presidential

Big Bird might just be the big winner in tonight's presidential debate. A number of satirical Big Bird accounts popped up on Twitter within moments of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney noting that "I love Big Bird" as he commented that he would cut PBS subsidies to address the national debt.

"100 Retweets and I'm going to make my nest outside Romney's bedroom window," read one tweet from BigBirdRomney (Twitter bio: Romney is willing to cut me. Not cool).

Another account, SadBigBird (bio: Sad Mitt haz no love for me..... or does he?), bragged: "I am owning the #debates." Additional avian accounts BIGBIRD and Fired Big Bird are also flying high on Twitter; as of shortly after the debate's close, each boasted more than 12,000 followers. "Herman Cain/Big Bird 2016," the latter proposed.

The Twitter masses jumped all over Romney's Big Bird comment tonight, with the microblogging site at one point registering 17,000 tweets per minute for "Big Bird" and 10,000 tweets per minute for "PBS," according to Twitter Government, which tracks the use of Twitter for civic engagement. … Read more

There's plenty of places online to watch and kibitz over tonight's presidential debate -- CNN.com, Twitter, YouTube, and many more. But one place offering live streaming and interactive features might surprise you: Xbox Live.

Usually known as a place for teenage boys to spend hours playing games like the latest Halo, or for people to watch Netflix streaming movies, the popular service will offer tonight's debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and is accentuating it with live interactive polling.

On the official Xbox site today, Microsoft touted its presentation of the … Read more

Whether you're a political junkie or someone just starting to pay attention to next month's presidential election, tonight's first debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is sure to provide tons of conversation fodder. And Twitter wants to be right in the middle of it.

Already, Twitter has dispatched members of its @gov team to Denver, where they plan to monitor the debate from up close and keep track of how the massive Twitter user base responds to each and every barb, attack, evasion, and even the occasional thoughtful answer. And to help … Read more

YouTube has partnered with ABC News to cover the four presidential and vice presidential debates.

The company announced today that it will air the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate live on its Elections Hub page. YouTube says it will get the feed live from the ABC News YouTube channel and will air the four debates in their entirety.

YouTube's airing marks the first time the company has streamed the presidential debates. After they air, the debates can also be viewed in full on youtube.com/politics.

To enhance its coverage, YouTube will have commentary and analysis … Read more

Facebook is becoming part of the Democratic National Convention viewing game hours before President Obama gives his speech accepting his party's nomination for a second term in office.

With the launch of the Obama 2012 Social Sharing App, which is available on the Obama-Biden Web site, viewers can share on their timelines that they're watching the speech. Users can simply click on the Facebook share button and answer some preference questions to get the app started. Information is here.

The app was noted in a post on Facebook's U.S. Politics on Facebook page.

The Obama campaign … Read more

Facebook and CNN launched their election "real-time" insights feature today to show how much presidential candidates are talked about on the world's largest social network.

The insights show that most of the country's Facebook users are currently talking about presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, which makes sense since the Republican National Convention kicks off today.

CNN has the information are broken down by state, age ranges and gender.

This is a continuation of a partnership between Facebook and CNN announced earlier this year. The two companies paired up to introduce a "I'm Voting" app … Read more

You don't need any accessories to catch up on Friday's top tech stories:

A new service called Dyle picks up live, local TV signals to watch on your mobile device. The first with this service is the MetroPCS Samsung Galaxy S Lightray 4G. But if you rather not drop $460 right now for a phone, iOS users may have another option this fall when Dyle attachments are expected to go on sale.

No price has been set, but the attachments could cost, at most, $150. And the service from then on is free. Would you pay for an … Read more

With the presidential elections fast approaching, both Mitt Romney and President Obama are taking their campaigns mobile. The Obama for America app concentrates primarily on distributing President Obama's policy stances, as well as news and events.

Users of the Obama for America app can also find useful information about voting rules and regulations on a state-by-state basis and information on volunteering to help the Obama campaign.

Romney's app takes a different approach, largely marketed as a way for users to keep up-to-date with the Romney campaign's decision on its vice president candidate, hence the app's moniker, … Read more