British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday hailed the 200% growth in East London’s technology cluster over the past year — but closer examination of the official figures by GigaOM shows that the statistics include nightclubs, fashion retailers and other non-tech businesses. Read more »
The Senate failed to stop the network neutrality rules enacted by the FCC. But for anyone who watched the hearings or sees how the vote split completely along partisan lines, the vote is a reminder of how easily the folks in D.C. can stymie innovation. Read more »
It’s no surprise that Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks doesn’t like Glenn Beck’s politics. However, Uygur also thinks that Beck doesn’t get online video. Uygur recently signed up with YouTube for its new content initiative instead of relying on a pay wall like Beck. Read more »
Building on his social media success in 2008, it looks like big data will be a driving force behind President Obama’s reelection campaign. To that end, his team is taking to the streets to find data scientists and engineers, including at an event Tuesday at Stanford. Read more »
This week’s drama between The Young Turks creator and host Cenk Uygur and MSNBC has a sad tinge of inevitability to it, given the compromises required by the mainstream media. The major twist is just how loudly Uygur is raging against his former employer. Read more »
When most people think about Google and Facebook, they think about California’s Silicon Valley. But according to newly filed disclosure documents, the tech industry’s titans are spending increasing amounts of time and money making their voices heard in Washington, D.C. Are they crossing the line? Read more »
The Internet has been called many things over the years, but even its most vocal supporters and critics might have been surprised by the characterization put forward today by U.S. State Department official Alec Ross. Speaking at the Activate Summit in London, Ross — senior adviser […] Read more »
Keith Olbermann’s return to cable television is aided by a full-blown Twitter campaign, aiming in part to get potential viewers riled up that not every cable provider carries Current. Viewers will also get to see clips of the show on iTunes, Hulu and YouTube. Read more »
Glenn Beck is back: The controversial TV pundit is launching his own online TV network this week, promising to relaunch his daily TV show in September on the Internet. However, GBTV won’t be free: Subscribers will have to pay between $5 and $10 per month. Read more »
YouTube will stream one of the final pre-primary debates between the GOP’s contenders to challenge President Obama online, and the site will once again let users participate by asking the candidates questions. It’s part of a bigger plan to ramp up election coverage on the site. Read more »
The Grand Old Party is keen to look a little less, well, old: Republican politician Newt Gingrich plans to officially announce his candidacy for President on Wednesday through messages posted on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, signaling a sea-change in how Republicans run for President. Read more »
As violence against pro-democracy demonstrators and other civilians is intensifying in Syria, YouTube is increasingly becoming the primary media outlet to learn about the situation in the country. Censorship against YouTube was lifted only two months ago, but now reports about phone network outages emerge. Read more »
President Obama is coming to Facebook HQ tomorrow to answer questions about the economy and the budget in a special online town hall meeting. The event will also feature Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Obama may have to deal with questions about marijuana and gambling. Read more »
It has been slammed in the past for being the Internet’s most powerful echo chamber, but now a team of researchers from the U.K. and Korea have found that active Twitter users are exposed to a wider diversity of political viewpoints. Read more »
British Prime Minister David Cameron is being criticized for his close links to Google ahead of the UK’s review of intellectual property laws. His ties are real — but may be just another case of British politicians being entranced by technology’s most powerful companies. Read more »
One joke from President Obama, made two weeks ago during a press conference, has kicked off a national branded campaign led by a daily episodic web series, thanks to 7-Eleven and Happy Little Guillotine Films. Obama, however, holds the key to the show being a success. Read more »
Tomorrow is a big day. The individuals we vote into office will have a tremendous effect on the connected issues of pulling out of this years-old economic funk and advancing IT policy. Certain proof points suggest a stark contrast in how parties approach this nexus. Read more »
Where there’s an incredibly successful advertising campaign, there are the unavoidable imitators. Last month’s Old Spice social media domination meant that rip-offs of the Isaiah Mustafa ads were inevitable. And it’s a rare thing when the copy is as good as the original. Read more »
Live streams of legislative proceedings and other political events aren’t exactly sexy, but the Sunlight Foundation aims to make them at least more accessible by adding information about speakers and their donors in real time. The project won a $10,000 journalism award for these efforts today. Read more »
YouTube’s You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit, announced today, will allow any politician to apply for a Politician Channel, engage with voters via the Moderator platform and use paid campaign tools “to reach viewers with political ads, just like on TV,” according to Google’s blog. Read more »
Yesterday, a Israeli raid against an aid flotilla left 10 dead and 30 wounded, and public opinion on both sides of the incident is being shaped in part by YouTube, thanks to video of the incident providing different perspectives of what happened. Read more »
While some web workers have made a niche for themselves by working exclusively with organizations representing one political point of view, most of us don’t have that option. And quite frankly, I’d get bored talking about the same issues, and presenting the same point of view. Read more »
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is alienating its member companies with a hard-line stance it’s taken against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and climate change legislation currently making the rounds in the Senate. The latest casualty in the conflict generated by the Chamber’s controversial position is […] Read more »
The origins of Labor Day, which takes place the first Monday of September in North America, are somewhat uncertain. The holiday originated in Canada, born out of the worker’s rights movement there in the 1870s. By the 1880s, it had spread across the border, and the […] Read more »
While online video coverage of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing is unlikely to drive the same spikes in traffic as the recent Michael Jackson memorial, we realize there is a contingent of people who want to watch our government in action. Fans of political […] Read more »
