posts on CNET

Obama's win a big vindication for Nate Silver, king of the quants

In the end, big data won.

Not the presidential election -- although there's no doubt that President Obama's victory tonight was aided by a sophisticated understanding of the American electorate born of years of analysis of voting trends and demographic shifts.

No, big data -- and its patron saint, Nate Silver -- won the battle to predict the outcome of the contest between Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Where breathless pundits brandishing equivocating polls shouted from the rooftops over the last few weeks that the race for the White House was a "tossup," or &… Read more

Can Nate Silver and friends nail their presidential predictions?

Anyone who's even remotely interested in this year's contest between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has no doubt seen countless polls, many of which have shown the incumbent in the lead, while many others have given the nod to the challenger.

In recent weeks, many headlines have declared the election a tossup. A common narrative being spread in newspapers, on blogs, on social media, and on TV nationwide, is that no one will have any idea who will be elected president until all the counting is done because the race is simply too close … Read more

Al Gore with Sean Parker at SXSW: 'Occupy democracy!'

AUSTIN, Texas--Former U.S. vice president Al Gore and Facebook's founding president Sean Parker argued passionately today that online communities must use the powerful tools at their disposal to save American democracy.

At South by Southwest (SXSW) here, Gore and Parker took the stage to tell an adoring crowd of several thousand that though they should be proud of the mass Internet activism that derailed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), there is still a huge amount of work to be done if Americans want to keep special interests from perpetually forcing their agendas down society's throat.

Fortunately, … Read more

Hype or hope? CNN-YouTube debates make a splash

CNN and YouTube have created a virtual town hall for the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. (Well, the questioners will be there virtually; the Democratic candidates will be sitting in a CNN studio in Charleston, South Carolina and the Republicans will be in Florida for theirs.) It's been quite extraordinary to watch the lead up to this and the grand attention it's been getting. But is this event, touted even in the venerable New York Times as a "first of a new kind of political debate" truly something new or is it simply an interesting, … Read more

Campaign 2008: Small Internet donations add up

Small donors are having a significant impact on the amount of money that the Republican and Democratic candidates for president are raising. The Internet, providing the tools for grassroots activists to self-organize and conduct "p-commerce" by giving political money online, has clearly contributed to this.

The interesting story after six months of presidential fund-raising is that some candidates, notably Barack Obama, are doing much better at reaching small donors than others.

In a July 3 CNET post on what the Internet has done for presidential campaign fund-raising, I wrote, "the story technophiles should celebrate and fear how … Read more

Blogger Civility? One Leading Blogger Offers Standards

Personal and public civility matters everywhere. It's why you don't burp at the dinner table or take showers in public. It's why you say "please" and "thank you" and, if you're Southern-born like I am, you say "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" when spoken to by your elders.

The blogosphere is still the wild, wild west, and sometimes personal and public civility don't seem to be part of the new culture. But it's increasingly becoming a part of the self-policing that bloggers are getting better … Read more

What the Internet Has Wrought: Presidential Fundraising '00, '04, '08

As the Republican & Democratic presidential candidates report their fundraising numbers after two quarters, there are lots of stories to tell. What's one of the really amazing stories? It's not that Clinton the Democratic "frontrunner" raised about $10 million less than Obama the "challenger" in the last three months or that McCain the Republican "frontrunner" is in third place in fundraising for his party. (Well, those are pretty neat.) The story technophiles should celebrate and fear is how the Internet has enabled such an extraordinary, incredible, surprising increase in dollars collected compared … Read more

Do political bloggers matter? Of course not, except when they do

To hear them tell it, they are the base of the political parties who have the power to elevate and destroy. To hear their detractors talk about it, they are know-nothing brats with a keyboard. The political blogosphere has come a long way, baby. But it's still the new kid on the block, wanting desperately to fit in but being shut out by all the self-styled cool kids that were on the playground first.

Just ask a political blogger, probably a white guy, over-educated, higher-than-average income, and in his late 30s. Fueled by technology-enhanced testosterone, these folks see themselves … Read more