The Social

NEW YORK--The state senate in Albany was in a bit of a shambles Monday. So instead of speaking in-person at the Personal Democracy Forum as planned, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg used Skype to make his keynote address.

"Through the miracles of modern communication, we're essentially together," Bloomberg commented to the audience at the Frederick P. Rose auditorium here in midtown Manhattan. He then spoke about how New York is using the assets of the digital age to make more information available to the city's residents--something that Bloomberg can pitch well, considering he made a fortune as the founder of the business news and information company that bears his name.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

(Credit: NYC.gov)

Bloomberg's new initiatives include Skype and Twitter accounts for NYC 311, the city's information hotline that Bloomberg launched several years ago; a partnership with Google to get more detailed information about exactly what people are searching for on municipal government sites (and what they can and can't find); and "Big Apps," a new contest for developers to crunch and remix city data into Web or mobile applications for the masses.

The economy, however, may get in the way. Any ambitious new city projects are taken with a grain of salt these days, and with good reason.

I, for one, was scrambling to get to Bloomberg's talk on time because cutbacks and delays on the B-D-F-V subway line had added literally an extra half-hour to my commute from downtown to the conference venue at Columbus Circle. Griping about the city budget is pretty commonplace around here these days, and Bloomberg himself is no exception.

"If any of you from around the world wants to move here," Bloomberg quipped over the Skype connection when conference organizer Andrew Rasiej commented that a thousand people were on hand, "we would love to have you. We need taxpayers."

The official information available on the Web to New York residents includes public school progress data and citywide performance reporting. Beyond that, Bloomberg's administration has chosen to support new and more efficient ways of doing business: it has given the thumbs-up to collaborative workspaces and launched a venture fund for tech and finance start-ups, among other things. These are all part of a way to combat the fact that the Wall Street meltdown has left scores of the city's professionals out of work.

With "Big Apps," Bloomberg is encouraging developers to participate in a contest that "will challenge all of you, and the whole tech world, really, to come up with new applications using city data."

"We'll be releasing a huge volume of data from a number of agencies," Bloomberg said before the Skype connection briefly cut off. Rasiej re-dialed in, and Bloomberg continued that he hopes the fruits of Big Apps contests will "create the connectedness that will benefit the city economically, civically, and socially."

If developers aren't willing to act solely out of a desire to help the city, Bloomberg said that Big Apps will indeed have cash prizes, as well as an even bigger incentive.

"I'll up the ante by taking the grand-prize winners out to dinner," he said.

Good to hear that's still in the budget.

The tweet that shall live in infamy.

(Credit: Twitter)

You can't make this stuff up: Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, set off a political-blog firestorm when he posted to his Twitter account on Wednesday that "Iranian twitter activity (is) similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House."

Presumably he was talking about rallying in the face of adversity. But, um, really? The U.S. congressional elections might be rife with mildly nefarious characters on both sides of the party line, but the current upheaval in Iran deals with a totalitarian regime, media blackouts, and mass protests with casualties. Talk about a gaffe. Rep. Hoekstra has said he will not seek re-election and is reportedly considering a run for governor; I'm sure his potential opponents are taking note here.

Anyway, somebody brilliant (I learned this is, unsurprisingly, Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger fame) seized the opportunity and created a hilarious blog called "Pete Hoekstra is a Meme," devoted to photo captions much like the perennial "lolcats" craze. "To Hoekstra is to whine using grandiose exaggerations and comparisons," the site explains. Each "Hoekstra is a Meme" caption illustrates a similar, though generally more offensive claim.

(Credit: hoekstraisameme.com)

It gets better. This is the same Rep. Peter Hoekstra who, you might recall, Twittered his secret trip to Iraq back in February. This guy is just comedy gold. I'm sure he's a fine public servant to the good people of Michigan (Is he? Michiganders, please weigh in!), but when it comes to Twitter, you'd almost think he had been planted by the writers for The Daily Show.

And while some might say Rep. Hoekstra's staffers ought to gently prevent him from Twittering, in the future, I say keep 'em coming. It's been a while: Politicians have been getting awfully digital-savvy for the past few years. Back in 2006, we were guaranteed loads of hilarity whenever Ted Stevens tried to explain the Internet, Robert Wexler wasn't aware that his Colbert Report joke about being a cocaine fiend would be mixed and remixed all over the Web, or George Allen mouthed off in the presence of YouTube-ready cameras.

These days, however, we're stuck with far too many Beltway types who are woefully adept at Twittering, like former Bush strategist Karl Rove.

And honestly, that's just no fun.

This post was updated at 11:33 p.m. PT.

A State Department press briefing gives some insight into why the U.S. government requested that Twitter postpone a scheduled downtime during a crucial period in the post-election upheaval in Iran.

"I think, as I was following this, these developments over the weekend...I began to recognize the importance of new social media as a vital tool for citizens' empowerment and as a way for people to get their messages out," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday, according to a transcript of the department's daily press briefing (which was not held specifically to address the Twitter question). "And it was very clear to me that these kinds of social media played a very important role in democracy, spreading the word about what was going on."

CNN reported Tuesday that the State Department had been behind the decision by Twitter and its hosting provider to reschedule the downtime for an hour when it would be the middle of the night in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Kelly was then asked to comment on "discussions that (the State Department is) having with networking sites about maintaining the technology, about how the State Department as an institution is monitoring these type of sites to gain information about what's going on."

His response: "We're monitoring many different media, including some of these sites. And we've had, of course, talks with Twitter as well...I don't want to go into the detail of the nature of those talks right now."

Another reporter then pointed out that "by not providing any information on the nature of the talks, it indicates that you have some role in kind of providing messages to Twitter, messages to Iranians."

Kelly denied this. He said he was not sure who exactly within the State Department had been in touch with Twitter and added that "we use a number of social media outlets, and we're in constant contact with them. And as I said before, we were, of course, monitoring the situation through a number of different media, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter...this is about the Iranian people. This is about giving their voices a chance to be heard. One of the ways that their voices are heard are through new media."

With the Iranian government clamping down on foreign journalists, Kelly has a point: access to Twitter and ilk are crucial sources of information.

Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook have already emerged as sources of raw news in disasters and political crises before--from the Hudson River emergency plane landing to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. But this is the first time they've been highlighted as vital information channels in Iran--both for protesters trying to spread information and for government authorities trying to gather it.

When Twitter rescheduled some planned downtime in order to stay accessible for Iranian users in the midst of political upheaval, it was at the request of the U.S. State Department, according to CNN.

This should not be taken to mean that the U.S. is attempting to get involved at this point, CNN added. The State Department is working with multiple social-networking and communication services to ensure that conversation and information channels stay active.

"By necessity, the U.S. is staying hands-off of the election drama playing out in Iran, and officials say they are not providing messages to Iranians or 'quarterbacking' the disputed election process," the article by CNN's Elise Labott read.

Because the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran, information gathered on the Web is crucial to its understanding of the post-election unrest that has led to mass protests and fatal clashes with police. Twitter, where users have been filtering relevant information with the hashtag #iranelection, has been a crucial hotspot for raw news.

Twitter's planned maintenance, according to a post on the company's official blog, was selected by its hosting partner, NTT America. The update is "a critical network upgrade [that] must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter," however, so it will instead take place this afternoon when it's well after midnight in Iran.

Meanwhile, in a sort of digital twist on that famous scene in The Thomas Crowne Affair, a new viral campaign is going around Twitter: Users from around the world are resetting the location data in their profiles to Tehran, the capital of Iran, in order to confuse Iranian authorities who may be attempting to use the microblogging tool to track down opposition activity.

Huffington Post CEO Betsy Morgan is leaving the company, slated to be replaced later this week by Softbank Capital's Eric Hippeau. Morgan was first hired in 2007.

The news was first reported on Monday by PaidContent.

Hippeau has been serving on the board of the left-leaning news outlet, which was co-founded by pundit Arianna Huffington in 2005, since its first round of venture funding in 2006. The former chairman and CEO of Ziff Davis Media, he's on the board of a number of different companies including Yahoo. His new role at Softbank will be "special partner and adviser."

In December, the Huffington Post raised another $25 million in funding. It was riding a wave of popularity--and scrutiny, considering its controversial views on paying for content and labor--in the wake of the 2008 presidential election, and was starting to aggressively expand coverage beyond politics. Long-term profitability, however, was still a question mark.

"We've had a really good year, ad-wise," Morgan said to CNET News in an interview shortly before the presidential election. "We're in the game at a different point in our life cycle than the other mainstream players. We've seen the brand really grow to top of mind with both agencies and clients and the response has been really positive."

NEW YORK--According to former Vice President Al Gore, the importance of sustainability doesn't just apply to the environment. It also is key to the future of advertising.

"It really comes out of the environment, but in my opinion the key theme of this century really is sustainability," Gore said. "This theme of environmental sustainability has become a part of our culture, it's a part of our discourse, and I'm very optimistic that it will soon be a part of our policy."

Addressing the crowd of advertisers and online-media types at the Digital Content NewFront event put on by Digitas on Wednesday, Gore was speaking not as a "recovering politician" or a green-tech evangelist, but as the co-founder of Current Media, the experimental cable news channel that relies heavily on user-created content for both editorial and advertisements.

It's about time for our old views of advertising to die, he said.

"In the 20th century, the advertising model was based on the same principles that the Industrial Revolution was based on: scale," Gore said. "It was big, it was blunt, very expensive, and very intrusive, and audiences have now begun to resist that old advertising model even as the environment in which it is presented changes a great deal. The new model is very different because the media landscape is completely different."

More than half of the advertisements on Current are called "VCAMs," or "viewer-created advertising messages," Gore said. These are videos selected out of user submissions for brands interested in advertising on Current; the winner is paid by the advertiser, though it costs significantly less than the production budget of a traditional TV ad, and the winner receives an additional payment if the advertiser wants to use it outside of Current.

It's a model not unlike the wildly successful T-shirt company Threadless, which gets thousands of design submissions and gives a cash prize to the ones that it subsequently prints and sells.

Gore showed off a series of VCAMs proudly, as though they were home videos of his kids: One of them, created by two 24-year-olds, was a Mountain Dew ad about aspiring to be a professional hide-and-seek player. Another, created by a 29-year-old, was a T-Mobile ad showing people excitedly attempting to get picked for a "fave five" as though it were a dodgeball team. Gore mentioned another that was created by a 17-year-old who subsequently received a $50,000 check when the advertiser wanted to use it outside of Current.

There are problems, obviously, which some of the audience members brought up in questions. There are plenty of brands that wouldn't get aspiring filmmakers quite as jazzed as the car and gadget companies whose ads Gore showed off. And while the Flip-camera-toting young adults responsible for Current's VCAMs have the pluck and the free time to run around making commercials, it's easy to theorize that it would be tougher for a network with an older audience to pull it off.

Then there's the fact that while Current has been way ahead of the curve on some digital trends--displaying live Twitter messages onscreen, for example--it's still not a huge media powerhouse. The company canceled its scheduled initial public offering earlier this year, citing the bleak economic climate.

Gore, however, had an example of successful "sustainable advertising" beyond Current. What we can look at, he said, is his old job: politics.

"The most powerful new brand that we've all seen unveiled over the last two years is (Barack Obama)," Gore said, showing a slide of the "O" sunrise logo that became so well known during Obama's successful presidential campaign. "And what is it about this brand that made it so incredibly successful? It was all about empowerment, it was all about involving people to help deliver the message. It was very tuned into the new technologies and how people use them."

Just as the Obama campaign made efficient use of inexpensive marketing and publicity tools on the Web, Gore believes that the digital age has made it possible for high-quality ads to be ubiquitous, rather than just at the one time of the year when people get really pumped about what commercials will be on TV.

"During the Super Bowl, people leave during the game rather than the ads. They want to see the ads because they know something extra has gone into Super Bowl ads," Gore said. "(But) it's not sustainable to have that kind of ad budget and that kind of focused creativity that you find on those ads completely ubiquitous throughout the television year."

At the end of his talk, the former vice president was left speechless when one audience member asked him if he believed that the problem of carbon emissions could be solved by 2029 through the use of technology coming from UFOs.

"No," he said after a long pause. "I do not."

In running for attorney general of California, Facebook executive Chris Kelly is returning to his roots.

"Ever since I worked in public life when I was very young, I thought it was something that I might do at some point," said Kelly, a former Clinton campaign and White House staffer who serves as the massive social network's chief privacy officer and head of public policy.

"Over the past few years at Facebook, it's become clear to me that the role of the attorney general is incredibly able to help make change in the world, and that's what I got into technology to do, too," Kelly, who is a Democrat, continued in an interview with CNET News on Thursday. "So looking at how to do that in the political realm is something that's been under consideration for me for a long time, and it seems like it's the right time to give it a shot."

Kelly is staying with Facebook, which recently surpassed 200 million active members and continues to grow fast, while his campaign is still in the exploratory phase. He said that he will "continue to be active at Facebook for at least the next few months," and implied that he won't formally step down unless he is elected.

As for financing, Kelly said that "quite a number of people have pledged a fair amount of money," but added that he had not yet made a decision about self-financing. He didn't comment on whether this might include cashing out part of his stake in Facebook. California campaign finance sites do not yet list any donations to the Kelly campaign.

So how are his chances? Kelly will likely have strong rivals both in the Democratic primary, which takes place in June 2010, and the general election that November should he emerge victorious in the primary. With an executive post at one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley and a campaign platform focused on bringing everything from personal safety to violent crime control into the 21st century, Kelly can likely craft himself as the high-tech candidate.

"We're going to put together what we think is a fantastic story for the voters that reflects what the future of California should be," Kelly said to CNET News. "The reaction to somebody with both public and private sector experience stepping into this race has been very good and very exciting, and I'm thrilled to be looking at it long and hard and to be hearing from people abut their ideas about how to improve the state."

Photos: From tech exec to politician

As attorney general, Kelly has expressed a desire to crack down on the white-collar crime that has been partially responsible for dragging California and the rest of the U.S. into a deep financial recession. He's also committed to bringing better technological strategies and equipment to law enforcement authorities, and pledges to not take his eye off online privacy.

"When I talk about technology, technology is never a panacea," Kelly admonished. "It has to be deployed in ways that are trying to build safer social systems. For instance, Facebook is not just about the deployment of technology in these areas, we made choices around being a real-world identity platform and enforcing the fact that you can't use a fake name and things like that. When you talk about technology, (it's) the place that it's been used most effectively. (In law enforcement) there's a technology component to it, but ultimately the goal is to find the people who are committing the crimes, and arrest them."

Kelly's tech cred is high. But on the flip side, popular though it may be, an affiliation with a social network like Facebook does come with some baggage. Controversial interface redesigns probably won't hurt his campaign a bit, but Facebook has suffered negative press over the past few years for its allegedly intrusive Beacon advertising program, phishing schemes and viruses that continue to pop up, and ironically a high-profile campaign on the behalf of several states' attorneys general to tackle the issue of sex offenders maintaining a presence on Facebook.

Kelly acknowledged that this sort of press could turn into fodder for negative campaigning. "I expect that the politics-as-usual crowd will try to make a bunch of stuff out of situations where Facebook has acted incredibly responsibly, and has been able to address the real problems of the Internet, and to build the systems that build a safer and more trusted online experience over time," Kelly said.

"I think that we're in a new era of politics and that that sort of approach just doesn't work the way that it used to," he continued, "but I fully expect that there will be some opponents in this race who will be interested in trying to exploit a misimpression that people have about the way Facebook has acted, and I'm ready for that."

Facebook, along with fellow social network MySpace (owned by News Corp.), eventually reached an agreement with New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo early in 2008 to collaborate on new safety legislation. Cuomo had subpoenaed Facebook several months prior, claiming that it misrepresented how safe it was for minors.

Kelly doesn't have an official endorsement from Facebook and probably won't get one down the line, either: he said the social network has never endorsed a political candidate or initiative and doesn't expect it to do any differently for him. Nor has he made the decision yet to endorse any one of the current Democratic gubernatorial candidates over another--even though San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made a high-profile visit to Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters right around the time that he announced his candidacy for the state house.

"I like Gavin. I like Jerry Brown. I like Antonio Villaraigosa," Kelly said, naming a few of the Democratic candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring. Incumbent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, cannot run for re-election due to term limits. "There are quite a number of candidates who are or might be in that race, (Senator) Dianne Feinstein is another possibility, and boy, if that's the field, we've got a lot of great choices."

In a move that some Silicon Valley insiders had anticipated might happen, Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly has announced his exploratory bid for the elected post as attorney general of California.

He has set up the Web site www.kelly2010.com as his online campaign headquarters. Kelly also has an official Facebook fan page for his campaign.

(Credit: Kelly2010.com)

"Over the past year, many people I respect have asked me to run for California Attorney General in 2010. Today, after much consideration, I am announcing that I've launched a committee to further explore the race," Kelly, who is a Democrat, said in a statement. "As the next Attorney General of California, I would utilize my experience to protect California consumers, maintain an open and accountable government, and guarantee an effective legal system."

Kelly's background is in politics. In a video on his Web site, he explains that he got his start as a staffer on Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign and then at the White House, where he focused on establishing public service programs like AmeriCorps. Rumors that he was looking into a run for attorney general began to swirl late last year.

In his campaign, Kelly has indicated that he will run on a platform of high-tech innovation and accountability, particularly in the wake of economic decline and uncertainty.

"(At Facebook) I have dealt first-hand with the complex legal challenges and privacy issues that effect California businesses and consumers," Kelly explained in the video. "We need a strong consumer protection advocate as California's chief law enforcement officer, defending people against unfair practices and schemes. As California faces a budget deficit of more than $41 billion, rising home foreclosure rates, and an uncertain economic future, it is imperative that we prevent consumer fraud and protect California residents from scam artists offering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for home ownership, phony foreclosure avoidance scams, and any financial fraud."

Among the other issues he mentioned were online safety and privacy for both adults and children, and tech-savvy improvements to law enforcement and border patrol.

Facebook said in a statement that Kelly is not leaving his post to run for attorney general, at least not yet.

"Chris Kelly is a valued member of the Facebook Team and has been for the past several years," the statement read. "Chris is currently exploring a possible run for California Attorney General on his own time and in compliance with all applicable Facebook policies. If, over the next few months, Chris decides to devote himself full-time to campaign, he's indicated that he will take time off or a leave of absence to do so."

As an executive at a social network with over 200 million members that has become a Silicon Valley success stories, Kelly has credibility as a digital-age candidate. Yet under Kelly's watch, Facebook went through a number of embarrassing privacy flubs, most notably the launch of its Beacon advertising program--which some critics charged as intrusive.

Facebook was also at the center of a legal back-and-forth with several states' lawmakers about whether it was doing enough to keep its members safe from known sex offenders. That, however, appears to have ended in agreement and cooperation.

Kelly won't be the only Silicon Valley type running for statewide office. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a Republican, is running for governor. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has appealed to the Valley set with green-tech initiatives and "Second Life" interviews, has also launched an exploratory bid for governor. The state's elections are next fall.

California's current attorney general is Edmund G. Brown, Jr.

This post was expanded at 1:35 p.m. PT.

So, about two dozen high-profile and quasi-high-profile young business leaders were invited to Washington, D.C., to meet with senior Obama administration officials Friday to discuss the future of the ravaged U.S. economy. And I've got to respect the fact that the administration wants to hear from young, outside-the-box entrepreneurs. But, of course, the dial on the snark machine has been turned up to 11.

I don't have a complete list of attendees, but we've learned through various channels that the roster includes Kluster founder Ben Kaufman, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, Threadless exec Jake Nickell, marketer Josh Spear, former Googler Chris Sacca, and the one everyone's making the jokes about--Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. The punch line, of course, is why the Obama administration would ever want to hear economic advice from the head of a company that has been fueled by buzz rather than profits thus far. (Side note: Were any women invited?)

As Hsieh Twittered, the purpose of the visit was to discuss "ways to help economy that administration may not have thought of yet." It's arguable that administration officials could learn more sage advice from, say, a bright young thing who's made a quick ascent at an existing corporation rather than founded a quirky start-up that's only a few years old.

But at the same time, the White House invitees have all had interesting ideas (with varying degrees of innovation) that they've gotten off the ground and turned into businesses, and it sounds like ideas are what are on the agenda here. I highly doubt that President Obama will suddenly decide that economic recovery isn't important simply because Twitter currently preaches a gospel of growth over profits.

One thing I hope is discussed: what these young business leaders, regardless of what you think about their companies' moneymaking prospects, have to say about getting many of their smart, well-educated peers back in the workforce. I'm in my mid-20s, and have seen scores of my high school and college classmates ravaged by layoffs, particularly in the finance sector. Many others who are in grad school are uncertain of their post-graduation opportunities. In the past week alone I've learned about two more of my acquaintances leaving town to seek employment somewhere where the cost of living is lower.

Some industry figureheads, like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a veteran entrepreneur, have started making strides to put laid-off professionals back to work at start-ups and forward-thinking small businesses. That's a great idea, and obviously, the people who run existing start-ups both inside and outside the digital space are going to be the ones who have the most to say about it.

Josh Spear posted to Twitter on Friday that he believes the contents of the meeting will be public record. I'm looking forward to hearing what was talked about.