election

A correction was made to this story. See below for details.

Calling venture capitalist Tim Draper an ardent Republican is something of an understatement. In 1999, he was enough of a fan of then-candidate George W. Bush that he chaired three fundraisers over a year before the actual election.

Salon once dubbed him "George W.'s point man in Silicon Valley." The Draper, Fisher Jurvetson managing partner is a longtime proponent of limited government, free markets, and libertarian concepts like school vouchers, making him a natural fit for a political party whose platform lauds "lower taxes, reasonable … Read more

On the occasion of Barack Obama’s nationwide TV prime time infomercials last night, Fast Company’s Ellen McGirt reviewed the campaign’s media strategy and in particular its innovative use of amateur (or “professional” amateur a.k.a. "promateur") video. While the Obama camp has heaped millions of dollars on traditional TV broadcasters, setting a new record for ad spending ($250 million), McGirt believes that the true winners in this campaign are amateurs and democracy

To get an insider’s perspective, McGirt interviewed Obama’s director of field video, Arun Chaudhary, at an event in July in New York. … Read more

After broadcasting live Twitters during the U.S. presidential debate, Current TV had to go one notch higher for election night.

The cable channel, co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has partnered with both Twitter and social news site Digg for the evening of November 4, during which it will feature a "multimedia dashboard" with live messages from Twitter, headlines from Digg, and video from both Current and "video status update" start-up 12seconds.tv. In keeping with the network's young target audience, electronica act Diplo will be performing DJ sets throughout the night, too.… Read more

Meebo is getting into the real-time election chatter game that Current and Twitter (story) have been in with the debates. The company is announcing that it will power the chat rooms for Comedy Central's Indecision2008 Election Day coverage. Comedy Central will also be live blogging the election.

I am a big fan of Meebo's products, although its chat service does have limitations. Only 80 people can enter a chat room, after which the service opens up additional rooms for the overflow crowds. Meebo can handle an indefinite number of these shadow rooms, but they are all separate parties: … Read more

I have to admit, I didn't see the point of Sonic Lighter. I mean, it was cool to see real-time mapping of people using it, but there was no real point. With the latest version, however, that's changed.

Smule has released Sonic Lighter 1.2.1 Special Campaign 2008 Edition for the iPhone. Instead of just lighting a normal orange flame, with the new version you now get to express yourself politically (somewhat), by choosing either the red (McCain) or blue (Obama) flame.

The coolest thing about this is the ability to see, in real-time, which flame is … Read more

Technology CEOs and other business leaders are taking to YouTube to encourage their employees to tear themselves away from their desks for an hour on November 4 to go vote.

VoteHour.org, launched by Google, features about two dozen 40-second clips from the likes of eBay CEO John Donahoe, Intel CEO Paul Otellini, Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins, and Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse. Executives from other sectors who made videos for the site include Borders CEO George Jones and Cintas CEO Scott Farmer. There are also about two dozen more written endorsements of the "vote hour" from … Read more

This week's 60 Minutes included a story about what have been called "financial weapons of mass destruction"--credit derivatives or credit default swaps.

CBS News' Steve Kroft reported that a vote in Congress in 2000 on an obscure bill called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was one of the causes of today's meltdown on Wall Street. (Disclosure: CBS News and CNET share the same parent company.)

That broadcast inspired the editor of a political watchdog site to post a list of the current members of the U.S. Congress who voted for the final … Read more

Until Monday, Sen. Ted Stevens was best known in technology circles for his "series of tubes" analogy. Now he'll be known for his jury conviction on corruption charges.

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., convicted the Alaska Republican of all seven charges of accepting gifts and home renovations from a wealthy oil contractor and then lying about them on official documents.

Stevens is running for re-election next week. Because it's too late for the Republican Party to remove his name from the ballot and because it's not terribly likely that Alaskans will vote for … Read more

Government computers in Ohio may been used to illegally access personal information about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, otherwise known as "Joe the Plumber," according to the Columbus Dispatch.

During their October 15 debate, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain referred to "Joe the Plumber" constantly. In the days following the debate, information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport utility vehicle was retrieved from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times, the Dispatch reported.

With access to such information limited to legitimate law enforcement and government business, state and local officials are … Read more