The Mainichi Daily News is reporting that Japan’s cabinet has placed a ban on candidates using Twitter for the country’s upcoming House of Representatives election campaign.
Citing the Public Offices Election Law, the government has deemed Twitter content to fall under the “literature and images” clause within the law. [Read more…]
With the U.S. presidential election hours away, we’re a blink-of-an-eye away from putting this one in the books. The 2008 race for the White House spawned a record number of new political blogs, and in turn, a record number of readers.
My question is this: Will these blogs have legs after the race is over?
I realize this is a general question, and that will be dictated by the bloggers ability to captivate/maintain their audience. But it seems like things will come to a climax tomorrow night as people live-blog coverage.
Will blog readers then roll over and light a cigarette?
I’d love to hear if the election cycle turned you on to any new blogs. If so, feel free to share them in the comments section below and let us know if you’ll still continue to read once a new president is selected.
Update 1 Nov 2008: We’ve added several links. Thanks to Jackie Sheeler for making the first suggestion. Feel free to add more in the comments!
The 2008 US presidential election will be over in about 100 hours (unless Florida can’t make up its mind again).
There are, in fact, other elections as well next Tuesday. But of course we all know the real battle is Obama vs. Palin – er, McCain.
Without further ado (and before the comment firestorm begins below), The Blog Herald presents the best blogosphere and social media destinations to track Election Day 2008, in no particular order:
1. CNN Political Ticker – Yes, it’s a mainstream media site. But it’s also a blog. The differences are so blurry now in 2008 anyway. :) It’s common to see hundreds of comments on a post here as Election Day approaches. You can subscribe to twice-daily email alerts if you don’t want the barrage of zero-hour coverage to disturb your day off from work. Bias: Obama. [Read more…]
No surprise here, but the recent debate means more Twitter activity. Twitter reports that they had a 160% tweet increase compared to the same time the previous week, and that the daily update was up 18.5%. More stats in the Twitter blog post. The same also tells us that they’re polishing the Election page we’ve mentioned previously.
Wired’s Epicenter blog gets to wrap this up:
Predictions for Thursday’s VP debate? Sarah Palin tweets crash the site in record time.
This is pretty cool. Twitter has launched a mashup page that crawls people’s tweets, and pushes out the ones relevant to the election. I especially like the auto update feature, something that really should be on every user’s page as well. Check out the Election on Twitter page, and read more about it on the Twitter Blog.
Digg is rolling out their Digg Dialogg service, which basically is a Q&A with select people, where the questions are submitted by the Digg users, and then dugg up or down, with the winning ones behind actually asked. It is Digg for questions to a specific person, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the moment. Kevin Rose explains:
The concept is simple – we identify a featured guest that you will be able to submit questions to (text or video) which the Digg community Diggs up or down. We’ll pose the top questions to the guest during a live interview. Featured guests will represent thought leaders and tastemakers across diverse topics including technology luminaries, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, musicians and filmmakers.
The Digg Dialogg is part of Digg’s coverage of the US presidential election, and a partnership with CNN’s iReport. It is likely that Digg Dialogg will stick around after the election is over as well.
This morning, Techcrunch wonders aloud if Google Trends can predict the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
We’re not sure if the number of searches for a candidates’ name is indicative of electoral success, but we do know that the Web can help shape today’s political landscape.
In the McCain vs. Obama battle, it is clear that Barack’s camp has been able to utilize the Web in ways other candidates have only been able to dream of up until this point. And with about 100 years separating the two men, Johnny M. is doing his part to see the fact that he is ‘hip.’ To that point, the presidential candidate has launched The McCain Report, a new daily blog that communicates with supporters, reporters and bloggers (maybe critics too).
According to the McCain Website:
The goal of this project is pretty straightforward: to provide journalists and bloggers with a little more insight into what’s going on over here, to provide quotes and information you won’t be able to get anywhere else, and to serve as a point of contact for online media.
You can check out The McCain Report here.
As we told you last month, the Democrats are giving select bloggers access to be on the floor of the national convention in Denver this summer. Fifty-five lucky bloggers have been chosen. Here’s the full list of “State Blogger Corps”:
ALASKA: Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis: divasblueoasis.blogspot.com
ALABAMA: Doc’s Political Parlor: www.politicalparlor.net
ARKANSAS: Under The Dome.com: www.underthedome.com
ARIZONA: Ted Prezelski – Rum, Romanism and Rebellion: www.rumromanismrebellion.net
CALIFORNIA: Calitics: Calitics.com
COLORADO: SquareState.net: squarestate.net
CONNECTICUT: My Left Nutmeg: myleftnutmeg.com
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: DCist.com: dcist.com
DELAWARE: TommyWonk: tommywonk.blogspot.com/
DEMOCRATS Abroad: Democrats Abroad Argentina: www.yanquimike.com.ar
FLORIDA: Florida Progressive Coalition: flaprogressives.org
GEORGIA: Tondee’s Tavern: www.tondeestavern.com
GUAM: No Rest for the Awake – Minagahet Chamorro: minagahet.blogspot.com
HAWAII: iLind.net: Ian Lind Online: www.ilind.net
IOWA: The Iowa Independent: iowaindependent.com
IDAHO: 43rdStateBlues.com: www.43rdstateblues.com
ILLINOIS: Prairie State Blue: www.PrairieStateBlue.com
KANSAS: EverydayCitizen.com: everydaycitizen.com
KENTUCKY: BlueGrassRoots: www.bluegrassroots.org
LOUISIANA: Daily Kingfish: www.dailykingfish.com
MASSACHUSETTS: Blue Mass. Group: www.bluemassgroup.com
MARYLAND: The Center for Emerging Media: www.centerforemergingmedia.com
MAINE: Turn Maine Blue: www.turnmaineblue.com
MICHIGAN: Blogging For Michigan: bloggingformichigan.com
MINNESOTA: Minnesota Monitor: minnesotamonitor.com
MISSISSIPPI: The Natchez Blog: natchezms.blogspot.com
MISSOURI: Fired Up! LLC: www.firedupmissouri.com
MONTANA: Left in the West: www.leftinthewest.com
NORTH CAROLINA: BlueNC.com: bluenc.com
NORTH DAKOTA: NorthDecoder.com: www.northdecoder.com
NEBRASKA: New Nebraska Network: www.NewNebraska.net
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Blue Hampshire: www.bluehampshire.com
NEW JERSEY: PolitickerNJ.com: www.politickernj.com
NEW MEXICO: Democracy for New Mexico: www.DemocracyForNewMexico.com
NEVADA: Las Vegas Gleaner: www.lasvegasgleaner.com
NEW YORK: Room 8: www.r8ny.com
OHIO: Ohio Daily Blog: www.ohiodailyblog.com
OKLAHOMA: DemoOkie: www.DemoOkie.com
OREGON: BlueOregon (blog): www.blueoregon.com
PENNSYLVANIA: Keystone Politics: www.keystonepolitics.com
PUERTO RICO: Jusiper: jusiper.blogspot.com
RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island’s Future: www.rifuture.org
SOUTH CAROLINA: CracktheBell.com: www.crackthebell.com
SOUTH DAKOTA: Badlands Blue: www.badlandsblue.com
TENNESSEE: KnoxViews/TennViews: www.knoxviews.com
TEXAS: Burnt Orange Report: www.BurntOrangeReport.com
UTAH: The Utah Amicus: utahamicus.com
VIRGINIA: Raising Kaine: www.raisingkaine.com
VIRGIN ISLANDS: Democratic Party of the US Virgin Islands: groups.yahoo.com/group/democratvi
VERMONT: Green Mountain Daily: greenmountaindaily.com
WASHINGTON: HorsesAss.org: www.horsesass.org
WISCONSIN: Uppity Wisconsin: www.uppitywis.org
WEST VIRGINIA: West Virginia Blue: www.wvablue.com
WYOMING: Hummingbirdminds blog: hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com
