Personal Democracy Plus Our premium content network. LEARN MORE You are not logged in. LOG IN NOW >

Daily Digest: Eat, Sleep, Watch the Convention

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, August 26 2008

The Web on the Candidates

  • That's a Third of a Day!: Poynter's Al Thompkins asks the WashingtonPost.com's Jim Brady and Chet Rhodes who they're aiming to attract with their seven hours of live video coverage of this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver -- especially at a time when the conventional wisdom is that political conventions are outdated, outmoded, and irrelevant. The WashingtonPost.com's experiment involves the contributions of bloggers including BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis and and Crooks and Liars John Amato. The Posties report that cheaper and more mobile tech tools (not to mention the willingness of bloggers to work for free) lower the need to justify such extensive coverage. #

  • Follow the Bloggers: Some 125 bloggers where credentialed by the Democratic National Committee to serve as press during the convo, and the web development firm EchoDitto has helpfully packaged an OPML file containing the feeds from each of their blogs. Pop that file into a feed reader like Google Reader or NewsGator and you'll have instant access to all that great DNC coverage. #

  • Post Cam Captures Protests: The Denver Post is operating a live web down at Civic Center, where protestors are gathering around this week's convention, and last night PdF's Micah Sifry wondered whether there were more people watching the protests online (some 1,400 viewers, in his estimation) than were gathered on-the-ground. Public Enemy is scheduled to perform today, so their appearance might attract a few more protestors and online eyeballs. #

The Candidates on the Web

  • Behind the Scenes with Mrs. Obama: After Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, the Obama campaign quickly posted a video showing the wife of the Democratic candidate as she prepped for her big moment. As with her prime time speech, the aim of the video was to show Michelle as approachable and relatable. It might be working: the 1:35 video been viewed nearly 50,000 times as of this afternoon. #

  • The Text Heard 'Round the World: GigaOm, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR all have a go at the meaning and message of the SMS sent out by the Obama campaign last week announcing his choice of running mate. Related: BusinessWeek's Auren Hoffman has a look at how Obama plans to use social tools to actually put a "W" in the Democrats' column come November. #

  • It's Been XX Days Since Our Last Freudian Slip: In non-DNC news -- we might have Chris Dodd's web team to thank for this. The Connecticut senator's online shop pioneered the use of the Debate Clock back in the Democratic primaries to mark how much air time their candidate received. And now the Republican National Committee has launched the Biden Gaffe Clock to chart supposed slips by Barack Obama's new running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden. The first "gaffe" marked on the clock: Biden's calling the Democratic candidate "Barack America" during his campaign kickoff speech. #

TechCongress and Beyond

  • Ask the Leggislator: While in Denver for the DNC, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be taking part in a Digg Dialogg. How does it work? Simple! Anyone can submit a question, and the top rated ones will be asked of Pelosi by Digg CEO Jay Adelson at the DNC tomorrow in a recorded session. The top question right now? With 828 diggs, it's one asking Pelosi to go on record on net neutrality. #

In Case You Missed It...

Steve Garfield tracks the online video of Michelle Obama's speech in Denver last night. And Kate Kaye asks if it's really wise for radio ads paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign to show up alongside some questionable content.

 

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

"Power Politics in the Age of Google"

TechPresident's editorial director, Micah Sifry, will be speaking this afternoon on a panel at Harvard University called "Power Politics in the Age of Google," alongside Susan Crawford, Nicco Mele, Elaine Kamarck and Alexis Ohanian. The panel will be moderated by Harvard Shorenstein Center Director Alex Jones, and will be live-streamed here. GO

House Republicans Get a Jump on the Budget

Via Politico's Mike Allen, the House Republicans are out with a video — this one attributed to Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — getting the drop on President Barack Obama's next federal budget, expected Monday. GO

Mittbucks.com Lets Voters Compare Their Paychecks With Romney's

What would it take for Mitt Romney to be able to relate to the average American's daily economic life? He'd have to pay $1,208.09 for a gallon of gas, according to Mittbucks.com, a web site recently created by Adam Rosenscruggs and his wife Danielle in Washington, D.C. The eye-popping figure results from an annual income that I plugged in ... GO

What Twitter Won't Tell You About the Election

A new study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Tuesday offers the opportunity to get real about what the political conversation on Twitter and Facebook can — or can't — tell you about the progression of the 2012 political campaign. Pew has found that even among users of Twitter and Facebook, a paltry percentage of people use social networks to get news about politics: Only 24 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 25 percent of Facebook users said they "sometimes" got campaign news through that network, while a full 40 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 46 percent of other social media users reported "never" getting campaign news through either Twitter or Facebook. GO

Navigating New York's "Road Map for the Digital City," One Year In

In May 2011, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "Road Map for the Digital City," a plan to use technology to make city government more and participatory, and to leverage the city's tech sector for economic and civic gains.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne will join our editorial director, Micah Sifry, on a conference call this Friday afternoon to discuss the progress on that road map so far. The call is free and open to anyone to join. You can sign up here.

GO

tuesday >

Pete Hoekstra's Campaign Website's "Offensive" Source Code Changed After Outcry

As if "chop suey fonts" and obvious graphic allusions to the stereotype of the Chinese as the Yellow Peril weren't controversial enough, the group that created an incendiary microsite for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's campaign has managed to further fan the flames with what it's calling a mistake in its code. GO

Fidel Castro Loves the Internet

“The Internet is a revolutionary instrument that permits the receiving and transmission of ideas, in both directions, that is something we should know how to use,” Fidel Castro told a crowd of supporters on Feb. 4, according to the state-owned Cuban newspaper Granma International. Castro, who made his first public appearance since April 2011, launched his two-volume memoir, “Guerilla of Time,” and took the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to him. Earlier this week, Miranda Neubauer reported that one of these topics was the need for the Internet. Castro has been a proponent of the Internet as a tool for the exchange of ideas since 2003, but the average Cuban citizen faces great difficulty getting online. GO

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

More