Poetry of the Email Subject Line
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, May 23 2012
Micah Sifry discovers the unintentional poetry of email subject lines from Barack Obama's and Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns. Read More
PD+ This Thurs 1pm: Thriving Online With Howard Rheingold
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, May 22 2012
I'm really looking forward to talking with author Howard Rheingold this Thursday on the next PD+ teleconference. His new book, Net Smart, is a concise and thoughtful guide to understanding and making the most of the ... Read More
TED: Some Seattle Billionaires Have 'Ideas Worth Spreading'; Some Don't
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, May 17 2012
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 ... Read More
Online Organizing 2.0: How Change.org Found Its Groove (and Moved to the Center of Online Politics)
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, May 15 2012
For Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: How did Change.org, a political startup founded in 2007, finally find its groove? And what does its sudden emergence at the center of online politics mean for the future of advocacy? Read More
Americans Don't Elect to Use Americans Elect; 3rd Party Hits Wall?
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, May 14 2012
Is Americans Elect, the third ballot line cum party that hoped to use the Internet to nominate a centrist ticket for president in 2012 dead? It certainly looks that way. But before anyone starts writing the post-mortem, remember that it has ballot lines in half the states--and those could be used by renegade factions in 2012, or possibly in 2014 to run candidates for Congress. Read More
Quote of the Day: The Law of Bad Comment Threads
BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, May 11 2012
Remember: as the date for a national election approaches, the probability of a comments thread degenerating into a political back-and-forth regurgitating the same tired talking points approaches one.— "PubliustheLesser," From a comment thread at The Atlantic. Read More
[CALL - JOIN US]: Thursday, 1 p.m.: What Ad Targeting Is Doing to Democracy
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, May 2 2012
We all know how the Internet is enhancing the power of citizens to band together to take action around common causes. And these days you can hardly spend more than a few minutes online before you bump into some campaign led by consumers taking on a company, demanding changes and often getting them. But what if while all this is going on, a deeper power shift is under way that is quietly tilting the playing field towards anyone with the money and motive to manipulate web users by collecting all kinds of data about them and then assiduously targeting people in ways they're barely aware of? That's just one of the big questions I'm looking forward to covering on this Thursday's PDPlus call with Joseph Turow, author of the valuable new book, "The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth." RSVP here. Read More
The Rise of the Count(er) Culture: Notes on Transparency Camp 2012
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, April 30 2012
This year at Transparency Camp, not only did newly installed White House Chief Technology Office Todd Park give one of his trademark effusive speeches on the power of open data, it was easy to spot people from a variety of agencies including the Treasury Department, the FCC, EPA, NASA, the World Bank, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and Congress. Second, the people attending now spread far beyond the Beltway. About forty international transparency activists were on hand, some coming for their second year in a row. And lots of local governments and issue advocacy groups were represented, a sign that the idea of using tech and data to make government work better is spreading beyond the proverbial early adopter crowd. Read More
Editorial: #NewsFAIL, or How Big TV Media Doesn't Want Online Disclosure of Who Is Lining Their Pockets
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, April 26 2012
Tomorrow, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposed rule that would require broadcasters to post online their "public file," a list of all the political ads that run on their channels, who bought them, and what they paid. The rule would also enable the agency to build a central website compiling all the data in an easy-to-search portal. Right now you have to literally visit each TV station in person to access the paper records. If you are one of those news junkies or open government advocates who follow transparency issues carefully, you already know about this measure. But guess who isn't covering this issue. Read More
Coming Up Thursday: PD+ Call with Chris Soghoian on Online Privacy
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, April 23 2012
“If Chris Soghoian points out a technology-related privacy problem, then it should probably be taken seriously,” Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff attorney at San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently told Wired magazine. “Nobody else is doing what Chris does—at least not at his level.”
Indeed, that's why this Thursday's PD+ call with Chris Soghoian on how to protect your privacy online should be really eye-opening.
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