AllThingsD » political

Despite Crackdowns, Sina Still Winning the Weibo Game

Loretta Chao and Josh Chin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:23:27 +0000

Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo may be in the midst of its most aggressive crackdown yet following an explosion of political rumors among users, but it is still beating Tencent in the microblogging race in China, according to a McKinsey & Co. report released this week.

According to the report, social networking is becoming a more important means of communication and information gathering in China, where 36% of PC users said social media sites are their favorite source of content. Chinese users spend an average of 46 minutes per day on social media sites, the report says, while users in the U.S. and Japan spend 37 minutes and seven minutes on the sites per day, respectively.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Viral Video: Hollywood Loves Obama Again

Kara Swisher — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:09:55 +0000

This has got to be the mother of all political ads — directed by Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim, narrated by Tom Hanks, and lasting 17 minutes — all part of the campaign of President Barack Obama.

Plus, “The Road We’ve Traveled” video was posted right to YouTube upon its release.

It will be interesting to see how it will be received, and if it will work. The Washington Post is calling it a “docu-ganda,” noting that it cost $345,000.

What do you think?

Viral Video: "Game Change" (Or the Latest Sarah Palin Impersonation)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:22:53 +0000

The ever-bickering crop of current Republican Presidential nominees dragging themselves to the first Iowa vote in the coming weeks almost makes you wish for a true political character to liven up the proceedings.

Or some nostalgia for the last go-round, which is definitely present in this trailer for HBO’s upcoming adaptation of “Game Change,” the lively book about the 2008 campaign, featuring the always telegenic Sarah Palin.

The former Alaska governor is played this time around by Julianne Moore, who really looks and sounds like the GOP VP candidate.

You betcha, she does:

Former VP and Apple Director Al Gore on Steve Jobs and More: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:53:47 +0000

We are now posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong in October.

We’re following the schedule of the actual event. Up now: Al Gore, former Vice President, Nobel Prize winner, environmental activist, sometime VC, occasional entrepreneur and all-around busy dude.

Of course, Gore talked about a wide range of issues, from the legacy of Apple’s Steve Jobs (Gore is on the company’s board), to being an adviser to Google, to the “broken” U.S. political system, to alternative energy.

Here’s his onstage interview with Walt Mossberg:

[ See post to watch video ]

Start-Up Rally Wants Your Cause to Raise Money Online, Even if Justin Bieber Isn't Tweeting About It

Drake Martinet — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:00:30 +0000

There’s an old maxim in fundraising: It’s better to get one dollar from 100 supporters than it is to get $100 from one supporter. Or you can just get Justin Bieber to tweet about you.

Assuming you can’t trap yourself a Bieber, a new online fundraising start-up called Rally is available to take advantage of the network effects of your real supporters.

Rally CEO Tom Seres was quick to point out that social online fundraising isn’t new, but says that “most organizations see the Red Cross’ success and think that putting a Twitter button on their site will make them more money.”

According to Seres, they are wrong.

“The reality is, those few campaigns that succeed in social do so because of huge networks,” he said. “[But] not everyone … has Will Smith tweeting about their fundraising.”

Rally’s recent growth got it a chunk of funding from a prominent string of investors, including Mike Maples, Reid Hoffman and Ron Conway. Seres would only describe it as a “fairly large seed round.”

The cash is being spent on turning an existing white-label product called Piryx, built by Seres and his co-founders, into the more consumer-focused Rally, which is both the name of the new platform and the pivoted company.

Why the consumer focus?

The most significant way Rally’s model differs from other fundraising sites such as Kickstarter, Seres said, is that Rally is the payment processor as well as the fundraising platform. Kickstarter farms its payments out to Amazon.

The four percent Rally charges on most transactions — which covers the credit card fees, as well as Rally’s profits — leaves a pretty slim margin. Therefore, massive profitability for Rally will only come at massive scale.

The reborn Rally’s main focus is to make online fundraising “more social” — or more annoying, depending on your take.

Its platform allows for two layers of supporters, Seres said: “One who just wants to donate … and another who can actually start [his or her] own fundraiser associated with an existing Rally campaign.”

This model isn’t new for fundraising, and Seres said it has been successful for events such as walks for charity, partially because “People respond better to requests from people they know. It is about leveraging that closer network connection.”

Just as interesting as Rally’s “better mousetrap” model for the online fundraising space is the type of data it will gather about what works with donors online.

If it can reach scale, Seres said, Rally would “be able to tell fundraisers what the value of a piece of content they post is, and on the larger scale, what people actually care about online and what makes them act.”

Here is a video interview of Seres talking about all that and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

AOL + Huffington Post Won't Go to 11. But It Does Make Sense.

Peter Kafka — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:30:09 +0000

There are lots of Web M&As that don’t make much sense. But after you get past the “OMG!!!!!” novelty of AOL’s $315 million Huffington Post buy, this one has a straightforward logic to it: Old, big, slow company buys new, small fast company, hopes some of the zippy mojo rubs off.

Steve Case is right to point out that AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s “one plus one equals eleven” logic didn’t pan out during the first boom, when Case was running AOL and engineered the disastrous Time Warner deal.

But here, at least, both companies are trying to do the same thing: Make a lot of Web stuff at a low price, and sell ads against it.

So maybe AOL + HuffPo won’t equal 11. And maybe 10x Huffington Post’s reported 2010 revenue is a very pre-Lehman multiple. But the broad strokes here make sense to me:

AOL is pushing its workers very hard to make more content it can sell. HuffPo is a content-making machine:

Huffington Post still has the reputation as a left-leaning political site written by Arianna Huffington’s celebrity pals. In reality, it is most concerned with attracting eyeballs anyway it can. Sometimes it’s with well-regarded investigative journalism, and much more often it’s via very aggressive, very clever aggregation. And sometimes it’s by simply paying very, very close attention to what Google wants, which leads to stories like “What Time Does The Super Bowl Start?“

However they’ve done it, it’s worked–much more efficiently than AOL, which is headed in that direction as well. AOL reaches about 112 million people in the U.S. every month with a staff of 5,000. The Huffington Post, which employed about 200 people prior to the deal, gets to about 26 million.*

AOL can start selling this stuff immediately:

HuffPo reportedly generated around $30 million in revenue last year, but that was done using a relatively small staff that sales chief Greg Coleman had just started building. AOL’s much bigger sales group, which has just about finished its lengthy reorg, should be able to boost that performance immediately.

AOL can afford it:

Tim Armstrong’s company ended 2010 with $725 million in cash, much of which it generated by selling off old assets. This seems like a relatively easy check to write and one that shouldn’t involve a lot of overlapping staff–AOL figures it will save $20 million annually in cost overlaps, but that it will spend about $20 million this year on restructuring charges. HuffPo is about four percent of AOL’s size, and several of its top executives are already stepping aside. (This is the second time in two years that sales boss Greg Coleman has been moved out of a job by Tim Armstrong.) The biggest risk here will be in the way that Huffington, who is now editor in chief for all of AOL’s edit staff, gets along with her new employees. On the other hand, morale is low enough at many AOL sites that it will be hard to make things worse.

AOL Gets a Really Big Brand:

There’s some downside risk to attaching Arianna Huffington’s name to a big, mainstream media brand, as her politics and/or persona might scare off some readers and/or advertisers. But two years after Armstrong arrived from Google, AOL still doesn’t have a definable identity, other than “the Web site your parents might still pay for even though there’s no reason to do so.” Being known as “the guys who own Huffington Post” is infinitely better than that.

HuffPo’s “pro” list is much shorter, but only because there’s not much to think about for them: Huffington, co-founder Kenneth Lerer and their backers get a nice return on the five years and $37 million they put into the company. And those who stay on get to leverage the benefits of a much larger acquirer–access to more eyballs and more advertisers. Easy enough to understand.

Spinal-tap-ampli
Uploaded by TZA. – Click for more funny videos.

*(Something about these numbers, culled from AOL’s and Huffington Post’s own releases, doesn’t add up, as AOL now says the combined company will have 117 million uniques. But it’s close enough for now.)

Rupert Murdoch Introduces the Daily, His iPad Newspaper

Peter Kafka — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:40:14 +0000

It’s time, finally, for News Corp. to show off the Daily, the iPad newspaper it has been building for some six months.

This debut was supposed to happen a few weeks ago in San Francisco, with Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs sharing stage time. Instead, Murdoch will show off his new publication at the Guggenheim in New York, with Apple content boss Eddy Cue stepping in for Jobs.

We’ve got a very good idea of what to expect: A newspaper that’s both old-fashioned and cutting-edge, which will sell for 99 cents a week or $40 a year. And the best way to experience the new publication will be on an iPad, not at a museum.

Still, it will be interesting to hear News Corp. pitch this one in real time, and to see how it leverages all of its resources and a very rare Apple endorsement. (This Web site, we should note, is owned by News Corp. as well.)

10:40 am: Greetings! So excited to be in the Guggenheim that I’m starting this one a few minutes early.

10:44 am: And here’s Jon Miller, who has been shepherding this thing at News Corp. Here’s some fresh scoop! The Daily will be be live onstage for the demo, he says, but won’t appear at the app store until noon.

[Note: The Daily can be found here at the Apple App Store]

10:47 am: Miller is working the room very well; now chatting up Reuters’ Ken Li.

10:48 And Steve Rubenstein, who has been handling PR for the Daily launch. He semi-taunts me by noting that there were tasty canapés at Rupert Murdoch’s private party Tuesday night.

10:49 am: If you’d simply like to watch a livestream of the event, minus my commentary, head to thedaily.com at 11 ET.

10:50 am: That sound you hear is the rustle of departing page views.

10:51 am: Cunning of the News Corp./Rubenstein/event-planning crew to split up the press by species. Gives us something to talk about.

10:52 am: BREAKING NEWS! Jon Miller says Wi-Fi here at the Guggenheim has been working “intermittently.”

10:52 am: WAAAAAAY More interesting is that Engadget’s Joanna Stern being hassled for daring to take out a camera during a press conference. She is being moved three seats back. Where that’s OK, apparently.

10:56 am: Pre-launch music, btw: Some kinda samba thing going on. Festive and, dare I say, a smidge bit sexy. Rowr!

10:58 am: Slightly curious is that registration staff told media that they’ll have “review units” available after presser. But everyone in media has an iPad, right? It’s required, no?

Perhaps the notion is that the presser will end before noon, and the Daily won’t be available until then, so if you want to get hands-on in the meantime, that’s the way to go. Which would be smart!

On the other hand, if they’re simply handing out free “review” units to the press, well, that’s kinda smart too. Because the press likes free stuff.

11:03 am: Our crack tech guy Adam Tow tells me TheDaily.com site is now saying that the app will be available at noon ET. I can’t see that on my screen, but I’ll take his word for it.

Especially because that’s what Jon Miller said a few minutes ago.

11:05 am: Given News Corp. pub WSJ’s focus on privacy, and Apple’s, interesting to review the Daily’s:

When you use the Services, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information about that use. For example, in order to permit your connection to the Services via the Internet, our servers receive and record information about your computer and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, and other software or hardware information. If you access the Services from a mobile or other device, we may also collect transactional information such as a unique device identifier assigned to that device (“UDID”), your geolocation, or other transactional information for the device in order to serve content to it. We also may use cookies and other tracking technologies (including browser cookies, pixels, beacons, and Adobe Flash technology including cookies), which are comprised of small bits of data that often include an anonymous unique identifier. Websites send this data to your browser when you first request a web page and then store the data on your computer so the web site can access information when you make subsequent requests for pages from that site. We may use these technologies to collect and store information about your use of the Services, such as pages you have visited, search queries you have run, and advertisements you have seen.

11:06 am: And we’re live. Here’s Rupert Murdoch, iPad in hand.

“Good morning. I’m Rupert Murdoch.”

Thanks for the “amazing Steve Jobs,” a man who has “single-handedly changed the world” of technology and media.

“Steve has been a champion of the Daily from day 1.”

“New times demand new journalism.” [hrm]

Trying to take best of traditional journalism, including “shoe-leather reporting” editing, “a skeptical eye” [hrm!] and combine them with awesome tech.

“”Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft”

Shooting for audience that is sophisticated and reads a lot, but not print.

We have that, but it’s niche. No “true news discovery.” The magic of newspapers “and great blog” lies in “serendipity.”
True!

Similarly, we must make the business of news-gathering viable again.

Goal is to be indispensable source for news and entertainment. “A robust new voice.”

Shout-outs to Jesse Angelo and Greg Clayman, who run editorial and business, respectively, for the new pub.

Daily will be 14 cents a day–99 cents a week–because no printing, delivery costs, etc.

More superlatives for the Daily, including a “sense of fun.”

Target audience is “tablet” audience–[note emphasis on tablet, not iPad].

And a shout-out to Jon Miller, too.

[Unless I misheard and it was News Corp. CTO John McKinley.]

“We believe the Daily will be the model for how stories are told and how they’re consumed.”

And another shout-out to “all our friends at Apple”

Okay. Here are Miller, Angelo, Clayman.

11:13 am: Miller starting off. Not a demo–this is live production.

Trying to figure out how to produce new news for tablet era. “We think we’ve developed that.”

Angelo shows off home screen of the Daily, with Egypt as main headline. Applause.

Have been doing live production for about six weeks.

11:14 am: They have a reporter on the ground in Cairo right now. Josh Hirsch [sp?].

Lots of big pictures, video embedded in text.

And here’s one of the 360-degree photos. Which look cool!

Can put audio behind them, etc.

HD video–here’s a clip about prisoners making toys in Angola prison. Note the bluesy background music. ’Cause it’s about a prison, duh.

11:16 am: Back to Miller. Have rethought navigation.

11:17 am: Back to Angelo, showing off swipey carousel. Sorta silly to describe this to you in a liveblog, but there’s a “play” function and a “shuffle function,” and a video anchor who will discuss the main stories of the day.

11:18 am: Back to MIller. “The Daily is not an island” can share to Facebook, Twitter, email.

11:18 am: Angelo: We can also pull HTML5 pages into device. Can also link out. [Subtext--we are TOTALLY NOT ignoring the Web, you dummies. We're not idiots.]

Bringing Twitter feeds directly into app. So you can see what Lily Allen (used to be semi-famous a couple of years ago) has to say about something.

11:19 am: Miller: We have apps and games section, with a link directly to Apple Store.

And we have an awesome sports section [sounds familiar!].

11:20 am: Angelo: Yes, check out our awesome sports section. Troy Polamalu talking about Clay Matthews’s hair.

“For sports fans, we really think this is the showstopper”–customizable sports filter by team/sport, brings in scores, tweets, etc.

11:21 am: Miller: Publishing once a day, with updates throughout the day “as the news warrants.”

Verizon sponsoring first two weeks of free subscriptions.

11:22 am: The art in this liveblog, by the way, is coming directly from livestream. Nice job, Adam Tow.

11:22 am: Here’s Eddy Cue. Never seen him before. A very, very, very big deal in media circles.

Running through iPad, iOs success. iPad customers are huge news eaters. 200 million news apps downloaded so far.

I’ve been using the Daily for the last two weeks. “It’s amazing.” Amazing that it’s done every single day. More superlatives, etc.

Basically, a repeat of what Miller et al just said.

Okay. Here are the new details on push subscriptions. First time Apple has used this tech. 99 cents a day, $40 a year. [ahem].

11:26 am: And now, oddly, press conference comes to a halt for a photo opp.

11:26 am: Waiting for them to set up chairs for Q&A.

Questions and Answers

How will back issues be handled? Where will old copies be stored?

Angelo: Best thing to do is to save articles you care about. And it will also be archived on the Web. Internal archiving not there for 1.0.

Q: When will other pubs start using subscription option?

Announcement “very soon for other news publications.”

Q: How will you measure impressions, etc. for advertising?

Miller: Will have tech built into app for that. I should have mentioned during presentation that we love advertisers.

Q: For Rupe: How will you measure success?

A: We want to sell millions. But keep costs low. We have spent $30 million so far, “all of which has been written off in figures we’ll announce today.” But overall costs $500,000 a week going forward.

Q: Another question about subscriptions.

A: A non-answer from Cue.

Q: Who/what does Daily compete with? And how will other News Corp. properties be integrated?

A: Miller: Gotta compete with everything. “you’re competing with Angry Birds at some level.” [Hey that's my line!]

Murdoch: In NY, for example, we already have multiple outlets competing with each other. This is another.

Q: What about breaking news? How will that work?

A: Angelo talking up twitter feeds, sports scores, but “we can drop in a new page if we want to, and we will.” BUT! As a conusmer, I don’t like Web sites that change constantly. It’s not a great experience. [THAT IS: This is a newspaper, not a Web site.]

Q: What’s the political tone of this thing. Centrist, right?

A: Murdoch: “The editorial position will be in the hands of the editor.” Cue Angelo, who sorta hedges. On op-ed page, “We’re patriotic.”

Q: Someone wants to know if Rupert is really into this. Also, will there be an Australian version?

Murdoch. Duh.

(An Australian version “always a possibility.”)

Q: Why do this with the Daily instead of existing brands. Also, what’s up with your phone hacking newspapers in the U.K.?

A: Murdoch: Existing tablet apps are what got me excited about launching a new one. No comment on “the other matter.”

Q: You’ll be working with other tablets besides iPad, right?

A: Murdoch. Yes. And “we’ve been quite honest with Apple about that.” We’ll defnintely be on all platforms. But Apple will be the dominant one this year, in my opinion.

[Sorry, missed a Q. Seems to be about what apps Murdoch likes.]

Q: More about the editorial voice, please.

A: Angelo: Thinking it through. We know that people spend a lot of time with these apps–35 minutes, 40 minutes. “It’s unbelievable.” So how do you create content rich enough to keep people there?

Q: What did Steve Jobs say about this in the last couple of days?

A: Murdoch: “He did call me last week” and told me app was “really terrific. He was extremely flattering.”

Q: How will people find this stuff, since it’s not on the Web?

A: Cue: We’ve downloaded 10 billion apps. People can find this stuff.

Miller: We feel really good about this. We didn’t want to make compromises.

Q: I ask about what’s available on the Web.

A: Some of it will be mirrored on the Web, when it can be done technically. [Sorry, hard to type and write.]

[Sorry, now even more confused about what's available on the Web and what isn't. Going to have to follow up with the gang later.]

[Where's Greg Clayman, by the way?]

11:47 am: Q: How do you balance a subscription model with a large audience that advertisers want?

Murdoch: “They’d pay a much lower rate per thousand if it was free. They realize it’s something that people want.” And we can tell them more about who sees it. “It’s not just scattered out there….We’ll draw a better class of advertiser, and a better rate.”

11:48 am: Q: What’s the split between ad and subscription revenue?

Miller: Subscription will be larger at start, and then eventually 50-50, “which is the magic number.”

And we’re done. Will try to follow up, may have more answers/comments here, or in a separate post. Thanks for checking in!

Here is the press release announcing the Daily:

Introducing The Daily

First National Daily News Publication Created for iPad Launches today in the Apple App Store

New York, NY, February 2, 2011 – Today Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, unveiled The Daily — the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.

“New times demand new journalism,” said Mr. Murdoch. “So we built The Daily completely from scratch — on the most innovative device to come about in my time — the iPad.”

“The magic of great newspapers — and great blogs — lies in their serendipity and surprise, and the touch of a good editor,” continued Mr. Murdoch. “We’re going to bring that magic to The Daily — to inform people, to make them think, to help themengage in the great issues of the day. And as we continue to improve and evolve, we are going to use the best in new technology to push the boundaries of reporting.”

The Daily’s unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important — but also the best format to deliver these stories to their readers.

“News Corp. is redefining the news experience with The Daily,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think it is terrific and iPad users are really going to embrace it.”

Led by Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo and Publisher Greg Clayman, The Daily is the first application made available on the App Store as a subscription — which will be billed directly to an iTunes account. And because this paperless paper requires no multi-million dollar presses or delivery trucks, it will be priced at just 99 cents a week (or $39.99 for an annual subscription).

“The Daily launches at a moment when advances in technology are changing the job of the modern editor,” says Mr. Angelo. “These advances are giving us new ways to tell stories. We intend to take advantage of all of them, and make The Daily the new voice for a new era.”

Each day The Daily will publish up to 100 pages focused on six key areas: news, sports, gossip and celebrity, opinion, arts and life, and apps and games. It will offer views from across the political spectrum. They will come from across cultures and generations, across America and the world.

The Daily will feature Sudoku and crossword puzzles, localized weather reports, and a customizablesports package that captures news on the user’s favorite teams. Subscribers will also be able to leave comments on Daily stories in either written or audio form — as well as bookmark them in-app to read later.

As readers move through The Daily’s content, they will be helped by several highly intuitive navigation tools. And while The Daily lives on the iPad, most of its articles can be easily shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. The Daily will link out to the web, as well as bring the web into the app.

“In short, says Mr. Murdoch, “we believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told and consumed in this digital age.”

The Daily has bureaus in New York and Los Angeles, as well as stringers across the country. Full companybios are available at TheDaily.com/about. Executive staff includes:

John Kilpatrick – Executive Creative Director
Steve Alperin – Managing Editor
Mike Nizza – Managing Editor, News
Richard Johnson – LA Bureau Chief
Sasha Frere-Jones – Editor, Arts & Life
Chris D’Amico – Editor, Sports
Elisabeth Eaves – Editor, Opinion
Peter Ha – Editor, Apps, Games and Technology

The Daily is also changing the way advertising is offered and consumed within a news publication. Full-page ad units are completely interactive, customizable, and offer a rich mix of branding and direct response opportunities. Launch advertisers include HBO,Macy’s, Paramount, Pepsi Max, Range Rover, Verizon, and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

“With The Daily, Rupert Murdoch has given us the chance to rethink the entire experience of news delivery and consumption,” said Mr. Clayman. “The ability to actively listen to and engage with our audience means we can continually provide an experiencethat consumers value in this fast-evolving tablet space. Together with our customers, our advertising partners, and the team at The Daily, we are excited to create a new form of media.”

About The Daily
The Daily is a first-of-its-kind daily national news publication built exclusively as an application for tablet computing. It provides readers the engaging experience of a magazine combined with the immediacy of the web and the need-to-know content of a newspaper, all while elevating user experience beyond the printed word. The Daily is a subscription-based news product, published 365 days a year, at the cost of $0.99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. For more information on The Daily go to: www.thedaily.com.

Finally, here are screenshots from The Daily’s listing in the App Store:

Early Adopter: Pothole-Reporting App SeeClickFix Raises $1.5 Million to Help You Be a Squeakier Wheel

Drake Martinet — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:00:34 +0000

It started with some simple graffiti that Ben Berkowitz wanted to get removed from a wall near his office in New Haven, Conn.

“And not the nice kind of graffiti,” he added.

Instead of knocking on the door of City Hall to get the unsightly spray paint dealt with, Berkowitz and his fellow co-founders developed SeeClickFix.

The Web and mobile app, from the company of the same name, has been aiming to help users document and report civic annoyances since its alpha launch in 2008.

Now SeeClickFix has just completed a $1.5 million Series A round of funding led by Bryce Roberts at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network also invested.

The round closed very shortly after a major upgrade of its Apple iPhone app and formalization of partnerships with San Francisco’s 311 issue reporting system, as well as Washington, D.C.’s similar service.

So issues submitted in those cities via the SeeCickFix apps will actually create a work order in the cities’ official system, rather than just being directed to the appropriate agency’s email “tip line.”

Berkowitz said the infusion of cash will allow the addition of a sales and business development staff, as well as the hiring of two developers to focus on its apps and Web presence.

The concept behind SeeClickFix is simple, if not entirely original. In fact, Berkowitz admitted, it began as an outright copy of FixMyStreet, a pothole-reporting Web app from the U.K.

“We looked at the FixMyStreet code when building SeeClickFix, and quickly realized that it was built specifically not to scale outside of the U.K.,” Berkowitz said. ”We had to rebuild the concept from scratch so it would be useful here in the U.S. and so it could scale.”

SeeClickFix took the pothole concept and added the ability to report graffiti, speeding school buses, broken infrastructure and just about any kind of civic breakdown one might imagine.

People have even used it to request beautification, other than blight removal, such as asking for a tree in their neighborhood.

Berkowitz claimed the resolution rate for issues filed with SeeClickFix is approximately 45 percent nationally, although he wouldn’t elaborate on given municipalities.

He did say that he hoped the new formal partnerships would close the loop and allow SeeClickFix to more accurately list the issues that had been fixed through municipal reporting, rather than waiting for citizens to document the fixes.

I asked about the somewhat unusual funding situation SeeClickFix is now in, having a venture investor best known for supporting micro-finance and political engagement campaigns in the developing world.

But to Berkowitz, it seemed like a pretty natural partnership.

“Citizens are our users. That’s who we serve,” he said. “Governments just benefit from it.”

Berkowitz actually had quite a bit to say about the larger motivations behind SeeClickFix, and you can watch the video interview below to hear it all from him:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Early Adopter is a new column on early-stage start-ups and ideas that will be written weekly by Drake Martinet.)

Wonderwall Goes Latino

Kara Swisher — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 07:46:34 +0000

Hola Sofia Vergara!

In an interesting brand extension, the popular celebrity and entertainment site Wonderwall has launched a version aimed at the U.S. Hispanic market called Wonderwall Latino.

The main Wonderwall site, which is a partnership between Hollywood production company BermanBraun and Microsoft’s MSN portal that launched in early 2009, now has 11.3 million unique users and 337 million page views a month.

That site is getting a design overhaul, with new features including voting buttons, a dedicated video page and a buzz stream with breaking news and tweets, as well as apps for the Apple iPhone and IPod Touch.

According to an MSN blog on the Wonderwall extension, “BermanBraun will spearhead the design, programming, and operations of the digital brand. MSN will provide unique content and lead the advertising efforts in partnership with Microsoft and BermanBraun.”

BermanBraun also recently debuted a political site called BLTWY with MSNBC.com.

YouTube Nabs a Sit-Down With Barack Obama

Peter Kafka — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:39:06 +0000

Yet another tie-up between Google and the White House: A one-on-one interview between Barack Obama and YouTube.

Google’s (GOOG) video site says it has collected 11,000 questions from its viewers and will ask a small fraction of them during a live sit-down with the president at 1:45 Eastern. No word on who’s actually going to deliver the queries to POTUS, but YouTube insists that “neither the President nor his staff will know which questions will be asked ahead of time.”

The YouTube part aside, there’s not a ton of novelty here: Asking citizens to send in questions for a political Q&A isn’t a new idea. The fact that the Q&A will be streamed live is more interesting to me, since it signals the site’s increasing interest in real-time events (see, for instance, U2).

Today’s Q&A did prompt me to scan YouTube for something apposite, but disappointingly, clips from Bill Clinton’s MTV “choose or lose” appearance are hard to find. And I can’t find any version of Tabitha Soren’s famous “boxers or briefs” query. Did turn this one up, though:

Kara Visits the Oxford Social Media Convention: I Say Twitt-er, You Say Twitt-ah

Kara Swisher — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:40:14 +0000

Today, BoomTown has traveled to England to see the Queen, but mostly to attend and speak at a conference at the University of Oxford, titled “Oxford Social Media Convention: Assessing the Evolution, Impact and Potential of Social Media.”

In other words: What is up with this Twitter thing, but in a British accent.

(By the way, the Twitter stream on the conference can be found at #oxsmc09.)

Well, I can report here that some folks are perplexed by the growing size and valuation of the San Francisco microblogging service, some adore it and some don’t use it at all, thank you veddy much.

Of course, there is a whole lot more going on, including: Discussions of the changing relationship between blogs and mainstream media, making science more social, the growth of the corporate blog and the political impact of social media.

I am on the panel about the ways companies need to use social networking, as well as a wrap-up on the overall impact of this key Internet trend.

So far today, it seems people here are still chewing over the changes wrought by Facebook, Twitter and the blogs and the way the audience has taken over the conversation from the so-called professionals.

In other words, as in the U.S., the social trend is still seen as an experiment rather than the real thing.

In the media session, for example, mainstream journalists here seemed to still be stuck in their whiny woe-is-me mode rather than leaning forward and trying to come up with ways to ride the latest wave of change.

When many kept harping on the issue of accuracy in the blogosphere, I could not resist and asked: “Can you give me the exact date when the old media will stop whining about new media?”

I did not get an answer, but I can tell you it better be quick, especially as these innovative social sites grow larger and larger, evidence that consumers like what’s happening.

So does the guy from Facebook, of course, the social networking service that announced it had reached an astonishing 300-million users mark last week.

“It’s very exciting,” said Richard Allan, Facebook’s European policy director, discussing how social media are evolving in ways that everyone still cannot imagine.

I’d agree.

New Chinese Version of Google SafeSearch Eliminates Google Entirely

John Paczkowski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:30:37 +0000

Google’s mission, to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, has once again run afoul of the Chinese government, which has a similar goal, but would much prefer that certain information stay inaccessible. And so, on Wednesday evening, Chinese citizens found themselves once again unable to use Google, Gmail and YouTube as their government condemned Google as a purveyor of porn.

“According to complaints from many residents, Google’s English language search engine has spread large amounts of vulgar content that is lascivious and pornographic, seriously violating China’s relevant laws and regulations,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly scheduled news conference. “I’d like to stress that google.com, as an Internet enterprise providing services in China, should earnestly abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

The disruption of Google (GOOG) services follows a widely criticized mandate from Beijing requiring all computers sold in the country to include Green Dam, an application designed to prevent citizens from viewing “offensive” content, which in the Chinese government’s case includes all manner of material. From a report by the Open Net Initiative, an academic consortium dedicated to the study of censorship and surveillance:

The version of the Green Dam software that we tested, when operating under its default settings, is far more intrusive than any other content control software we have reviewed. Not only does it block access to a wide range of web sites based on keywords and image processing, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, it actively monitors individual computer behavior, such that a wide range of programs including word processing and email can be suddenly terminated if content algorithm detects inappropriate speech. The program installs components deep into the kernel of the computer operating system in order to enable this application layer monitoring. The operation of the software is highly unpredictable and disrupts computer activity far beyond the blocking of websites.

…The deeply intrusive nature of the software opens up several possibilities for use other than filtering material harmful to minors. With minor changes introduced through the auto-update feature, the architecture could be used for monitoring personal communications and Internet browsing behavior. Log files are currently recorded locally on the machine, including events and keywords that trigger filtering. The auto-update feature can used to change the scope and targeting of filtering without any notification to users.

John McCain Scores on QVC, Oops, SNL

Kara Swisher — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:26:35 +0000

As BoomTown has noted, one of the best things to come out of this election has been the very funny and very topical humor that has been on "Saturday Night Live" in this political cycle.

Headlined by Tina Fey's perfect impression of Republican VP candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the offerings from the comedy television show has been biting without stooping to the rank meanness from so many other places by both sides.

Last night, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain--who has been on SNL before (his "John McCain Sings Barbra Streisand" skit was really a gem from that appearance)--was in two skits on the show and did a great job in both.

The first was a really clever opening sketch in which he and Fey as Palin appeared on the QVC cable shopping network, sheepishly explaining that they could not afford to buy time on the major networks as Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama did last week.

Money quote from McCain: "I'm a true maverick, a Republican without money."

Along with a set of "John McCain Pork Knives" and "McCain Fine Gold" (with Cindy McCain as the comely demoer), Fey (as Palin) goes rogue and starts selling "Palin in 2012" T-shirts.

In a second appearance on "Weekend Update," McCain did another nice turn, running through a series of new strategies to win, such as "The Sad Grandpa" and the "The Reverse Maverick."

Here are the videos:

Opening QVC Sketch

Weekend Update

Political Video of the Day: Sarah Silverman's Great Schlep

Kara Swisher — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:35:04 +0000

Is there anything comic Sarah Silverman will not say?

Apparently not, from this aggressively pro-Sen. Barack Obama video that has become a huge hit on the Web and seen by many millions of viewers.

It’s called “The Great Schlep,” which is also a political advocacy organization she supports.

In it, the viciously funny Silverman plans to blame–I am not kidding–old Jewish grandparents if Democratic nominee Obama loses the Presidential election. And she advises a very clever kind of blackmail as a way to prevent it.

You have to experience her logic to understand–and please be aware that Silverman pulls no punches.

And, if Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin goes on “Saturday Night Live”–as is rumored–to impersonate Tina Fey, BoomTown will get it right up.

Here’s the video (and below it, the other huge hit online spoof video Silverman did about her–um–friendly relationship with actor Matt Damon):

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Two's Company: Obama Girl and Ralph Nader

Kara Swisher — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:51:11 +0000

Okay, this one is so egregiously odd, BoomTown had to post it.

From the folks at Barely Political, whose original Obama Girl video became a political pop phenom, here’s one with Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

It is done as a spoof on a cheesy sitcom, and it’s oddly sweet to see Nader cracking wise so very badly.

Here’s the video:

That's Hot: Paris Hilton Strikes Back at the "White-Haired Dude"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:01:23 +0000

In a tempest-in-a-teapot political scandalette, Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain used images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in a television ad attacking his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, as a celebrity.

It was tasteless and also offensive to Hilton and Spears, which seems an almost impossible task–way to go!

Now, wasting no time in taking advantage of the brouhaha and drawing attention just where it should be–to herself, of course–Hilton did this clever video spoof for the Funny or Die comedy Web site.

Wearing a killer swimsuit, she does manage to make a good suggestion about a sensible energy policy and an even better one to have Rihanna as VP.

Also, Hilton calls McCain “white-haired dude.” That’s hot. Well, warm.

In any case, here’s the Hilton video and the original humorless McCain ad just below it:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die