I would have loved, wait… LOVED to have been able to attend the Web2.0 Summit. In fact I had an invite to meet someone there, but alas real life got in the way.
Moya Watson gives a great recap on her blog. Here are some highlights that I enjoyed from the recap:
Web meets the president
“Were it not for the Internet, Obama would not have been elected President,” said Arianna Huffington in Friday’s great panel, The Web and Politics (with John Heilemann, Arianna Huffington, Gavin Newsom, and Joe Trippi). “It wasn’t the age of the candidate that mattered in this election,” she continued, “It was the age of the ideas.”
Web meets (dirty) politics
We’ve just experienced the terrible flipside of “truth into our living rooms,” which is that the Internet can also be used, with devastating effectiveness, to spread attacks and lies into our living rooms. Here are some specific examples from the fight against Proposition 8 — all true:
- Videos propagated on YouTube in which the official “Yes” campaign equated gays with Hitler
- No On Prop 8’s Web site attacked by denial-of-service (which we overcame mightily, thanks to our Web techs)
- Personal attacks from people in the blogosphere throughout open, unmoderated threads (when another side might have had closed threads)
- Videos propagated by the official “Yes” campaign using children without their parents’ agreement or permission
- Gay people (and straight alike) getting anti-gay “Yes” ads served on their site because the yes campaign invested heavily in Google AdWords
Web meets TV
“TV is the biggest medium in America that hasn’t been democratized yet,” said @ev. “Twitter changes how people connect with people – if you expand that to a very large user base, it can change culture.” Pointing out that it’s not just social, Evan continued, “it has potential to see aggregate real-time information, like during the election.” Add Current TV to the mix and what happens?
“With Twitter and this broadcast model together, what happens is that you can get alternate viewpoints WHILE they’re being broadcast” -@ev
Green is the new Web
Calling himself a “recovering politician,” Al Gore took stage late at the summit to a standing ovation, saying that the “redeeming quality of the election” was that “all humans are created equal” and that this “would not have been possible without the Internet.”
Web meets the iPhone
AND more…. read the whole blog post and video/photos links here.
Hoping to get to the Web2.0 Expo in the spring. Anyone wanna’ go with??
Read moreTim O’reilly (proponent of free software and open source) has started a tweet campaign online minutes ago to get President-elect Barack Obama to continue to give us updates post-election, and into his presidency.
Barack last tweeted the morning after the election:
We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks
If you have a Twitter account, send Barack a message with “@barackobama” in your tweet.
The power of collective action, and hopefully the beauty of democracy in a hi-tech world!
Side note: I’m twittering more than blogging these days. Much easier and faster! RSS my tweets or follow me on my Twitter page. (Will be merging Lost in Mastication to Voix de Novice soon as well, so I’m not managing multiple blogs.)
Read moreA few years back I discovered long-distance provider Working Assets after I received a free coupon for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream from a distant family member. It invited us to try out the non-profit socially responsible phone company – now called CREDO. (Looks like they still offer the free ice cream!)
Something else that is really cool about this is this:
So, to help you get out the vote this year, CREDO is making all outbound domestic calls free this November 4 during your state’s polling hours, on both CREDO Mobile and CREDO Long Distance.
We hope you’ll call all your friends and urge them to get out and vote. We’re picking up the tab, so you won’t need to worry about the cost.
Everyone I know, or at least care to pick up the phone and call will already be voting or have gone to an early voting poll this week.
But I’ll take advantage of reaching out and touching someone. Probably Pablo or Mom.
Read moreA few days delayed.. but from the Sunlight Foundation who ran the Let Our Congress Tweet campaign:
Read moreOn Friday, we told you about the happy ending to months of negotiations to modernize the Franking rules that govern how members of Congress can use the Internet to communicate with us about their work. The new rules just passed by the House and Senate allow members of Congress to communicate with us on sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Flickr without recrimination. (We advocated for these rules changes through our bipartisan collaborative effort, the Open House Project, and through our popular Let Our Congress Tweet campaign, the first Twitter-based petition to Congress, which hundreds of you joined.)