Politics junkies in the U.S. are focusing rabidly on today's special election in the Massachusetts Senate race, but it's worth noting that Haiti is still garnering much more attention online. Here's the Trendistic chart comparing tweets using the words "Haiti," "#MASen" (the generic hashtag for the race), "Scott Brown" and "Martha Coakley":

And here's a similar comparison using Google Insight for Search:

Who are we? What are we thinking about or responding to or passionate about or interested in? On October 21, 2009, I gave a talk to NPR Weekend Edition and Digital staff, during their staff retreat. The topic was "Navigating the World Live Web." My goal was to look at how we can tell new kinds of stories from the intentional and unintentional data streams being created by millions of users of the internet. Or, to use Paul Simon's memorable phrase, "the way we look to us all." Here's the video:

With the House about to vote on the Democratic health care bill tomorrow, I thought it would be interesting to check in on the pulse of the online debate over health care reform. This is of course an unscientific look at the public zeitgeist, but the popularity of certain key words on Twitter suggests that the tide has turned and anti-heath reform rhetoric has peaked, or at least isn't spreading.

Take a look at this trendline from Trendistic, looking at three terms: "obamacare", "public option" and "hcr". The first is used often by opponents of the Democrats' plans; public option is the battle-cry of the progressive base; and "hcr" is a generic tag that is mostly used by supporters of the Democratic mainstream.

The August peak on the chart is from the height of the townhall battles; the September peaks are from President Obama's joint address to Congress and more recent highpoints in the movement of legislation (the Baucus bill drop, etc). As you can see, the "Obamacare" meme has gotten weaker, not stronger, from its peak in the summer months.

The political world is buzzing today with condolences and reminiscences of Senator Edward Kennedy, and we here at PdF add our respects.

It's going to be an interesting day to watch how the live web reacts to the news and shapes its importance. Here's what I'm seeing so far...