InformationWeek - November 5, 2008 06:34 PM

Pioneering use of Web 2.0 and social networking technologies by the president-elect’s campaign has seemingly transformed politics, and could influence government as well.

President-elect Senator Barack Obama stands on stage with his family as he is greeted by supporters during his election night rally after being declared the winner of the 2008 Presidential Campaign in Chicago, November 4, 2008. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)

By Mitch Wagner

The 2008 presidential election marked two great changes of the guard. The biggest immediate change, of course, was the election of an African-American Democrat as the next president of the United States.

But perhaps a bigger change over the long term was the crowning of the Internet as the king of all political media. It was the end of the era of television presidency that started with JFK, and the beginning of the Internet presidency.

“Barack Obama built the biggest network of supporters we’ve seen, using the Internet to do it,” Joe Trippi, an Internet political and business consultant who pioneered the use of the Internet in politics managing Howard Dean campaign in 2004, and who managed John Edwards’ campaign in this election, told InformationWeek. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that communication through YouTube and other social networks put him over the top.”

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CNNMoney - Last Updated: November 3, 2008: 6:58 PM ET

it's needs two to tango | courtesy of blogs.citypages.com

According to a report on The Wall Street Journal Web site, the two tech giants submitted revisions to their ad deal to the Justice Department to avoid antitrust regulations.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have reportedly submitted a list of concessions that would deflate their proposed Internet advertising partnership to appease antitrust regulators threatening to block the alliance.

The companies offered their revisions to the U.S. Justice Department during the weekend, according to a story posted Monday on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) are now willing to limit the amount of revenue generated from the partnership and shorten the deal’s duration. Google’s advertising customers would also be given the option to not have their commercials appear on Yahoo’s Web site.

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Silicon Alley Insider - Eric Krangel | November 4, 2008 5:45 PM

Obama's Electronic "Get Out The Vote" Plan: Cell Phone Messages image

Obama was using a high-tech method to get young people out to the polls today: Text messages to their cell phones. Bloomberg:

The Obama campaign plans to use the millions of cell-phone numbers it has amassed over the past 22 months to blast its supporters with that message today..

The biggest concern for the Obama campaign is getting young people — who have registered in record numbers and shown unprecedented interest in surveys — to turn out. In 2004, only 45 percent of those under 30 showed up to vote, according to Census data, making them just 16 percent of the electorate that year.

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Silicon Alley Insider - Eric Krangel | October 30, 2008 5:00 PM

Google (GOOG) is fighting back after getting trashed on cloud computing. Specifically, the company is insisting that critics have been too harsh on warning companies to think long and hard before migrating mission-critical applications like email into the cloud.

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Businessweek - Techbeat, on October 30

Posted by: Rob Hof

According to a just-posted story in the Journal, the likelihood that Google and Yahoo will walk away from their controversial search advertising deal has risen, as talks with the Justice Department have not produced an agreement on terms the companies and the government can both live with.

This isn’t very surprising, since the fact that talks have gone on this long—more than four months after the two companies proposed the deal for Yahoo to run Google search ads on some of its pages—has suggested in recent weeks that it might not happen after all. But according to sources at both companies I talked to late yesterday, talks were continuing. And according to Google just minutes ago, they are still going. Spokesman Adam Kovacevich issued this statement: “We are continuing to have cooperative discussions with the Department of Justice about this arrangement and agreed to a brief delay in implementing the agreement while those discussions continue. We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process.”

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Silicon Alley Insider - Eric Krangel | October 29, 2008 2:00 PM

That didn’t take long: Marc Andreessen — Netscape co-founder, board member of eBay (EBAY) and Facebook, and angel investor to numerous start-ups — already broke his May pledge to stop talking to the press. Specifically, he sat down with Portfolio mag.

Marc doesn’t pull any punches (does he ever?). Here are a few choice tidbits:
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