Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Viral Video: Nate Silver Declared President of United States of Pollsters

Here’s the New York Times’ famous polling blogger, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, taking his bows for being right about his calculations on the reelection of President Barack Obama.

His firm prediction, declaring that Obama would be well over the needed 270 electoral votes, caused enormous controversy among his detractors, who now look, well, wrong.

So, to the victor — or, at least, the most accurate pollster — go the spoils. And also the Web traffic, as Peter Kafka noted earlier today about Silver’s popularity on the Times’ Web site of late.

Here he is talking about it where it goes next:

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work