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First POST: Transitions

BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, December 13 2012

Morning must-reads

  • More changes in WH open-gov land: White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Chris Vein is joining the World Bank.

    What this means for transparency advocates: One of Vein's responsibilities was to help push transparency goals across the U.S. government that were outlined in a plan the White House concocted in cooperation with transparency and open-government hawks as part of its obligations to the Open Government Partnership. The U.S. and Brazil led the OGP's first year, and the entire idea traces back to a challenge President Barack Obama issued before the U.N. General Assembly in 2010. Meanwhile, both the U.S. and another key transparency partner, the U.K., have lost top staff. Tim Kelsey, who was executive director of transparency and open data at the Cabinet Office, left to become national director for patients and information at the National Health Service. Vein himself is the second White House official to have this flavor of open government in his portfolio, following former White House Deputy CTO Beth Noveck. So — keep an eye on who picks up this dossier, if anyone does, in Obama's second term.

  • Smart and bold, or solutionism? An effort in Afghanistan proposes to use "mobile learning," or lessons taught via mobile phones, to teach Afghan women to read. The idea is that this will be an end-around to Afghan inhibitions against women leaving the home, and reduce the risks to women who want to become literate. For TechPresident's WeGov vertical, journalist and Afghanistan-watcher Naheed Mustafa writes that there isn't enough information about illiteracy in Afghanistan or about mobile learning to say with any certainty that this is a good idea. And mobile learning comes with its own set of problems — especially when people are trying to use it to overcome gender inequalities.

  • Cri de coeur: For Wired, Quinn Norton offers a "eulogy" for Occupy.

  • WCIT Watch: Delegates to WCIT agreed yesterday that the U.N. should take a more "active" role in shaping the Internet, Cnet reported, "and appeared to take the U.S. and Europe by surprise." Access Now, the Internet freedom group, also offered its analysis of the developments.

  • A former ITU chief policy maker called the organization "the most failed body in the history of international telecommunications," according to Cnet.

The year according to search and social media

  • Google has released its 2012 trends. "Election 2012" is #3 in top trending searches. "KONY 2012" is #10. "How to vote" was the #3 "How To" trending search, after "How to love" and "How to rock." "What is SOPA" is #1 in "What is" trending searches, with "What is KONY" at #3 and "What is Obamacare" at #7. Within News, "Big Bird," "47 Percent" and "Binders full of women" were the political gaffes with most trending interest, while top politicians were Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Barack Obama. Top trending election issues were abortion, gay marriage and immigration. Among the top trending "Donate" searches was "Donate to Obama" at #1 , "Donate to Romney" at #3 and "Donate to KONY" at #4. Top trending news sources were NBC News, FiveThirtyEight Blog and Chi Magazine. Google defines trending as "Search queries with the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011." In international searches, "What is ACTA" was a top trending "What is" search in Austria and Poland.

  • Facebook also released its 2012 year in review. Its top Politics related keywords are "Barack Obama," "Mitt Romney," "Voted" and "Four More Years." Obama and Romney were also the top public figures overall, beating out One Direction. SOPA was #7 in Techology keywords. The U.S. presidential election was the top event above the Super Bowl and the death of Whitney Houston, with the death of Trayvon Martin at #6 and Obama's gay marriage endorsement at #10. Within Memes, Kony was at #3 and Big Bird at #9. In France, Francois Hollande was the most discussed, above The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II.

Obama for America developer: Team Romney was biting our style

  • Kyle Rush from the Obama campaign has posted a lengthy piece that goes into technical detail about some aspects of the optimization and a/b testing that helped the campaign win. The campaign tested out a new donation form layout they called "Sequential," which replaced a long donation form with four smaller steps. Here's Rush:

    By turning the long donation form into 4 smaller steps we increased the conversion rate by more than 5%. Turns out you can get more users to the top of the mountain if you show them a gradual incline instead of a steep slope.

    We began a/b testing the first iteration of Sequential on July 26th, 2012 and it replaced our standard donation form on August 7th. After vigorous optimization we ended up with what would almost be the final version of Sequential on August 7th. On November 1st we were delighted to see that our friends at the Romney campaign liked it so much.

    Click through to Rush's blog for screenshots of the Romney donation page side-by-side with Obama for America's.

Because of course there are

Around the web

And now for something completely different

  • In a blog post regarding the legalization of marijuana in Washington state, the Seattle Police write that the "police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

International

News Briefs

RSS Feed tuesday >

Honda Campaign Rolls Out Endorsements From Asian American Stars

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) rolled out several additional endorsements from Asian American leaders and celebrities Tuesday, with one of them vouching for his high-tech bona fides. GO

Here Are The People President Obama Hopes Will Repair American Elections

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration established by President Obama after problematic 2012 elections now has a web presence at SupporttheVoter.gov. Obama established the commission by executive order on March 28 "to identify best practices in election administration and to make recommendations to improve the voting experience." GO

After Oklahoma Disaster, Neighbors Look Online for Ways To Help

In echoes of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast, social media sites and small business websites in and around tornado-wracked Moore, Okla., are full of offers of help, questions about missing pets and loved ones, and evidence that neighbors are willing to reach out to help one another in a disaster. On a single Facebook group, there's a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma City promising free meals to first responders or people hit by the tornado; a mother a few hours' drive from Moore offering to open her door for children who might need a place to stay; a resident sharing a picture of a found dog and contact information for the owner to get in touch. GO

Change.org Lands $15 Million From Omidyar

Change.org capped an extraordinary few years of growth Tuesday with the announcement that it has landed a $15 million investment led by the Omidyar Network. GO

What German Politicians Think of Google Glass

The German government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel has not had the easiest relationship with Google. The company launched a public campaign against a law backed by her coalition that would require search engines to pay to show news articles in search results, with mixed results. What's more, Google has long had to navigate the privacy waters in Germany and throughout the European Union. But that has not stopped her federal minister for economics and technology, Philipp Rösler, from giving Google Glass an enthusiastic test run as he leads a delegation of German technology companies and politicians on a trip to Silicon Valley this week as part of German Valley Week. GO

Crowdsourcing Waste Management Solutions in Montenegro

For once we aren't talking about the worldwide scarcity of toilets, just good old-fashioned household waste. Montenegro has a garbage problem so bad even the tourists are complaining about it. A new mobile app sponsored by the Agency for Environmental Protection, NGO Ozon and United Nations Development Programme in Montenegro will hopefully get citizens involved in reporting illegal garbage dumps. GO

monday >

Her Majesty's Government Wants to Monetize Open Data

A new paper from the chair of the U.K. government's Open Strategy Board outlines the best practices for the government's open data policies. The government-commissioned Shakespeare Review – after author Stephan Shakespeare – looks into ways to monetize open data, and recommends an all-encompassing National Data Strategy.

GO

Will Silicon Valley "Disrupt" Politics With a Candidate for Congress?

Sean Parker, of Napster fame and now executive general partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, has invested in political startups before. But last week, he went a step further — co-hosting a fundraising event for a candidate for Congress. Parker and SV Angel co-founder Ron Conway organized a crowd of Internet industry luminaries to support Ro Khanna, a former assistant deputy secretary in Barack Obama's Commerce Department. Khanna is preparing a challenge to Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), whose newly redrawn congressional district encompasses Silicon Valley. GO

Burma's Upcoming Telecom Revolution Will Probably Not Bring Internet Freedom

Burma (Myanmar) is on the threshold of an Internet revolution, but Human Rights Watch has warned companies to proceed with caution or risk trampling Burmese citizens' rights. GO

friday >

Chilean Anti-Corruption Resource: A Crowdsourced Database of Social and Political Connections

In countries where a small minority of social circles have a majority of the political and economic power, personal relationships can affect major decision-making, a serious concern of anti-corruption activists. A new web platform stores personal profiles of key players in Chilean business and politics, complete with biographies and personal and professional connections through family, education, social circles, employers and coworkers, to make tracking social relationships and conflict-of-interest easier. Called Poderopedia (from the Spanish word for power), the project sounds kind of like LinkedIn, but the creation and management of profiles is being crowdsourced out to journalists, activists and concerned citizens.

GO

Middle Eastern Telecom Accused of Working With Saudi Arabia to Spy on Citizens

Mobily, an arm of the state-owned Middle Eastern telecom giant Etihad Etisalat, has been accused of working with Saudi Arabia to develop software that would allow the government to bypass protections for social media users. The exposé comes from Moxie Marlinspike (neé Matthew Rosenfield), an expert in a certain type of malicious Internet attack called MITM (man-in-the-middle), whereby attackers intercept and secretly alter private messages exchanged via email and other social media platforms. GO

Saudi Religious Leader Warns Twitter Users of Consequences in the Afterlife

In late March, Saudi Arabia's top religious cleric said Twitter was for clowns and corrupters. Earlier this week, he said anyone using social media, in particular Twitter, “has lost this world and the afterlife.” His comments might be laughable, if they did not come at a time when the Saudi government is looking into monitoring or blocking social media sites and eliminating user anonymity.

GO

thursday >

What The Other Silicon Valley Immigration Group Is Doing This Month

A bipartisan coalition of political advocacy, business and tech groups are moving ahead to launch a social media blitz next week designed to persuade members of the Senate to vote in favor of immigration reform legislation supported in Silicon Valley. "We're going to create a virtual digital storm," said Jeremy Robbins in a Wednesday ... GO

The New Yorker Hopes "Strongbox" Is a Wiretap-Proof Sieve for Leaks

The New Yorker yesterday became the first outlet to implement DeadDrop, a new system for sources to submit information to journalists online in a more secure and anonymous way than, for example, email. GO

Female Organizer of Pakistan's First Hackathon Stresses Collaboration Over Competition

After Pakistan banned Valentine's Day this year, Sabeen Mahmud started an online protest in which people uploaded photos to mock the government ban. In the weeks following she received death threats and menacing phone calls, and early on she had to stay home from work. That did nothing, however, to keep her from further organizing. Last month, the café she started in Karachi hosted Pakistan's first ever hackathon, which tackled problems including sanitation, crime, disaster management, and education. She even invited a government representative to observe the initial conversations, tackling sensitive areas like government inefficiency and elections.

GO

wednesday >

White House Innovation Fellows Project Spins Off Into A Business

Clay Johnson and Adam Becker joined the Presidential Innovation Fellows program to help the White House fix the way government does business. Now they're turning that mission into a business themselves. GO

Fighting Fires With Data, New York City Launches New Safety Inspection System

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that New York City has implemented city-wide a new risk based inspection system focused on fire safety that is driven by analytics from multiple city agencies. GO

Chinese Netizens Use Digital Initiative to Gain Media Attention for Unsolved Poisoning Case

Last month a medical science student at a Shanghai university died from poisoning, allegedly murdered by his roommate. The specifics of the crime echoed a case from the mid-1990s, in which a 19-year-old student was poisoned with thallium. That case has once again been thrown into the media spotlight, but after 18 years the media has changed and the spotlight means a trending hashtag on Sina Weibo or an online petition to the U.S. President.

GO

PDF France 2013: “Au Code, Citoyens!”

This year PDF France will take place in Paris on June 13, with the theme "Au Code, Citoyens!" ("To Code, Citizens!") The speakers' lineup includes some of the continent's leaders in the digital revolution. GO

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