the 7th.

From then, of course, it was all in.

And Saturday’s game was interesting, because Beckett didn’t pitch great, but there was a different feeling. He didn’t make the *big* mistakes. And every time the Rays scored, the Sox answered, which was a very different feel from Game 2. The team that successfully comes from behind has the momentum in these situations, and gains the confidence. In game 2 – the Sox took leads, and the Rays came back. Last night, the Rays took the leads, and the Sox came back.

If Jon Lester shows up tonight – and the Sox don’t have to press like they did in games 3, 4 and even game 5 (when they went down early), we’ll be back in Boston for some cold weather baseball. My prediction: If the Sox are within a run after 4 innings, they will win this game.

There’s more I should discuss, but I think that’s the next post.

Filed Under: Politics, Sports Tagged With: , , ,

NECN Live debate stream and discussion tonight

October 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

So, we’re pulling out more stops tonight on NECN.com – I’ll be using Mogulus and CoverItLive to get our livestream and discussion tonight up and running from tonight’s debate at Hofstra University. Here’s hoping it all works swimmingly. Also, if you feel the need to do something good – please note that it’s Blog Action Day, with a hope that we can all work together to help eliminate poverty worldwide.

After we fix that, maybe we can fix the Red Sox and Patriots.

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