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Daily Digest: 10/30/07 [UPDATE]

BY Joshua Levy | Tuesday, October 30 2007

The Web on the Candidates

  • The New York Times’ Katherine Seelye profiles two online ventures — one new-ish, the other yet to be launched — that are trying to change the way politics is covered. One is Off The Bus, which is already making good use of distributed journalism techniques, drawing on the help of dozens of volunteers to produce multi-faceted stories. The other is Scoop08, a soon-to-be-released site that will cover the election with the help of over 300 student journalists. Its advisory board includes folks like Frank Rich of the New York Times, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, and even Joe Lieberman. Both projects are brimming with idealism; let’s hope it stays that way.

  • The Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas confirms that there will indeed be a Republican CNN/YouTube debate. It will be held on Nov. 28 in St. Petersburg, Florida, but so far Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have yet join in. TechRepublican had confirmed this a couple of months ago, and back then David All had written that Mitt may in fact join in. Kevin Madden, Romney’s press secretary, told All that Mitt “just isn’t in a position, yet, to say ‘yes.’” So what is it now Mitt? Will we see you in Florida? I hear it’s too hot for snowmen down there. [UPDATE] A press release from CNN confirms that ALL of the GOP candidates -- including Giuliani and Romney -- will be participating.

  • Is Stephen Colbert’s continued popularity on Facebook a slap in the face to other “legitimate” candidates, or are we comparing apples to oranges? Jose Antionio Vargas gets both sides. “Colbert is entertainment and entertainment always outrates politics. People want to be entertained. That’s all this means,” Michael Cornfield told Vargas. But many viewers trust Colbert more than the new media and politicians he skewers, complicating what it means to “friend” him on Facebook. The 2008 race and the web gets weirder…

  • For their Candidate Challenge, Why Tuesday is asking the candidates to respond to questions about election reform on video by the end of the month. Jacob Soboroff has been busy hunting down the candidates in Iowa and elsewhere, and yesterday he posted the first video: a response from Ron Paul (who else?). He also got Barack Obama to respond by catching him at the MySpace/MTV event, and has caught up with Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo. Alas, Fred Thompson turned the group down. Come on Fred? Why do we vote on Tuesday?

The Candidates on the Web

  • Barack Obama participated in the second MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue yesterday, and the word on the street is that he was a hit. Although I wasn’t the only one to experience technical glitches that prevented me from watching online. Jose Antonio Vargas also had a hard time viewing the event, it seems others watched without a hitch. Obama was asked the top question from 10Questions.com, about net neutrality, and netizens were pleased that he offered his unqualified support for the issue. Now that we’ve had two Democrats participate, let’s see some Republicans in the online hot seat!

In Case You Missed It…

Yesterday I liveblogged Barack Obama’s appearance in the second MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue. Unfortunately, I could view the video (my computer just wouldn’t do it). But I could listen, and vote.

10Questions.com traffic surged over the weekend, ever since we announced that the top question as of yesterday morning would be asked of Senator Barack Obama during yesterday’s live MySpace/MTV dialogue. Participation on 10Questions.com surged, with the total number of voters topping 15,000 (that’s up about 9,000 from Friday), the total number of votes hitting 46,000 (up 19,000) and the total unique visits for the weekend at 17,000, more than ten times Friday’s traffic.

News Briefs

RSS Feed friday >

Google to Charlie Rangel: You Are Dead to Me.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) might be facing particularly challenging reelection odds this year, at least acording to Google: based on its new Knowledge Graph interface, the search engine says that the very-much-alive Congressman died on November 20, 2004, as Colin Campbell first reported for Politicker via Azi Paybarah and Anthony Adragna. GO

friday >

Roemer to Americans Elect: Thanks Anyway

Americans Elect announced recently that it would suspend its online candidate selection process, leaving organizations in several states with an open slot on the ballot. Naturally, potential candidate Buddy Roemer is not enthused. "I am taking the next few days to review with supporters how best to proceed from here," he says. GO

Chris Anderson Says That Nixed TED Talk Was Rated "Mediocre," Links To It Anyway

TED's Chris Anderson responds to criticism of how his idea-spreading operation handled a talk about inequality — and posts video of the talk online. GO

Was the "Ricketts"/Fred Davis Obama-Wright Ad Pitch a Good Deal?

As if the content of the now-discarded plan for a new Super PAC-funded attack campaign against President Barack Obama wasn't controversial enough to grab attention — it would revive attempts to link President Obama to the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright just before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention this summer — the now-discarded plan featured a two-page pitch for a pricey social media component meant to boost its exposure. GO

Facebook's Growing Political Importance, Visualized

To commemorate Facebook's impending IPO, the Sunlight Foundation's* reporting group has a new story chronicling Facebook's increasing political spending. Accompanying the story, though, is an instance of their Capitol Words tool that shows Facebook's increasing relevance in Congress as well. GO

TED: Some Seattle Billionaires Have 'Ideas Worth Spreading'; Some Don't

A year ago, Microsoft mega-billionaire Bill Gates gave a talk at TED about state budgets and education funding, entitled "How state budgets are breaking US schools." It was an attack on state budgeting practices. All but one of the fifty states are supposed to balance their budget, but Gates argued that most states used gimmicks "that ... GO

Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

GO

CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.

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