Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, there are literally hundreds of platforms that Republican and Democrat candidates can utilize for the 2012 election cycle. While President Obama dominated the social media spectrum in 2008 this years elections have demonstrated a more acute understanding and implementation on both sides of the political spectrum.
The team at Viralheat put together in infographic that showcases not only the number of people supporting each political party but also candidate information.
As the infographic shows there is a new virtual tie when it comes to “Share of voice” on social networks” while the type of networks being utilized differ with President Obama dominating Facebook and Pinterest while Mitt Romney holds his own on Twitter. read more
After the pay per post and pay per tweet fiasco’s that previously upset the blogosphere (mainly due to the lack of disclosure), it looks like blog readers may have to deal with a new scandal, one that could damage the reputation of conservative political bloggers.
“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.” [...]
One pro-Poizner blogger, Aaron Park, was discovered to be a paid consultant to the Poizner campaign while writing for Red County, a conservative blog about California politics. Red County founder Chip Hanlon threw Park off the site upon discovering his affiliation, which had not been disclosed. (Daily Caller) read more
It look like American bloggers could face a new threat that may make people think twice before criticizing their political leaders online.
Apparently the US government thinks bloggers are becoming a public hazard, and like a few other industries (i.e. airplanes, banks and nuclear power plants) need to be regulated by the government (in this case the Federal Election Commission).
The Obama administration has announced plans to regulate the Internet through the Federal Communications Commission, extending its authority over broadband providers to police web traffic, enforcing “net neutrality.”
Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to give another agency—the Federal Election Commission—unprecedented power to regulate political speech online. At a House Administration Committee hearing last Tuesday, Patton Boggs attorney William McGinley explained that the sloppy statutory language in the “DISCLOSE Act” would extend the FEC’s control over broadcast communications to all “covered communications,” including the blogosphere. (Reason.com)
This law would probably extend to Twitter as well, not to mention Facebook too (the latter who is embroiled in another censorship case via Pakistan). read more
The second annual Orwell Prize for political writing to include a blogging category will include on its judging panel the surprise winner of last year’s prize, Night Jack, aka Detective Constable Richard Horton.
No matter how hard a bunch of fat cat solicitors representing a globally polluting oil company try to suppress traditional reporting of what happens in British parliament, they have no control over Twitter and the blogosphere.
And that’s exactly how it should be.
The Guardian may have been placed in a farcical position where not only could it not report on a certain question due to be asked in Parliament this week because of an injunction, but it couldn’t even report what the injunction was:
Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
The Conservative mayor of Barnet Council in London sent an abusive reply to a Labour party-supporting blogger who included him in an email criticising the council’s leadership.
Brian Coleman responded by calling blogger Roger Tichborne “an obsessive, poisonous individual”.
“You are an obsessive, poisonous individual and Labour Party member whose blog is full of lies, half-truths and misinformation.
In an exclusive interview with Mashable, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he loves Twitter as a mean of communication with the Californian citizen.
Q. How actively will you be monitoring the Twitter ideas shared through MyIdea4CA?
I have always been active in looking at ideas sent to me from my Twitter followers, so the MyIdea4CA website will be an even easier way to stay on top of this process.
He announced the launch of MyIdea4CA, a twitter aggregator following the hashtag #myidea4ca. The Governor will use the MyIdea4CA platform, or forum as he calls it, as a way to monitor what the citizens propose and hope to improve. Several ‘subforums’ are implemented via the use of multiple hashtags and can be followed on site, fe. Jobs and Economy. Ideas can be voted up or down by anyone and there is a negative threshold, hiding down voted ideas. read more
Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at BIS, has blogged, “Micro-blogging [has] a low barrier to entry [and is a] low-risk and low-resource channel relative to other corporate communications overheads like a blog or printed newsletter… I was surprised by just how much there is to say and quite how worth saying it is, especially now the platform is more mature and less forgiving of mistakes.” read more
Tweetminster, the web service that tracks British politicians’ use of Twitter, has announced a beta version of its Adobe Air-based Tweetminster Wire desktop application.
The service is designed to make it easier to track conversations about UK politics, including live streams on MPs and PPCs (prospective parliamentary candidates) who use Twitter, tweets from all major parties, UK parliament and government tweets, relevant conversations, plus any posts including the #tmwire hashtag. read more
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, there are literally hundreds of platforms that Republican and Democrat candidates can utilize for the 2012 election cycle. While President Obama dominated the social media spectrum in 2008 this years elections have demonstrated a more acute understanding and implementation on both sides of the political spectrum.
In an exclusive interview with Mashable, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger 
Five months ago the UK government 
