January 31, 2005
Diebold Engineers Finally Open Voting Machine, Find Printer
Contributing Editor Bob Pyke passed this on:
Diebold Election Systems said last week that it has finally completed the design for a printer that would give its much criticized e-voting machines a paper trail. Why it took them so long to do this is beyond me, especially since the machines already had printers in them. "[Diebold's] machines already have printers," Georgia poll worker Jed Rothwell wrote in an e-mail published last year by PBS columnist Robert Cringely. "They produce a paper receipt at the end of the day showing the vote tallies. The printers are the kind used in cash registers, and they have large rolls of paper that would easily last through the 12 hours the polls remain open. It takes people about a minute to cast a ballot, so one machine would need to print at most 720 receipts per day. The printer and paper are located on the right side of the machine, under a locked metal cover. It would be a simple matter to fabricate a new metal equipment cover with an outlet above the printer, that would print a receipt for the voter."
Thanks Bob.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 28, 2005
Killing Me Softly With His Blog
Typing my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his blog,
Killing me softly with his words,
Killing me softly with his blog.
- If only Roberta Flack lived in Blogistan
It's SuperBlog Sunday in Iraq this weekend, and as expected it's upcoming election has been the hottest topic in the Political Blogoshpere all week. Although much of the online debate has hovered around the expected voter turnout, a heated dispute between to popular bloggers has also attracted a good deal of attention.
The quarrel began Wednesday when bloggers Eric Alterman and Jeff Jarvis met on MSNBC to talk about the Iraqi elections and blogs. While on the show, Alterman suggested that two Iraqi bloggers might have CIA ties. Jarvis took great offense to the comment, citing Alterman's inability to provide any facts as "amoral" and "rumormongering." The row carried over onto their respective blogs where other bloggers picked up on the debate, spreading the arguement to main pages everywhere.
Jarvis On Alterman
Alterman On Jarvis
PoliticsOnline published a Special Report Wednesday on the Iraq Elections and the Internet. We highly recommend reading it. We'll also be monitoring Iraqi blogs on Sunday, and some more than others, such as Friends of Democracy and Iraq Dispatches.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
Iraq Election Online
Internet Allows Inside Look At Iraq, But Aids Iraqis
Little
The Internet is great for discussing the Iraqi election, unless of course
you're an Iraqi
Interest High, Penetration Low
With the Iraqi election just days away, one might expect Iraqis to be
surfing the Internet in search of the latest news and information on
hopeful candidates. They're not. And although PoliticsOnline's Chief Iraqi
researcher is on Holiday, we're pretty darn sure it's not just the failure to
understand Arabic that draws us to this conclusion. It's not that Iraqis to do
not wish to have an online voice or find more information, it just that
with an Internet penetration of little more than 0.01% the nation is simply not
connected. Even so, there are signs of a very fast
acceptance.
Population
27,139,200 Internet
Usage in Dec. 2000
12,500 Internet
Usage in Sept. 2004
25,000 Use
Growth (2000-2004)
100% Internet
Penetration (% Pop.)
0.1%
Iraq
Online - Internet Usage
Astonishingly, a little more than five years ago ordinary Iraqis did not
have even access to the Internet. Although Saddam Hussein's regime certainly
censored the information on the Internet, the main reason is an UN-imposed trade
sanction that made it impossible to import the necessary technical equipment.
At
the turn of the 21st century the government began allowing Iraqis to
go online through a state-run Internet Service Provider. The
first Internet cafe opened in July 2000 where Iraqis could surf the web for
about 25 US cents per session, according to Radio Netherlands. By 2003, there were around 60
cafes. And for the few Iraqis with disposable income, they could receive the
Internet at home for about US $25 for three months, with an additional charge
for each e-mail message. A locally built computer cost around US$600.
Two
Sides To Iraq's Internet - The Positive
While very few Iraqis use the Internet, those who do have made a
significant impact, both positive and negative. Iraq the Model is one such
positive example, and is arguably the most widely known Iraqi weblog, according
to the BBC.
The blog is ran by three Iraqi brothers who recently became the unlikely
setting for a huge web spat
after conspiracy theorists alleged the brothers were phony. Though tangled up in false claims, the
blogs popularity enabled two of the brothers, Omar and Mohammed, to attend a
blogging conference at Harvard University in the US, and they even met President
George W Bush. The online support has also encouraged the brothers to run for
office, and even raise campaign funds online through their Party
website.
|
“On the
Internet, no one knows you're a Kurd. No one knows you're Shia or Sunni. No one
knows your name or where you live. And in Iraq, that means no one can kill you
or threaten you with any realistic menace for expressing a political
opinion. ” NewsDay Correspondent Matthew McAllester |
It's a great story of politicians using the Internet to campaign, but
it's most likely the only online Iraqi campaign story this election
season. The online audience is so low Iraqi candidates are not using the
Internet, and really do not have many other options to campaign apart from using
traditional media outlets. Campaigning on foot is too dangerous.
Newsday Iraq Correspondent Matthew McAllester writes,
"the level of intimidation and intolerance for the opinion of others is so great
that there is almost no public political discourse, even during the last days of
the election campaign."
McAllester also notes that the debate is usually primitive for the Iraqis
that do get involved in political discourse, suggesting that it's "partly
because Iraqis have been given few solid issues to debate by their would-be
leaders."
Though Iraqi blogs are small potatoes in the blogosphere, talk of the
Iraqi election has been the topic de jour for many popular English language
blogs for weeks. The online debate gives a clear indication that the world is
very interested in the Iraqi elections. A look at the BBC's online coverage
gives a glimpse of how curious the rest of the globe is about the elections. One
popular new feature on the BBC website is a global
E-survey on the Iraqi elections that has attracted thousands of respondents
from all over the world. The tool allows visitors to take a survey in their own
language (7 to chose from) with the ability to post comments throughout the
series of questions. The survey results are then instantly available providing
much more rich information than traditional surveys, with comparison features
that break the survey down by age, region, sex, etc. Comments are also
translated to every language. For example, an English speaker in Australia can
not only know how Arabs responded to the survey, but also read his or her
thoughts about the questioned asked.
Full Disclosure: PoliticsOnline developed the
e-survey tools for the BBC in cooperation with a number of international
partners. We proudly continue to develop and host these interactive tools for
the BBC and other global media clients.
Iraqi Election Diatribes - A group blog
discussing many aspects of the Iraqi Electoral System BBC
Iraqi Election Log - Election diary of people inside Iraq, including
ordinary Iraqis, a U.S. officer and an American civilian contractor. Iraq The Model - Pro-U.S.
view from Iraqi brothers who are optimistic at President Bush's vision for their
country Free
Iraqi - A Liberal
Iraqi
and not just a liberal living in Baghdad Iraqi Blogger
Central - An
American Looks at Iraq and the Iraqi Bloggers Informed
Comment - Expertise
in the nuances of Iraqi politics authored by Michigan University History
Professor Juan Cole's War in Context - Posts
a daily menu of vital news from the U.S. and international media on the conflict
in Iraq Back to Iraq - TIME
stringer Christopher Albritton provides an excellent daily diary of his life and
work in Baghdad Baghdad Burning -
Daily blog of a young Iraqi woman overjoyed to be free of Saddam Hussein but
outraged by almost two years of occupation Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
- Unembedded independent journalist with an interesting blog
on Iraq Democracy In Iraq - A
blog by an Iraqi on the future of Iraq, an Iraqi who is excited about a new
democratic
Iraq
Iraq Blogs
Discussing The Election
It's A
World Wide War - The Negative
Though most Iraqi citizens do not use the internet for news and
information, terrorists and insurgents in the country are using it in an all out
campaign to tell the world of the terror it will bring on Election
Day.
Militants in hiding have been effective at using the web to broadcast
messages they hope will be picked up by mainstream media. The latest instance
took place on Tuesday when Militants in the Islamic Army in Iraq (a Sunni Muslim
group which has killed several foreign hostages and claimed a number of attacks
against U.S. and Iraqi targets) posted a statement on an Islamic website
promising to intensify attacks and urged other insurgents to take hostages to
disrupt the Jan. 30 poll. The statement was instantly amplified around the
world, when it was broadcast on mainstream television and radio, according to
the Turkish
Daily.
A
Soldiers Diary
As
US soldiers' presence grows in Iraq, their presence also grows online. Blogs
reporting from battle lines surged in popularity at the onset of the war, but
dissident blogs are now capturing more attention. A growing number of US Iraq
veterans are using the web to criticize the war efforts.
Operation Truth began with 5
members and now has 300 with an email list of 25,000 people, according to the
New York Times. The group focuses on day-to-day issues affecting soldiers. The
group conducted their most recent successful operation when Secretary of Defense
Donald H. Rumsfeld took questions from soldiers in Kuwait last month about
equipment shortages. In response, the website's readers sent 3,400 email
messages in 24 hours to members of Congress asking for hearings into the issue.
Iraq Veterans Against the War is a similar
group that started in July with 8 people and now has more than 150 members. Iraq
Vet's are seeking a quick withdrawal from Iraq.
Military Blogs have often presented a problem for military brass
because information posted in the online diaries could be used against
them by insurgents, according to the Philadelphia
Inquirer. The Pentagon allows
blogging so long as authors do not disrupt discipline in their units, make
statements on behalf of commanders or the Army as a whole, or reveal operational
details that could aid attackers. If you don't believe the Pentagon is serious
just ask Maj. Michael Cohen whose blog was shut down. Cohen, a doctor with the
67th Combat Support Hospital unit, had chronicled the bloody aftermath of the
Dec. 21 mess-hall bombing in Mosul that killed 22. That account and 12 months of
other postings on his Web log, www.67cshdocs.com, were replaced with a
short notice: Levels above me have ordered, yes ORDERED, me to shut down
this website.
Blogs revealing information is a concern for the safety of soldiers, but
soldiers stepping over ethical boundaries is another concern. According to
Australia's Herald
Sun, the US Defense Department has been asked to investigate a website being
used by American soldiers to post grisly pictures of Iraqi war dead. The name of
the blog was not revealed.
A
Historic Moment Captured Online
The historic election will be held in Iraq on January 30, 2005. Though,
most Iraqis do not have the online elections resources provided to the rest of
the world, it's probably not their greatest concern as some risk lifea nd limb
just to take part in a free election. But regardless, if anything happens
(good or bad) you can bet that it will be mentioned first on the
web.
For the best online information on the Iraqi elections try these top
sites offering election coverage:
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
Boom
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
Some months ago, Advance.net president (and uber-blogger) Jeff Jarvis coined the term "exploding television" to describe the very different video distribution road ahead:
I don't think that network programming will die but I do think that the means of distributing it will no longer be locked into the old networks. That wouldn't happen if all we were seeing were the advent of an alternative pipe: the internet v. cable. What we will see at the same time is the growth of alternative content that will be produced at a MUCH lower cost, FAR better targeted to niche interests (the mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches), providing, as a whole, new competition to the old networks. The old networks and their programmers and advertisers will see that they can get BETTER distribution via the new, distributed network and consumers will DEMAND to get material that way -- because it puts them in control -- and so we will see the hegemony of the old, centralized network start to fall away and break apart: explode.
Needless to say, these developments are going to require those of us in politics to fundamentally rethink much, if not most, of what we do. And, as this story in today's LA Times on the new video search tools at Google and Yahoo makes clear, the time to start thinking is now.
EARLIER/RELATED: New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV (via your humble correspondent).
MORE: "What happens, for instance, if you search for some video of a place or an event and it turns out that the best stuff you find comes not from a network but from a talented individual? That changes everything...."
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 03:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 25, 2005
City Workers Take Complaints to the Web
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
According to the LA Daily News, a major city union in Los Angeles is using a new weblog to take its case against incumbent Mayor James Hahn directly to the voters:
In a sign of the Internet's growing influence in Los Angeles politics, a major city union Monday launched a Web site featuring anonymous comments and rumors, many taking direct aim at Mayor James Hahn.
The Engineers and Architects Association, which has endorsed Hahn challenger Antonio Villaraigosa, took its campaign to the Internet with the Web site www.blog-city-hall.squarespace.com....
Robert Aquino, executive director of the 9,000-member Engineers and Architects Association, said in a press release that the new site would provide a stronger voice for rank-and-file city employees.
"The information exchange and rumor mill among City Hall workers will never be replaced, but we believe this blog and others like it offer a means to articulate the concerns of this community without the consequence of political retribution," Aquino wrote.
LINK: Union mounts its own blog
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 05:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 21, 2005
Is Colin Powell A Mob-caster?
This picture was taken Thursday at Bush’s inauguration. Click on the picture and look closely at Powell who is a few feet ahead of Bush, on the right. It sure looks like he's mobcasting to me.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Digital Defiance - Inauguration To Be A Mob Scene
Internet Guru Andy Carvin has created a "mobcasting" blog for protesters planning to attend this week's Presidential inauguration in DC. His personal experiment in podcasting and mobile blogging can be found at http://bushprotest.blogspot.com.
From Carvin:
The site is set up so that anyone attending the protest can call a number on their telephone, leave a message and have it posted as an MP3 podcast on the site. For the same of experimental equity, I may set up a similar page for Bush supporters attending the event, but I haven't decided yet.
Some other digital defiance-taking place on Inauguration Day:
- RedefeatBush.com will retire the name ReDefeatBush, with the launch of Left.org, the new entity that will replace it. Creators will also debut a one-hour documentary on the counterinaugural that will have been filmed that day entitled "Left Up to Us." The video will be shown at (Dream DC's largest nightclub) and to a worldwide audience via the Internet.
- At the "Not One Damn Dime Day" website you can join efforts "with those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. "
Bush supporters also have a fair share of digital deference :
- Over 32,000 house parties nationwide have been organized through GOP.com's Party for the President page.
- The committee organizing US President George W. Bush's inauguration said on its official website, http://www.inaugural05.com/ , that as of Saturday over "25.5 million dollars in gifts from private citizens and businesses had been received as of January 14. Just in the past week, 27 individuals and 45 companies gave 7.7 million dollars."
- The YRNC chose inaguration week launch itsr new website - http://www.yrnc2005.com/, marking the beginning of our aggressive campaign to promote the next Young Republican National Convention held in Las Vegas Nevada from July 6 th to July 10th.
UPDATE: Jesse Gordon, Democratic activists in Cambridge Massachusetts and creator of NotOneDamnDime.com sent us this note
On our success: The huge press response to this boycott (200 articles this week, plus several dozen TV and radio appearances by our volunteers) indicates that the mainstream press has learned their lesson from their pre-war failure. We have succeeded in making our voices heard, and people are thinking about this protest and about future policy in the Iraq war.
Our purpose is to incite a more open debate on the Iraq war issue. In 2003 we had 5 million people on the streets in one worldwide rally on Feb. 15 -- and Bush dismissed it as "a focus group." So if he won't listen to millions at rallies, we'll use economic methods instead.
The "wisdom of the streets" at the anti-war rallies before teh Iraq War was to doubt the existence of WMDs and to doubt the al Qaeda-Saddam connection. I published an article saying that, but was by no means particularly insightful -- it was common wisdom. The mainstream press ignored that viewpoint, and the country suffered as a result, rushing headlong into a pointless war based on those two false premises. The Washington Post and NY Times both apologized on their editorial pages for their poor pre-war coverage.
We were proven right then, and we feel now that the voice of the millions of anti-war protestors should be heard again. We feel we're at a tipping point in Iraq -- if we continue along the current course, it will become another Vietnam. The Bush Administration needs to hear the wisdom of the anti-war street to avoid more suffering by US troops.
-- Jesse
Thank you Jesse. We'd love to hear from the other isle, if any Bush supporters want to comment.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
New Ideas
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
According to a recent press release, one candidate for mayor of Los Angeles is trying to use his campaign website as a magnet for new ideas to improve the city:
Bill Wyatt, a candidate for Los Angeles Mayor, has just launched a feature on his website that will pay the public in a contest format for ideas that will make the city better. The Bill Wyatt for Mayor campaign website is located at: www.BillyWyatt.com and the new Get-Paid-To-Play contest is located at: http://billywyatt.com/forum/
Through the internet Bill Wyatt hopes to promote individuals who may have great ideas, but do not have the time or ability to get those ideas into the bureaucratic process. By paying for the ideas Bill Wyatt hopes to parody the Pay-To-Play issue that has absorbed the downtown LA political scene and encourage regular citizens to forward ideas that will broaden the political debate. "I believe in the power of the individual citizen to have solutions to problems that political consultants and strategist may overlook", states Bill.
LINK: Los Angeles Mayoral Candidate, Bill Wyatt, Launches a Get-Paid-To-Play Idea Contest
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Vlogging The Norwegian Elections
The Liberal Party in Norway will soon launch their campaign ahead of Parliamentary elections later this year. They'll be using video weblogs -- I guess it's just the next evolutionary step, but it's a great example of new uses for blogs, etc.
Boyd also does a radio show for WGBH Public Radio. Click here to listen to his vlogging report, in which he discusses Norway’s vlog idea with the tech consultant who’s setting up the vlogs for the politicos.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 16, 2005
Too Hidebound Down Under?
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
Writing in The Age, University of Melbourne media lecturer Sally Young and political consultant Peter Chen argue that Australia's major political parties will have to fundamentally rethink their online strategies if they want to succeed on the Web:
[T]he main parties want complete control over the timing and content of material they're connected with. Softened up by television campaigning, with slogans crafted word-by-word with focus groups, the main Australian political parties are not interested in real interactivity....
Apart from the main parties, individual candidates are also hesitant to get online in Australia. While two-thirds of US congressional candidates produced their own websites as far back as 1998, in the recent federal election fewer than 40 per cent of ALP and Liberal candidates produced a personal website. If they did, their sites mirrored their party's site: lots of policy information and biographies, but little interactivity. Opinion polls, if they were included at all, used safe, bland questions that did not clash with the party line and most of these candidates, if sent an email, did not bother to reply.
In the US, with a different political system that focuses on individual candidates rather than the party, the picture is very different. Although still the home of televised political spin, outsiders have shaken the old consensus about how to win elections.
Jesse Ventura, professional wrestler turned Governor of Minnesota, propelled the Reform Party into the national spotlight by using the internet to recruit and organise online volunteers. In 2004, Howard Dean's meteoric rise from obscure governor to presidential hopeful rested strongly on his capacity to raise large numbers of small campaign contributions online.
The Americans are hooked on "social networking", getting campaign supporters to pass along online messages and calls for contributions to their friends and like-minded people. Supporters of John Kerry organised 40,000 volunteers online who walked their local streets, talking with voters and collecting information on palm pilots. In politics, information is power and it all helps to direct campaign strategies and work out how to target the key groups of voters and the most important local areas.
This reflects the irony of the internet, that for all its global reach, it is often most effective at organising grass-roots participation. So far this lesson has been lost on the Australian political parties. Fattened by public funding that pays for their election costs, there's no pressure for the parties to innovate significantly.
The rest is here.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 14, 2005
An Ethical Issue For Campaign Consultants?
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
Former Dean campaign official Zephyr Teachout set off a bit of a firestorm in the blogosphere yesterday over matters ethical when she wrote that the Dean campaign originally hired popular lefty bloggers Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MYDD as consultants "largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients. While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal." (Kos and Armstrong offer rather, uh, spirited responses here and here. And Teachout revises and extends here.)
Needless to say, the resulting uproar has been entertaining, if somewhat predictable, and you can follow it all by visiting this typically thorough roundup over at Memeorandum.
MORE: The Wall Street Journal weighs in on the story -- or nonstory, if you prefer -- here.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 13, 2005
Good Advice
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
In a blog post yesterday, nonprofit technology consultant Deborah Elizabeth Finn offered her readers two outstanding pieces of advice: (1) let someone else be the beta tester, and (2) you should alwa... Well, shucks. You'll just have to go read the second one for yourself.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 12, 2005
Tech Companies Can Save Lives
We interrupt your regularly scheduled iTunes house remix for this important information.
-- GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE! --
From BBC:
Motorola has just announced a deal with Apple to produce a phone that works with the iTunes service and other hybrid gadgets that sport a big memory and lots of other functions will become commonplace.
In light of the horrific tsunami tragedy, it might be a good idea for the two companies to research how their technology can be used to send out ‘early warning messages’ to customers who might be in harms way.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
eDemocrats and eDemocracy
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
In 1994, when that ... that ... Internet thing was just starting to enter the public consciousness in a major way (and PoliticsOnline was still mostly a gleam in Phil Noble's eye), the vast majority of Democratic party activists couldn't have spelled the DNC chairman's name if you'd spotted them the "Davi" and the "ilhelm." Today, virtually every major candidate for the job has a professionally produced website aimed squarely at the party's grassroots, and one (South Carolina native Donnie Fowler) has even started Podcasting to the masses, with the rest almost certain to follow.
That kind of change in only a decade isn't just remarkable, it's revolutionary. And you can bet that we'll be saying the same thing about the changes we're going to see in the next ten years. Because, as the online response to the humanitarian crisis in South Asia has now made clear to us all, this eDemocracy revolution is just getting started.
UPDATE/RELATED: Via Blogswarm, here's DNC hopeful Simon Rosenberg's nine-point plan to "blogify" the Democratic party.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
UN To Address Transparency Concerns With New Online Resource
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
According to this piece in today's Financial Times, the UN plans to "head off criticism that its [disaster relief] activities are unaccountable and lack transparency" by creating a new Internet tool that will allow people to follow the flow of money "from pledge to project."
Needless to say, that's a good idea. And one that other charitable institutions in the US and around the world might wish to consider.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
January 10, 2005
Rapid Response To The Tsunami
Posted by Bob Pyke Jr at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
And The Winner Is ... GovTrack.us
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
In November of last year, Technorati launched its first-ever Developers Contest, a competition designed to encourage programmers to create new and innovative uses for the company's massive real-time database of weblog postings. (At the time of this writing, Technorati reported that it was tracking the content of 5,790,155 blogs worldwide.) And when the winners were announced last Friday, the Grand Prize went to Penn grad student Joshua Tauberer's GovTrack.us, "a crossroads for data on the status of legislation, the activities of representatives, campaign contributions and other statistics, and public commentary."
Congratulations, Joshua. And, just as important, thanks. As a result of your efforts, keeping an eye on the US Congress, and what citizen journalists around the world are saying about it, has never been easier.
POSTSCRIPT: Congratulations, too, to Aaron Swartz and Stefan Magdalinski, who were honored with runner up awards for PersonalDemocracy.com and Whitelabel.org, respectively.
And, while we're at it, let's not forget the competition's "nonpolitical" winners: Niall Kennedy for NetNewsWire RSS Cosmos, Timothy Appnel for XML::XOXO Perl Library, and Michael Dale for Touchgraph Integration.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
UK eGov: Challenges For 2005
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
Noting that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "reform agenda - and hence much of his election manifesto - is heavily dependent" on the success of his government's Internet and information technology initiatives, Computing lays out the five biggest challenges facing recently appointed head of egovernment Ian Watmore in 2005.
RELATED: Interview: head of egovernment Ian Watmore
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 04:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 08, 2005
Get Local
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
The Personal Democracy Forum is building a directory of state and local political blogs in the US. To learn more about the project, or to recommend a site for inclusion, click here.
Via BuzzMachine.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 07, 2005
We're Bringing The Inauguration To You!
Guest: Bob Pyke
I recieved an in interesting e-mail In my in mailbox this morning from the RNC inviting me to a virtual inauguration party, where you invite all your friends to your house and have a part and watch the inaguration at home via the web.
I guess the advantage is not paying $20K for a pair of tickets and there won't be any fighting about who gets to sit next to Dick Chenney, Karl or Arnold and Maria?
Has anyone out there ever participated in one of these "House Parties" before?
Posted by Bob Pyke Jr at 02:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
January 06, 2005
eGovernment ... Or 'Just Politics'?
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
In Kingston, NY, the chairman of the local Republican party is asking a question that we're bound to see raised with increasing frequency as the eGov revolution moves forward; namely, when is a government website (like Freud's famous cigar) just a government website -- and when is it, well, something else entirely?
City GOP Chairman Richard Cahill Jr. objects to a push by Mayor James Sottile's administration to place what he views as campaigning by city lawmakers on a taxpayer-funded Internet Web site.
But Sottile and others, including Alderman Bill Reynolds, D-Ward 7, said this week the information that is being requested from Common Council members, the majority of whom are Democrats, is only to be used to inform residents.
During Monday night's Democrat caucus, City Clerk Kathy Janeczek distributed a memo by City Planner Suzanne Cahill, who oversees City Hall's Web site, asking lawmakers for information and photographs. The planner also asked for personal statements, committees lawmakers serve on, and current projects they are involved in.
"I believe that this would be a good tool for you to provide your constituents with information on your activities and positions on current topics," Suzanne Cahill wrote. She is not related to Richard Cahill Jr. The memo was originally distributed in June 2004, but there was little response.
Richard Cahill said the push smacks of using the Web site for campaign purposes at taxpayers' expense. The city pays NetStep Access Service $1,500 a month as its Internet provider and to update the Web site on a monthly basis.
"When they want to take credit for all the things they have supposedly done and the projects they are working on, and the work they have done in the wards, this is campaigning and that should not be paid for by taxpayers," Richard Cahill said. "This is an attempt to protect incumbencies."
LINK: GOP head criticizes Web use
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
The First 'New Media' Election
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
In today's Baltimore Sun, famed (or notorious, depending on your point of view) conservative activist Richard Viguerie and co-author David Franke "connect the dots" on what they say is the most important story of the year: "How 2004 was the first presidential election framed by the new and alternative media -- cable TV, talk radio, the Internet and political direct mail."
Here's a sampling of their dots:
- In 2004, for the first time, both parties were funded mostly by small donations. We estimate that 8 million Americans donated to some political cause or campaign.
- The Internet came of age as the fastest-growing source of news in America, including political and campaign news (Harris Poll, September 2004).
- On the conservative side, the dynamic trio of the blogosphere, talk radio and cable TV forced the mainstream media to cover issues they were trying to ignore, such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the documents in Dan Rather's 60 Minutes story about President Bush's National Guard service.
- On the liberal side of the Internet, the Howard Dean campaign resuscitated the corpse of the Democratic Party on the Iraq war issue.
Also, liberal bloggers became major fund-raisers for the party, the top ones raising more money than individual GOP "rangers." [Emph. added]
Interesting stuff. And you'll find the rest of it here (free reg. req'd).
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 04, 2005
Pew: Politics Drives Blog Growth In 2004
GUEST: Jack O'Toole
Hi, folks. My name is Jack O'Toole, and Buzz has asked me (along with some other fine ladies and gentlemen you'll be meeting soon) to join him in the daily task of keeping you up to date on all the latest happenings in the world of the Internet and politics. I can only say here at the outset that it's both a pleasure and a distinct honor to have been invited to play in Buzz's sandbox, and I sincerely hope that I'm able to hold up under the weight of his rather outsized expectations. (As I recall, said expectations were communicated in the form of a barked request along the lines of, "Geez, Jack, just start posting already, wouldja??!!" So you can see what I'm up against here....)
Anyway, let's get started, shall we?
According to a new study by the Pew Foundation, blog creation and readership grew sharply in the United States last year, primarily as a result of the hotly contested presidential race.
Twenty-seven percent of online adults in the United States said in November they read blogs, compared with 17 percent in a February survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project....
Earlier in the year [before the tsunami], politics was what drove readers to blogs.
Democrat Howard Dean embraced blogs early, allowing supporters from around the country to organize and talk about the campaign informally, without needing to clear remarks with campaign headquarters. Many bloggers who supported his campaign provided links for readers to easily make campaign contributions over the Internet.
Even after Dean's campaign fizzled, bloggers continued to pundit, and a handful were invited to cover the Democratic and Republican national conventions for the first time.
Time magazine even named its first Blog of the Year, crediting the Power Line blog created by three lawyers for challenging mainstream media and questioning the validity of documents behind a "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's National Guard service. CBS News anchor Dan Rather later apologized for airing the report.
"Blogs have been around for several years, but because of the coverage in the political campaign, a lot more people became aware of the idea of blogging and certainly went online to read blogs," Rainie said.
POSTSCRIPT: You'll find the Pew report available for download here.
MORE: Media exec (and blog guru) Jeff Jarvis has a typically insightful take on the subject.
Posted by Jack O'Toole at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
January 03, 2005
Tsunami Relief
Be careful donating out there in the wild wild web.
Man Charged In UK Tsunami Death Email Probe
Myths Run Wild In Blog Tsunami Debate
Posted by Buzz Webster at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
