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Judging Foursquare-dom's Election Day Performance

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, November 3 2010

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Facebook's a Cloudy Crystal Ball

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, November 3 2010

So, as the dust settles, a question emerges: how good a predictor of electoral success is a candidate's tally of Facebook admirers? A pretty good one, suggests Facebook's DC-based political operation in a hint at some ... Read More

Photo of the Day

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, November 3 2010

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Facebook as Virtual Polling Place

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

As midnight strikes on the east coast, one final check-in on Facebook's "I Vote" button reveals that the tally has topped 11.7 million. Read More

More Facebook Users Have Already "I Voted" Today Than in '08

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

As of a few moments ago, more than 6.2 million people had clicked on Facebook's "I Voted" button for election day 2010. Read More

A Rainbow of Poll Closing Times

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

Image credit: DavidNYC/The Swing State Project Read More

WaPo Buys the #Election

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

First off, did you know that people can buy trending topics on Twitter? Right, yes, me too. Read More

WaPo's Tumulty and NatJo's Davis Talk Social Media

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

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The Election According to Foursquare

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

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DNC Drops Millions on Online Mobilization Ads

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, November 1 2010

The Democratic National Committee says that it's put a healthy $2.5 million on online ads in the homestretch, reports Ben Smith: A DNC spokeswoman, Lynda Tran, says the committee has launched a giant, last-minute online ... Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed today >

Japanese PM Thinks His People Just Don't Understand The State Secrecy Bill

In spite of objections from human rights activists and members of the media around the world, Japan's upper chamber made the controversial State Secrecy Protection Bill law in a “raucous, late-night session” last Friday, December 6, Reuters reports. The House of Representatives passed the bill on November 26. Under the new law, state employees could be jailed for up to 10 years if they leak secrets, and journalists could be jailed for up to five if they use “grossly inappropriate” tactics to uncover state secrets. The passage of the bill has sparked uncharacteristically large protests in a country where protesters have often been considered a part of the political fringe.

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friday >

Twitter Angling For More International Users

Twitter is following Facebook and Google's lead in creating an avenue for feature phone users to access their service, even without an Internet connection. They have partnered with the Singapore-based company U2opia Mobile, Reuters reports.

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thursday >

Pakistanis Show Their Love For YouTube in Vimeo Video

Although YouTube (the website) has been banned in Pakistan for more than a year now, that didn't keep YouTube (the mascot) from walking the streets of Karachi last month, asking for hugs from Pakistanis who want the video sharing site back. The self-described citizens resistance forum Pakistan for All filmed the stunt as part of their #KholoBC campaign, which opposes Internet censorship and content regulation by the government.

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wednesday >

Examining Russia's Censorship Record

Russia wants to protect children. That is their excuse for a law that gives them the power to selectively censor Internet content. Information about homosexuality or suicide, which Russia refers to as propaganda, are among the banned subjects deemed harmful to children. Earlier this year a Russian prosecutor asked a court to block the website Pobedish.ru (“you win”), part of the suicide prevention resource group Perezhit.ru, which incorporates input from psychologists, psychiatrists, forensic experts and the clergy. Because that makes sense.

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Ruck.us Dies Down; Yet Another Political Social Network Goes Bust

For two years now, Ruck.us, the political social network start-up founded by political scions Nathan Dasche (aka Abu Tom, former Senate majority leader), and Raymond Glendening (aka Abu Parris, former Maryland governor) has gotten an unearned and adoring press from the usual places. But today, it's announcing a pivot, away from being a political social network for independent voters, and toward being a digital toolkit for political candidates. GO

In Ottawa, Open Data App Competition Mysteriously Disappears

Shortly after the city of Ottawa released their new smartphone traffic navigation app in mid-November, the negative reviews started to pour in: users reported bugs logging in and bemoaned a lack of features. It was a disappointing product all around, but especially so when one considered that it cost the city roughly $95,000. Then the Ottawa Citizen revealed that the city had considered sponsoring an open data competition, but ultimately chose to give the massive contract to a Toronto company.

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tuesday >

Citizen Journalists Take On Rape And Domestic Violence

In August I wrote about a citizen journalism project in India called CGNet Swara, which residents of the central Indian state Chhattisgarh were using as a kind of government watchdog/accountability site. Since then, reports per day have nearly doubled, up to 400 a day, and a Global Post story highlights how the tool is being used by women to combat rampant rape and domestic violence.

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NYC Unveils Sandy Funding Tracking Portal Amid Calls for Transparency

New York City on Monday unveiled the first iteration of an online platform designed to track the city's dissemination of federal disaster recovery and resilience funds in connection with the aftermath from Superstorm Sandy. While advocates expressed concerns that not enough of the data was available in a disaggregated, accessible and downloadable format, city officials told techPresident they are working to make as much underlying data available as they could through New York City's Open Data portal. GO

2013 Corruption Perception Index Is In And It's Not Pretty

Transparency International just released their Corruption Perceptions Index 2013, and the prognosis is not looking good. Of the 177 ranked countries, more than two-thirds scored less than 50 out of a max score of 100. Not a one got a perfect score, with Denmark and New Zealand tying for first with scores of 91. On the other end of the spectrum, Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia squeaked out measly eights.

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