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A Twitter Sponsored Hashtag That Didn't Work So Well

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, September 5 2012

One of Twitter's new products, sponsored hashtags, places the tag of a customer's choice among the list of trending topics that users see when they access the social network through the web. So clients — like Americans for Prosperity — can pick a topic and invite people to join in. From there, it appears, things can get unpredictable. Read More

Will Online Political Targeting Generate a Voter Backlash?

BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, August 7 2012

A recent study finds an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want targeted political advertising, but industry insiders dismiss the results. They say that unlike broadcast or direct mail, their ads are delivered anonymously. They're missing another difference: With Internet advertising, the viewer can talk back. And they may be ignoring this at their peril. Read More

As Digital Campaigns Continue, Obama 2012's Looking for Online Ad People

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, July 5 2012

The point's been made again and again that the Obama campaign basically has a technology startup working in-house, but that's not all: Team Obama looks to want that startup to be able to handle its own full-service digital advertising, too. Read More

[OP-ED] Big Data: What Happens When Elections Become Social Engineering Competitions

BY David Parry | Tuesday, June 26 2012

Courtesy Estate of John Fekner 2008

UT-Dallas assistant professor David Parry argues that big data and message targeting endangers democracy. Read More

At #PDF12, Zac Moffatt Talks Digital Strategy

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, June 12 2012

Zac Moffatt at Personal Democracy Forum 2012. Photo: Esty Stein / PDM

In a talk on PDF's main stage at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, Mitt Romney's digital director Zac Moffatt delivered a pitch for online advertising. He pointed to survey data that indicates one in three online adults — and a majority of adults at all age levels are online, according to recent Pew data — are completely ignoring "live television," focusing instead on using tools like DVR to skip over ads entirely. The result is an ever-decreasing audience for television ads, something that makes digital work more important than people seem to think, Moffatt said. Read More

Beverage Industry Uses Online Ads to Protect Your Right to 32-Ounce Sodas

BY Nick Judd and Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, June 5 2012

The American Beverage Association released a new spate of online ads to counter New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban the sale of large sodas. ABA wouldn't return techPresident's requests for comment, but their ads — with the message "Get the facts about beverages" and links to a site, letsclearitup.org, attacking "myths" about how sodas contribute to obesity — caught our attention on the heels of a full-page New York Times ad from the Center for Consumer Freedom depicting Bloomberg as a nanny. 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

Team Obama Spends Big On Digital

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, February 1 2012

There's more to come from recently filed campaign finance reports from the presidential campaigns. Meantime, Politico notes that Barack Obama's re-election effort has so far spent $2.2 million in online advertising, millions more on payroll and $809,000 on computer equipment and software. Read More

Headed Into Iowa Caucus, Santorum Jockeys for Position Online

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, January 3 2012

Rick Santorum Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Just hours away from the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign is looking online to make the most of his sudden rise to prominence. Read More

Google Picks Former Bush Staffer As Envoy to Republicans

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, September 14 2011

A former spokesman for President George W. Bush will run outreach to Republican campaigns on Google's behalf, Politico and The Hill's Hillicon Valley report today. Rob Saliterman, who served as communications director ... Read More

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The UK 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.

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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

On Threshold of Telecom Revolution, Future of Internet Freedom in Burma Uncertain

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

tuesday >

Website Imitation is Flattery in New York City Council Race

A New York City Council candidate who had made his name as a technology consultant and spearheaded an open government initiative several years ago found parts of his website copied by another City Council candidate in a different borough, as Politicker first reported. GO

Mike Honda Locks Up Establishment Support, But Challenger Has Ear of the Silicon Valley Elite

Some of Silicon Valley's most influential business people will hold a fundraiser in San Francisco this Thursday for Ro Khanna, the 36-year-old lawyer who's challenging 71-year-old California Democrat Mike Honda for his 17th Congressional District seat. The names at the top of the invite: Ron Conway and Sean Parker. They're apparently forming a committee to help Khanna build his campaign. The other bold-face names who are listed as part of the 'committee in formation' include Salesforce.com's Founder and CEO Marc Benioff, Benchmark Capital General Partners' Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton, tech entrepreneur Shawn Fanning, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, her big data venture investor husband Zach Bogue, and Conway's SV Angel colleague, Founder and Managing Partner David Lee. GO

Tools to Keep Independent Media Online in Hostile Environments

Websites and media outlets in developing countries or countries with corrupt or repressive regimes struggle daily to fend off hacker attacks, some from their own government — like the Malaysian news portal Sarawak Report, which techPresident reported was taken down in April by sustained denial-of-service attacks. The negative attention controversial reporting draws can scare local advertisers away as well, making it difficult for a media company to support itself. Media Frontiers offers two services to websites dealing with either of those problems.

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