More Election Tools
October 2, 2008 § Leave a comment
Clearly, I’m only scrating the surface. Since my earlier post about the Twitter Election feed, I’ve learned about some other interesting online tools:
My Debates is a plitical forum through the MySpace social networking site where participants can submit question for consideration to the debate. People can also use various tools to debate the issues with other citizens.
CSPAN Debate Hub is a site where in addition to watching the presidential debates, citizens can use tools like Twitter and YouTube to share their observations.
Patchwork Nation from the Christian Science Monitor is an interactive tool which breaks down different cultural epicenters across the country and their political leanings.
And because I’m liberal, I have to give a plug for this site: Living Liberally. This is a real-life social networking tool that allows you to find like-minded social groups in your region where you can gather and watch the debates while engaging in your favorite activity, like drinking and eating.
I’m sure there are more, and I’m still looking for them!
Making Heads or Tails of It
September 29, 2008 § Leave a comment
I have been trying to educate myself about mortgage backed securities and commercial paper within last two weeks, as I indicated in my earlier post about the information resources I have been collecting that best explain the economic crisis.
By far the best resource that I have found so far is the Planet Money blog and podcast from NPR. Thier stories are featured on some of the regular programs, like All Things Considered and Morning Edition, but the podcast through iTunes has a few nuggets that I haven’t heard anywhere else, so its worth downloading.
The contributing journalists to this effort offer down-to-earth easily understandable break downs for the average listener who doesn’t have a degree in finance or economics.
I need to understand this stuff for my job, and as a citizen I see it as a responsibility. The journalists here clearly see it as their job to educate the public on how some incredibly important decisions might impact our world and our day-to-day life for generations. They do a great job.
Oh, and I was thrilled tonight to find that they also have a Twitter feed.
Twitter Election Feed
September 27, 2008 § Leave a comment
I have discovered another Twitter tool that has captivated my attention: The 2008 election feed.
Twitter has provided this brilliant platform that citizens can use to give their two cents about developments related to the 2008 presidential election. I discovered this while watching the debates last night. Not only did I find a handful of interesting people to follow on Twitter, following the feed allowed me to take the temperature of what the rest of the world was observing about the debates. People are actively using hash tags, which will enable you to more easily follow specific threads, but there seem to be some technical difficulties with this function. The hash tag links always seem to give me an error message. I can’t wait until they iron out the problems with this feature.
I picked up the feed again this morning to find some interesting news items and opinion pieces, as well as to hear the latest controversies, specifically about whether or not McCain muttered “horsesh*t” under his breath in response to Obama’s assertion that McCain wouldn’t meet with the Prime Minister of Spain. Fascinating stuff, let me tell you.
There is a lot of crap that folks are tweeting out there that you would expect from the lowest common denomenator. My overall assessment of this tool, however, is that it has the potential to encourage more people to talk to each other and debate the issues.
Perhaps even *gasp* across state and partisan lines. Now that would be exciting.
Chicago New Media Summit
September 14, 2008 § Leave a comment
While I won’t be attending this event, I will most certainly be watching the ning site and following the Twitter feed, looking for content emerging from the happenings there. Being on the periphery of this burgeoning community, this looks to be an exciting event. The organizers want nothing less that to establish Chicago as the “New Media Capital,” which after moving here from the Bay Area almost one year ago seems like a logical possibility. Even coming from Silicon Valley where much of the new media technology was born and is still being developed, Chicago seems the likely place for the creative use of this new technology to really take off and take hold.
This is the heartland, after all, a hub representing a real cross-section of the United States and arguably the world. The diverse cultural representation that exists here is rich soil for creative seeds to be planted. Chicago has a populist tradition of intellectualism here, and people have the ability to dig down into the resourceful working class roots and history of this place to find inspiration of those who have created vibrant communities here before with whatever means they had available to them. Finally, the creativity that exists here makes for a community of artists, writers, activists, and musicians actively creating new works and looking for and finding inspiration in each other.
As a techneophyte and citizen blogger still kind of new to Chicago, I live on the periphery of this community, still feeling kind of on the outside looking in, I’m excited by the possibilities of what inspiration might come out of the Chicag New Media Summit.
Watching the Election: The Conventions
September 6, 2008 § Leave a comment
Back in June I blogged about watching coverage of Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches as they vied for the top spot on the Democratic ticket. I had recently discovered Twitter, and I was finding that I was getting better information and insight than I was watching any analysis on CNN, CSPAN, or even PBS or NPR. Folks I follow on Twitter (including some news outlets) were posting links leading to further information, and I was getting better information on FriendFeed, Twitter, and FaceBook.
While watching the coverage of the DNC and the RNC, I again found myself infront of the TV with my laptop simultaneously following my friends on the social networks, and again, I found I was getting more insight and information from the Internet. It have to say that it was a lot more fun, too. The night that Sarah Palin spoke, FriendFeed, Twitter, and even my friends’ FaceBook updates lit up in response. The following night when McCain delievered his acceptance speech, my friend Stacy in Ohio and I were IMing eachother our observations.
There were people Twittering during both conventions. There were alternative news sources tweeting about all of the protests and the police activity around the RNC. I heard nothing about the police raids from CNN or PBS about Amy Goodman’s arrest or the raids on private homes in St. Paul. I learned this from the UpTake’s webcast and Twitter feed.
I am continually inspired by citizen journalism and the movement to reform media. The Chicago New Media Summit is coming up next week, and though I won’t be there, I am eager to learn about the outcome of that event. I’m hoping to learn about more alternative news services as the election approaches. Meanwhile, I’m planning on watching the election returns on The Daily Show’s Indecision 2008, as well as continuing to get information from my Twitter feed.
While I am discouraged by the political discourse that is reflected on mainstream television, I look to my social networks to be reminded that there is a majority of people in this world who, like me, want to get information out there about what is really going on in American politics, and raise the level of political discourse above the drivel that the conservative media is feeding us.
Blog Day 2008 And Beyond
September 2, 2008 § Leave a comment
Yesterday was Blog Day, so as a good Internet citizen, I participated over at my personal blog, Paradoxologies. In participating in that exercise, I have been mulling over the meaning of community and what it means in the context of the Internet. I don’t know any of the bloggers that I wrote about well at all, but I obviously feel some connection to them, as they are all writers about topics that are of interest to me. I have only met one of them in person, and I have corresponded with each of them over the months that I have been following them, and occasionally responding to their posts.
Not long ago, I read another blog post (though regrettably I don’t remember which) that called on other bloggers to commit to posting comments regularly. That post really got me thinking about how important it is to keep the momentum of this online grassroots network-building by actively participating. I continue to espousing the growth of this online public discourse, and I am committing to updating my blogs at least once a week, keeping up with the blogs I like, and regularly posting comments.
Building community through social networking tools is only going to be successful if we enocourage each other by engaging each other.
Be the change that you want to see in the world
August 28, 2008 § 4 Comments
Britt Bravo recently started a Ning site for Change Bloggers, and here she asks the question: Are we BEING the change?
By creating blogs and participating in the onling social networking community of folks who are trying to make a difference in the world, does it make a difference? Good question. I think I’ll ponder and post an answer. Care to join the community?
Web Activism
August 25, 2008 § Leave a comment
Gosh, it is hard to keep up! Last year I participated in Blog Action Day. Just within the last couple of months I have learned of three other similar blog days where bloggers all over the world will promote something on the same day. Britt Bravo over at Have Fun, Do Good blogged about all of them earlier this week. So social capital bloggers everywere, mark your calendars:
- Blog Day, August 31, 2008 – Promote five new blogs that you think are cool and rather unknown (I had better get busy!).
- One Web Day, September 22, 2008 – Write about online participation in democracy.
- Blog Action Day, October 15, 2008 – Blog about poverty.
- Bloggers Unite, November 10, 2008 – Support Refugees United, a nonprofit that helps refugee families reunite and relocate.
Now spread the word!
Magnolia Featured Linker
July 30, 2008 § Leave a comment
I’m such a geek and so excited that my favorite social bookmarking site has invited me to be a featured linker. My friend, Larry, is the founder of Magnolia, and he emailed me last week to see if I was interested. I was thrilled!
It may be a little thing, but I truly love this gem of a web tool. I have virtually met such nice and intelligent people there, discovered some very interesting links, and have been able to share a few of my own. I am happy to evangelize and spread the word about Magnolia. And if being a featured linker introduces me to yet more interesting folks, lucky me!
So, for the uninitiated, check it out, add me as a contact if you like, join some groups and discussions, and see what remarkable resources you find there!
Ning’s potential and annoyances
July 28, 2008 § 1 Comment
Purely by coincidence, I have recently had the occasion to join three different Ning networks, and while I think it’s super cool that this is a tool anyone can use to create a social network, I find the functionality lacking in many respects, not the least of which is the search capability. Its one of those simple searches that won’t allow for you to do any finessing whatsoever. You search for one term, fine. I did a search for “Yoga”, and came up with 27 pages of 20 results each. When I combined the search with “Chicago,” I got 17 pages. Better, but still too many, and I could see immediately that I was getting some identical hits from my first search. Still too many, and not what I’m looking for. It would be great if there were some advance search options that would let you search by region or combined terms or something.
Another problem is that one of my social networks doesn’t appear on my main page after several days. And it seems as though I have to keep logging in when I try to move back and forth from one window to another with my different networks open. This just doesn’t make sense to me, since I’m using the same Ning login for all of my networks. Very strange.
Finally, I found a group from my neighborhood that I wanted to join, the Uptown Chicago group, but you must be a member of a block club in order to be approved for membership. I’m not a member of a block club, and I wanted to email the founder of the group about it, but there is no way to do so if he is not my friend or if I am not a member of the group. Not helpful, and I would wager that the group is not intended solely for members of the neighborhood block groups (at least I hope not…doesn’t seem very neighborly).
With these limitations, Ning so far feels clunky and confusing. I wish that there were an easier way to move around from network to network, instead of having to login separately and needing to create a page and a blog for myself within each one. Maybe I just need to give it more time before I get it.
On the surface, the groups that I have joined are small so far. I hope that they grow because the community is the important thing. But when I dug in a little deeper on some of the groups that I thought were interesting, many of them looked like they had died on the vine. I know that’s going to happy naturally with any social networking too, and perhaps there are some vibrant Ning communities out there. I’ll keep giving it a try because like I said, the community is the thing, and ultimately I’m trying to connect with people who have similar interests. Perhaps its functionality will improve, so I’m withholding judgment today as to how conducive Ning actually is to community building.
InFomentation 