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Daily Digest: 4/25/07

BY Joshua Levy | Wednesday, April 25 2007

The Web on the Candidates

  • MySpace and Mark Burnett (producer of TV shows like Rock Star: INXS) are working together on a new reality show that will search for an independent presidential candidate. "Contestants in the show, set to launch in early 2008, will meet the public and interact with supporters, protesters and others. An interactive 'town hall' will give MySpace users and TV viewers a chance to rate their performance." The show is still looking to partner with a network, though something -- I don't know, intuition maybe -- tells me that Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace will ultimately find a partnership with Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox...
  • A bipartisan alliance has signed a petition asking the Republican and Democratic National Committees "To Ensure All Presidential Debate Video Can Be Legally Put On Sites Like YouTube." The petition was started by Stanford professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig, and it seeks to make certain that all debate footage (which would be officially owned by the networks on which the debates appear) be put into the public domain or licensed as "Creative Commons," Lessig's alternative copyright vision. It was signed by the who's who of tech/politics, including techPresident's own Micah Sifry. See the post for the complete list.

The Candidates on the Web

  • Hillary Clinton had an appearance in the comments thread of firedoglake to discuss equal pay issues in honor of Equal Pay Day. She stuck to her talking points about equal pay, abortion, Alberto Gonzales, and the strength of the Democratic Party, and none of the commenters asked her for hard answers ("I found it discouraging that the questions here turned into the softballs we rip on the Press Pool for asking," one commenter wrote). Nonetheless it was a positive gesture toward the netroots from Clinton.
  • Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore is formally entering the race for President today, entering a crowded Republican field and a race that promises a steep uphill climb. According the Richmond Times-Dispatch, while other GOP candidates raised millions in the first quarter, Gilmore raised $175,000. He'll make the announcement at 1 p.m. today in Des Moines, Iowa, and the event will be webcast. I'd link to his web site but he doesn't appear to have one. Oh boy.
  • To coincide with his "announcement" that he is running for president (didn't we know that already?), John McCain has redesigned his web site, thankfully doing away with some of the dark grays and blacks that were earning Darth Vader references across the web, though the site retains a generally funereal feel. Todd Zeigler at the Bivings Report gives it a quick look and decides that, while the new use of color and the use of more text is good, it's too cluttered. And while McCain's picture used to be all over the place on his site, it's "strangely absent from the top half of the site. We’ve gone from having too many pictures of the candidate to having none at all 'above the fold.'" McCain has also launched an official campaign blog, written by Christian Ferry.

In Case You Missed It…

Online Prez Debate Could Breathe New Relevancy into Tired Format
by Jack McEnany
Will new technology fuel a new kind of presidential debate?

John McCain launches official blog
by David All
John McCain launched his official blog this morning.

How Can Public Broadcasting Make a Real Difference in Election 2008
by Steve Garfield

Andy Carvin wrote from the NPR annual membership meeting about the role of public broadcasting in the 2008 election.

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.

GO

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