voting

Vote IQ: Social networking for politics (podcast)

Vote iQ bills itself as "the nation's first major nonpartisan social-networking site built expressly for politics." The site allows voters to find candidates whose views mostly align with their own and to engage in a dialog with other political activists. Working with a variety of data sources, the site provides information on how politicians have voted and also offers a dating service-like matching feature to help voters find candidates they might consider supporting or voting for.

When asked how it's different from all the other sources of political information, Vote IQ Vice President Rick Shenkman said, &… Read more

Droolr makes your gadget wish lists pretty

Droolr is the newest single-serving site from the folks at Stateless Systems, the makers of BugMeNot, TrendsMap, and coupon site RetailMeNot. The site, which went live early Wednesday, caters to online shoppers who may not follow gadget blogs, but that still want a steady influx of shiny things to look at, and maybe even purchase.

The site takes a page from places like Digg, and the recently launched Deals.Woot site in letting users submit, and vote up items of interest. In this case, it's tech products, which are then categorized by whatever tags are provided by the submitter. … Read more

Poll: What's your favorite iPhone Twitter app?

Twitter apps are like candy bars: everybody's got a favorite. For me it's Milky Way and TweetDeck.

Of course, there's always room for change. For instance, the Take 5 bar is increasingly my go-to treat (better hide your Halloween stash, kids), and I might just jump ship to Tweetie 2, which debuted in the App Store over the weekend.

Priced at $2.99, Tweetie's the top-paid app in the Social Networking section of the store.

New features in version 2 include an offline mode, new-message indicators, full landscape support, video uploads (for 3GS users), and faster … Read more

Visible Vote for iPhone gets you involved in the political process

To paraphrase the old saying: Everyone complains about the government, but no one does anything about it. If you want to get more involved in the political process, "elect" Visible Vote Mobile to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The free app lets you compare the voting records of your state senators and congressional representative(s) with your votes on the issues of the day.

For example, do you agree with the bill to expand Medicare coverage? (You can read a description and highlights right on your iPhone.) Cast your vote, then see how it matches up with your … Read more

Facebook opens up vote on new terms of service

Following Facebook's privacy debacle earlier this year, the social-networking site is encouraging users to vote on whether a proposed terms of service culled from user feedback should replace the existing terms of service.

In a blog posting Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg encouraged users to review documents posted to the site that contain proposed changes to the site's terms of service (TOS) based on user feedback along side the current TOS:

If these new documents are approved, all future changes to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities will go through the same process of notice and comment, and … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 872: Butt-squeezing death trap

It's a racy Buzz Out Loud as Natali Del Conte and Molly Wood double-team Jason Howell. Yes, by the way, that was the most blatant click-bait I've ever written. We discuss who's the bigger liar: Google or the Wall Street Journal. Plus, mobile news galore, including FCC approval of the Garmin Nuviphone. And then it gets too hot to remain in the studio and we flee to cooler climates.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 872

Does Google want Net priority? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122929270127905065.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/net-neutrality-and-benefits-of-caching.html … Read more

Estonia votes to vote by phone

Citizens in Estonia can now vote with their cell phones.

Parliament in Estonia voted on Thursday in favor of a measure that would allow citizens to vote via mobile phone in the next Parliamentary election (in 2011), according to the Associated Press.

Estonia has a history of being tech-forward. In 2005, it became the first country to offer online voting for a national election--although only about 1 percent of the votes cast that year were made online. In that election, people were required to insert their nationally-mandated ID cards into readers attached to their computers so their identity could … Read more

Facebook invites members to vote in developer competition

Facebook members can now vote on the second round of finalists for its FBFund seed funding competition, which will give out a total of $225,000 to five grand prize winners. The 25 companies currently in the running have already pocketed $25,000 apiece for the applications they have proposed for Facebook's third-party developer platform.

This is the second annual FBFund competition, but the first one in which members have been able to vote on their favorite apps. They can vote once per day, and can watch promotional "commercials" about what each one of them does. Voting … Read more

Digital City: Episode 6

It's our first post-election show, and we discuss electronic voting -- or the lack of it -- plus tough times for Circuit City, and a new Times Square store where you can build your own robot. Listen now: Download today's podcast