The CNN/YouTube Republican debate began with a little ditty and ended on a very serious note with a question for Mayor Guiliani and his unexpected support for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. But what came in between wasn't too earth-shivering.
This was the second of the YouTube debates; the first occurring waayyy back when you were just a little baby, in July, with the Democrats the target of the user-generated madness. The GOP was set to have its debate back then as well but had to postpone it due to Mr. Mitt "I'm too good to talk to snowmen" Romney's gripe with the forum. With regard to the questions (and not the candidates' "I want to stab you" glares at each other), the Republican debate was much tamer than was the Democratic debate. In fact, one might go as far as to refer to it as... conservative.
While there were a few quirky questions, including a corn-eating man concerned about the elimination of farm subsidies and a cartoon of an armed Dick Cheney inquiring about the next VP's level of power, the majority of the 33 (out of 5,000 submitted) questions were fairly straightforward and cordial.
Which brings us to the big (BIG) question: Will the influence of Web 2.0 and beyond revolutionize politics? I'll bite first with a big, fat "No" (NO).
So far, it seems, what Web 2.0 is having an influence on is our involvement in politics -- particularly the involvement of those sloth-types who are only willing to participate in the sorts of things that are close enough to drag their mouse over. In addition to the standard candidate Websites, we now have groups on Facebook dedicated to every candidate under the smoldering sun, MySpace profiles, innumerable political blogs, online fundraising (Ron Paul has raised much of his funding online without even trying -- although some suspect he may have sold his facial elasticity on eBay for it), and then there's YouTube. Also, just this week, ABC News teamed up with Facebook to bring updates on the 2008 presidential election to Facebook's interactive U.S. Politics application.
Web 2.0 gives us a platform to find and contribute to a wealth of political opinion. It also allows us to fight one another from behind our computer screens, which is perhaps the safest way to get into a political argument.
But as far as a revolution is concerned, well, you know, we'd all love to change the world. But, so long as we've got guys like Anderson "look at me, look at me!" Cooper moderating, and CNN filtering out the inquisitive snowmen, the politicians are still glassed-off figurines removed from the clutches of the real people.
Does anyone else think Anderson Cooper and Zoolander bear an uncanny resemblance to one another? Anyone? Anyone? Well... anyway, thanks for the link, sf. I also wanted to point out that I keep seeing advertisements on MySpace for an online debate with Sen. John McCain. Now, of course, I can't find it. But I'm wondering if anyone's ever taken part in these online debates with candidates, and I wonder if it's really the candidate on the other end, sitting there in red, white, and blue PJs answering people's questions over MySpace. Seems kind of odd. But, yeah, Web 2.0 is definitely impacting the political scene and how we understand politics. I just don't think we should get ahead of ourselves and start calling everything "revolutionary."
I agree. Anderson Cooper is the reason that I stopped watching cable news altogether.
But, to Nicole's point, although Web 2.0 won't likely revolutionize politics, it has had an impact. John Edwards first announced his campaign on YouTube and invited bloggers along at the beginning of his campaign trail, although he didn't seem to care for the heat his campaign took for what those bloggers wrote. And I'm sure he wasn't too thrilled about this video, either:
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Ahh, the holiday season is upon us: People have begun bargain hunting, department stores are donning premature decorations, turkeys are being shot to death, and email inboxes everywhere are being graced with season-appropriate promotional materials so absurd, one might think they were actually written by the clinically insane.
Considering President Obama went and took the Nobel Peace Prize this year (attention hog, much?), Internet Evolution had to settle for a nomination for the second best prize in the world: a MIN Editorial & Design award. And we're happy to say that we won. Big time.
NEW YORK -- Web 2.0 Expo -- Here at the Javits Center in New York City, several industry innovators have come out to take the stage at the Web 2.0 Expo. But some are having a hard time keeping the audience's attention. The culprit? What else? Twitter.
The debate over whether Google is fairly aggregating newspaper content online has been going on for a while, with Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. leading the discourse. Typically it's followed a consistent pattern: Murdoch complains about Google stealing its content to no real benefit to his company, someone suggests hiding the content from Google, and things get quiet on the News Corp. side of the room.
While Google introduces its new Chrome OS (which I'm hearing will be widely available in one year? Did I mishear that?), IBM announced 10 new products today to help companies using IBM System z mainframe technology.
Smarter Collaboration: How to Thrive in a Challenging Business Environment Market conditions are changing faster than ever, and organizations need to improve their agility and adaptability in order to provide better service and improve processes. The ability to work with customers, business partners, and employees as effectively as possible - while at the same time holding down costs - is a key to success. READ THIS eBOOK
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The problem with telepresence is that it's not universally accepted, because video calling isn't. While we can all do video calling, we also apparently worry too much about how we look. If we want HD telepresence in our future, we have to dress down, mess up our hair, and dive into our online life.
Evidence shows that you can tweet too much. Sites and services like Twitter and Facebook are a good place to reach your audience, but think quality over quantity.
A digital content market is emerging. Only two things are known about it: the first is that at some point the Internet will primarily become a paid network. The second known factor is that there are innumerable variables in the digital content market that have yet to be worked out. It’s not known, for example, exactly how users will pay for content (micropayments, subscriptions, bartering of farm animals, other).
The Google backlash continues. After seeing their Project 10^100 submissions disappear into the bowels of a Google server farm, a group of irate developers has started their own site to re-collect and vote on the ideas.
Routesy is an iPhone application that uses the phone’s GPS to let the user know where and when the next train or bus is coming. The application’s developer, Steven Peterson, talks about why a mobile application makes sense, especially given that this transportation information is already available on the Web.
Bad news! By eliminating the world’s digital divide we’re likely to create a new divide: the information divide, where we end up creating a two-tier Internet where access to 'quality' content is controlled and charged for by mega-corporations, and the gulf between information haves and have-nots is entirely dependent on how much money they have. This is, of course, an almost exact inversion of the current situation on the Internet – where access is expensive and content is free.
As enterprises leap into the Web 2.0 world of blogging, commenting, and social networking, just 'being there' won't deliver ROI. You may want a 'Web Evangelist' to systematically harvest the feedback in order to polish your product or service.
Good news! The cost of Internet infrastructure, services, and access devices has been plummeting at an accelerating rate over the last 10 years and will approach a point in the next 20 years where these technologies become so fantastically cheap that ubiquitous, low-cost, high-speed networks, storage, and access devices will effectively eliminate the digital divide for most of the world's population.
Industry initiatives and government stimulus funds are giving enterprise software vendors a great opportunity to help build out and manage smart grid technologies.
The problem with telepresence is that it's not universally accepted, because video calling isn't. While we can all do video calling, we also apparently worry too much about how we look. If we want HD telepresence in our future, we have to dress down, mess up our hair, and dive into our online life.
The US loses about $20 billion a year on pirated software, movies, and music. But public policy can help stem the tide of digital theft. For example, France has recently passed a 'three strikes and you’re out' law, whereby if after two warning letters an individual continues to download pirated software then his Internet access will be cut off. US policy makers should consider adopting similar policies.
Financial management planning does not need to include Voodoo economics, but it does help to tap into the knowledge base of your team through some sort of real-time system. We explore your options.
When Reiter gets incensed over incompetent Verizon FiOS order-taking and support, he broadcasts it via Twitter. Did it do any good? How should your company offer Twitter support? Watch this for all the answers.
The successor to the BlackBerry Bold 9000 – the Bold 9700 – will be available soon in the US. Is it worth upgrading? Reiter's got one, and offers advice.
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