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.
Updated at 6:41 a.m. PST on Wednesday to update statistics from CNN and Akamai.
From what early numbers are indicating, the historic swearing-in of President Barack Obama was not the biggest traffic day for the Internet. But for many social networks and digital-media sites, Inauguration Day shattered traffic and usage records regardless.
Here are the ones we've heard from so far. We'll be updating this list as we hear more:
Akamai. The content delivery network has some numbers out that indicate traffic on the Web peaked right before noon Eastern time, with about 5.4 million visitors per minute flocking to online news outlets. While this is 22 percent above normal online news consumption, per Akamai, it's not a record. Obama's victory in November pulled in nearly 8.6 million visitors per minute, and the 7 million mark has been broken by both a hotly contested World Cup soccer game in 2006 and last year's March Madness college basketball playoffs.
Akamai said later on Tuesday that the inauguration did break an all-time record for the number of simultaneous video streams.
Visitors attempting to access CNN.com's live stream of the inaugural address got this message instead (Click image for larger view). CNN was just one of many Web sites that got overloaded during the speech.
(Credit: Screenshot by CBSNews.com)CNN. It was a big day for the Time Warner-owned news outlet's Web site. It's been continually updating its statistics, but at press time, CNN.com said it has served more than 18.8 million live video streams, including 1.3 million at the same time right before Obama gave his address, since 6 a.m. EST. That's a record: Election Day served up only 5.3 million live streams. Apparently, it wasn't all smooth sailing, though. CBS News reports that CNN.com had a note posted for potential viewers who came to see the historic moment that said, "You made it! However, so did everyone else." (See screenshot at right.)
At 6 p.m. ET, CNN.com updated its statistics: There were over 160 million page views in a 12-hour span, along with 25 million live video streams--a new record for CNN, which had a previous high of 5.3 million live streams on Election Day. At peak, CNN estimates that it was serving 1.3 million simultaneous live streams.
Facebook. The social network, which partnered with CNN for a live feed of "status" updates (sort of like Facebook's equivalent of a Twitter post) pertaining to the inauguration, has put out some usage numbers and is still updating them. As of 10:15 a.m. PST, 600,000 status messages had been set using the CNN app, and an average of 4,000 Facebook status updates were set every minute during the inauguration. They peaked the minute Obama began his speech, with 8,500 status messages set in those 60 seconds. "Millions" of members logged into the social network during the live broadcast.
Mogulus. The live-streaming service powered online inauguration video streams for C-Span, USA Today, and other newspapers owned by USA Today publisher Gannett (which has a minority stake in the company). Inauguration coverage broke Mogulus' network record, according to early numbers, with 105,000 concurrent viewers and more than 1 million visitors total.
Hulu. The video hub, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., declined to provide any viewership statistics for Inauguration Day.
Our colleagues at CBSNews.com report that they, too, ran into trouble with their live stream of the inauguration speech, saying that many people could not load the stream around the time of the address due to overwhelming demand.
Twitter. Co-founder Biz Stone put up a blog post after the craziness had died down on Tuesday, saying that the rate of "tweets" (Twitter messages) per second hit as much as five times the normal rate, and that the rate of tweets per minute hit four times the normal rate. He acknowledged, though, that there was a lag time of two to five minutes for many users. The good news? Twitter, once highly outage-prone, didn't crash entirely.
The New York Times. No official numbers have been released, but a representative for the newspaper's NYTimes.com division said that early data indicates the live stream of the inauguration pulled in a record number of viewers compared to all the live video it's ever run. Not surprising.
Disclosure: CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, which also publishes CBSNews.com.
It was a marathon evening for media buffs as Barack Obama beat rival John McCain to become the United States' first African-American president-elect. You couldn't miss it on Twitter, as the microblogging service exploded with election updates, commentary, and speculation.
Miraculously, Twitter's servers lasted the night, and had quite a lot of terrific, 140-characters-long election commentary (in messages known as "tweets") to serve up for hungry news hounds. Here are 10 of CNET News' favorites.
10. One of Barack Obama's most-buzzed campaign innovations was announcing his running mate choice via text message. It not only bolstered the young candidate's image as the nominee of choice for tech-savvy youth, but it also gave his campaign a huge repository of cell phone numbers--and nobody was surprised when Obama used them on Election Day. It even got on some users' nerves: Twitter user FinanceGirl expressed her frustration: OMG, Obama! Please stop texting me!
9. In the interest of shameless self-promotion, this one comes from CNET News' own Josh Lowensohn, who asked at the conclusion of Obama's music-filled victory speech, This remind anyone else of the end of Return of the Jedi? With CNN using holograms to bring remote correspondents into the studio, Princess Leia-style, he's got a point.
8. If you were following the election feed on Twitter during Obama's acceptance speech, at one point, the conversation turned entirely to puppies. Backstory: Obama had promised his two young daughters that he'd give them a puppy if he won the election, and as he thanked his family in the speech, he mentioned that, yes, they'd get the dog. From the twittering masses came plenty of OMGs and adorable-speak, but Twitter user Dennis Yang had a different thought in mind: obama, do I get a puppy too?
7. Los Angeles-based twitterer Bill Palmer noticed that literally everyone caught election fever: homeless guy on Hollywood Blvd with a sign that says "Obama aint the only one who wants change"--now that's clever. McCain supporters, insert your own potshot about "spreading the wealth around" here.
(Credit:
Twitter; The Onion)
6. One of the funniest Twitter accounts to follow during the election was the account for satire newspaper The Onion, and it was in high gear. Members of Twitter were encouraged to tag their tweets with #twitvote to provide election updates; The Onion naturally started planting fake ones. The best of the bunch: #twitvote 9:39 a.m. Dr. Monopoly Pumpernickel was denied a vote after he was shown to be nothing more than 3 small children in an overcoat.
5. Another pretty sweet tweet from The Onion: #twitvote: 5:57 p.m. Donald Pauley of Pickerington, OH fled the polling station when his voting machine asked, "Shall we play a game?"
4. As voting lines reached record lengths around the country, CrunchGear blogger Peter Ha told everyone via Twitter to calm down: If you can wait three+ days to buy a damned iPhone then you can wait (in) line to vote, a**hats. Crude, yes. But he gets his point across.
(Credit:
Twitter; jdmcleodjr)
3. One of the biggest success stories of the election cycle--you know, besides the guy who won--was FiveThirtyEight.com and its owner, Nate Silver. The election prediction site sprang up out of Silver's experience predicting baseball results, and twitterers were in awe when FiveThirtyEight's predictions turned out to be almost completely dead-on.
Twitter user jdmcleodjr has some ideas for what he should do next: Incidentally, Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com ought to take his act to Vegas. Well, if you've mastered baseball and national politics, there must be only one frontier left to conquer--poker!
2. It was a thrilling evening for Obama supporters, but some people have really been left out in the cold--namely late-night talk-show hosts and stand-up comedians who have said in the past that the now-president-elect simply isn't wacky enough for joke fodder.
Remember how thrilled comedians were when he learned that Obama was bad at bowling? They'll have to be more creative now, as Canadian comedian Peter Cianfarini twittered: Do you people have any idea how much more difficult you've made it for comedians? We needed McCain & Palin. I hope you're all proud! Defeated veep candidate Sarah Palin, after all, will be associated with Canadian comedy for years to come.
1. And our official "best election tweet" award goes to Twitter user JHix, who wrote about his voting experience: Officially just played the worst video game ever. You mark people with an "x" and then wait almost forever to find out who won.
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama appears in cartoon form on the logo of Chinese search engine Baidu.
(Credit: Baidu)Chinese-language search engine Baidu has an unusual new mascot atop its home page: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
A cartoon version of Obama is depicted next to a donkey, the Democratic party emblem. He's holding a net as though casting it, and attached to the end of the net is a computer mouse--get it? It's the Internet.
This is part of a "person of the month" feature that Baidu has instituted since November, the blog Shanghaiist explains. Each month, Baidu selects a real-life or fictional personality who has ranked high in its search queries. As Shanghaiist explains, it's "a bit like Google Trends meets Time Person of the Year on a monthly basis." Barack Obama is the sixth installment in the series.
The series is hosted on the domain renwu.baidu.com; "renwu" means "historically important person."
While the biography of Obama on Baidu is largely celebratory, this is not a formal endorsement of the candidate. It is, however, an endorsement of his Web-savviness. Clicking on the Obama-adorned logo on Baidu redirects to a Chinese-language biography of the candidate and links to various media; the central talking point is Obama's status as a young politician who has successfully leveraged digital media and the Web to rise to fame. Of particular note, according to his Baidu page, is his speech about race in Philadelphia that soared to the YouTube stratosphere after appearing on television earlier.
But of more local relevance, the Baidu site about Obama also highlights the high volume of Chinese search queries for both Obama and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Charts and graphs detail politics-related searches both Chinese and international. There are also information resources pertaining to what the U.S. presidential election means to China, and what Chinese citizens think about it.
"State and world affairs have become the most popular topics of concern for Internet users," a translation of part of Baidu's page about Obama reads. It doesn't seem to mesh particularly well with the Chinese government's rigid stance on the spread of information, particularly political rhetoric, on the Web.
Nor was it clear whether the Obama campaign would react positively, considering the tense relationship between the U.S. and China. Calls to the campaign's press office for comment were not immediately returned.
Iowa what?
Amid the frenzied press coverage over Thursday's too-close-to-call caucuses in the Hawkeye State, 153,226 MySpace.com users have already cast their (unofficial) votes.
In a set of "virtual primaries" held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Republican Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama were declared the winners of the News Corp.-owned social-networking site's polls.
The poll was conducted entirely through MySpace's Impact political site. And for those who have been following Election 2008 on the Web, neither "victory" is particularly surprising.
On the Democratic side, MySpace users selected Obama nearly 2 to 1, with the Illinois senator taking 46 percent of the vote, followed by Hillary Clinton with 31 percent and then John Edwards with 8 percent. Obama's triumph among MySpace's young and tech-savvy user base is no surprise--he has proven a favorite among many young voters hoping for change, as well as a sizable portion of left-leaning geeks.
But in Thursday's Iowa caucuses, Obama doesn't enjoy such a clear advantage--the outcome remains too close to tell.
Ron Paul, however, is a different story. The Texas congressman is considered quite the long shot, failing to poll above more than a few percentage points nationwide. But his libertarian views and vocal opposition to the war in Iraq have found a welcome home on the Web, and MySpace is no exception. In the social network's virtual primaries, Paul won by an impressive margin with 37 percent of the vote, followed by more legitimate offline contenders Rudy Giuliani (18 percent) and Mike Huckabee (16 percent).
"Exit poll" questions in the MySpace primary revealed that 83 percent of participants plan to vote in their states' actual primaries, and 91 percent plan to vote in the general U.S. election. They also named the economy and jobs, the war in Iraq, and health care to be the three most important issues facing the country.
Representatives from the social network, which has launched an extensive youth-voting initiative and political awareness campaigns for the 2008 election, have stressed that the results of the primary represent the "MySpace generation," and consequently probably don't reflect the nation as a whole.
Additionally, it should be noted that while the poll was offered only to members of MySpace's main U.S. site (not its international editions), it did not require respondents to be of legal voting age. And while MySpace has said the average age of respondents is 29 years old, such a figure should be taken with a grain of salt because no age verification system was in place.
But when it comes to the political leanings of avid social network users, MySpace's results may not be far off base. Rival social network Facebook has also launched a politics site in conjunction with ABC News, and ongoing presidential-candidate polls show Obama and Paul as the front-runners there too.
If elected president, Barack Obama plans to prioritize, well, barring broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast from prioritizing Internet content.
Affixing his signature to federal Net neutrality rules would be high on the list during his first year in the Oval Office, the junior senator from Illinois said during an interactive forum Monday afternoon with the popular contender put on by MTV and MySpace at Coe College in Iowa.
Sen. Barack Obama
Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn't be allowed to block or degrade Internet content and services--or charge content providers an extra fee for speedier delivery or more favorable placement.
The question, selected through an online video contest, was posed via video by small-business owner and former AT&T engineer Joe Niederberger, a member of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. He asked Obama: "Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate Net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net neutrality?"
"The answer is yes," Obama replied. "I am a strong supporter of Net neutrality."
He went on to explain the issue briefly: "What you've been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you're getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites...so you could get much better quality from the Fox News site and you'd be getting rotten service from the mom and pop sites," he went on. "And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet--which is that there is this incredible equality there."
Obama added that companies like Google may not have gotten started without a "level playing field" and pledged to make sure Net neutrality "is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward."
Obama's revelation wasn't exactly jaw-dropping. After all, when debate over enacting Net neutrality laws was raging in earnest last summer, he devoted a podcast to touting the need for regulations and denying the Bells and cable the ability "to change the internet as we know it." He also signed on as a cosponsor of legislation proposing Net neutrality regulations for broadband providers.
He's also not the only presidential candidate to voice support for the rules. On the Democratic side, so have Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), former Democratic senator John Edwards, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Among the Republicans, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has also reportedly given a thumbs up to the idea, although some opponents of Net neutrality laws contend he was blindsided in a conference call with bloggers and questioned whether he was familiar enough with the issue to take a real stand. With only a few exceptions, however, Republicans have generally rejected proposals for Net neutrality regulations, arguing the market should be left to sort out complaints of discrimination and that new regulations will stifle investment in new broadband networks.
If nothing else, Obama's remarks are noteworthy because they seem to affirm that Net neutrality is alive and well as a political issue. His decision to promise "concrete steps," as MoveOn.org called them, at a public forum could create a ripple effect, eliciting similar pledges (or opposite ones, as the case may be) from rivals and becoming a defining issue in the campaign.
Still, I don't know about you, but as polarizing as the proposed regulations may be, I'm just not sure I can picture Net neutrality becoming a make-or-break issue akin to healthcare, immigration or the Iraq War.
(Credit:
LinkedIn (Screenshot by Switched))
Plenty of coverage has been devoted to national politicians' widespread adoption of MySpace and Facebook as campaign tools--it's a popular strategic move to ride the wave of viral buzz and simultaneously cater to the elusive youth vote. Democratic candidate John Edwards was even a Twitter early adopter.
Business-oriented social-networking site LinkedIn, meanwhile, has stayed out of the political fray. And indeed, LinkedIn hasn't started any formal campaign tie-ins the way MySpace has. But that hasn't stopped presidential hopeful Barack Obama from creating a profile on the site; if you want to "add him as a connection," you can do so right here.
At the very least, it's kind of amusing to see Obama's credentials and goals fit into the rigid confines of a LinkedIn profile. You can see the Illinois senator's past political experience (as many pundits have repeatedly emphasized, it's a short list) laid out like a resume, and learn that his non-professional interests include "basketball, writing, and spending time with (his) kids." And, of course, there's the "Get Introduced to Barack Obama" link. Sure, maybe at a $500-a-plate dinner.
(Via Switched)
The junior senator from Illinois and apparent presidential hopeful will be launching a social networking feature on his site, BarackObama.com, Saturday, according to a video message he released Friday.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
In telling his supporters to be ready for an important Saturday morning announcement from Springfield, Ill., his exploratory committee headquarters, he invited people to join what sounds like a MySpace for his supporters.
He describes it as "a tool to organize your friends, neighbors and networks." Members will be able to build their own profile, form affinity groups, plan events, and, of course, donate money to his campaign. As if that's not enough, Obama wants his fans to chronicle their "campaign experiences" on their personal blogs.
Obama and Hillary Clinton, also vying for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, are dueling it out over who's most down with the Web generation. Obama announced the formation of his presidential exploratory committee via video on his Web site last month, and Clinton took to Yahoo Answers to cull public ideas for health care reform.
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