Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates -- and political bloggers -- and wondering if what they're saying is true, exaggerated, or just completely made up. That's where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance.
We think this is great fun, because it takes a step toward realizing our fantasy of siccing Slashdot commenters on all of our nation's politicians. Sure, the accuracy ratings might be questionable, but they should continue to improve as the site gains additional users. Ameritocracy is full of diverse issues and opinions, so if you can't get worked up over the election, maybe you have an opinion on propositions like, "The mobile phone may be the most potent tool ever invented for the elimination of poverty."
As the 2008 US presidential election campaign finally approaches full steam, presumtive nominees Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama are facing off in the media to win hearts and minds. But which candidate is making the most of the of online social media services?
A visit to www.barackobama.com shows that the Obama campaign has established itself firmly in the social media world with an offical presence on major services such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and more specialist sites such as Glee, Eons, MyBatanga, AsianAve and Faithbase.
On the Republican side, John McCain's presidential campaign has developed its basic Web presence with a mult-faceted Web site but McCain lags far behind Obama in terms of presence and supporters in the key online social media battlegrounds.
The American dream is alive and well -- on the internet. Whether you truly believe that anyone can grow up to be president, it's absolutely true that anyone can plaster their name on a couple of web sites and call themselves a candidate. If you're looking for a slightly more professional look, check out News3Online, a fake news website where you can create a video like the one above.
You can fill in your own information or play a little practical joke on a friend by changing the name. The whole thing is really just a viral marketing tool from the makers of PalTalk, an online chatroom service. But as viral marketing tools go, it's pretty fun, if not entirely original. Showtime created a similar fill-in-the-blanks style video to promote the TV show Dexter last year.
YouTube, the mayor of New Orleans, and the governor of Louisiana have publicly invited the presidential candidates to participate in a presidential forum this September. Since this is not an official debate, it is unknown if any of the candidates will actually show up. Either way, the event should prove successful -- here's why.
It's been quite some time since New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina, but the city is not done suffering. There's about 86,000 evacuees stuck in Houston, Atlanta and 40 other cities, and there the government currently has no plan on how it will bring these people home (not to mention the city's other 921,332,437,208 problems). So even if the candidates don't show up to the debate, the publicity stunt should help to remind government officials that it's not over yet. In other words, it's a giant call for help.
Despite that many may dismiss YouTube as a time-waster, this isn't the site's first dive into the presidential race. Last year, YouTube allowed its users to record and send in questions, which would be answered by the candidates on TV. And though we know the Google owned site gets a lot of great publicity out stuff like this, we can't help but tip our hat for the good work.
Been spending the week gearing up for SXSW and then realized that you forgot to book tickets to Austin? Worry not, Download Squad will be bringing you blow by blow coverage from SXSW Interactive over the next few days. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and check out some of the top stories from the week that was.
Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8 beta
Microsoft released the first beta version of IE8 this week, and while it's explicitly for developers and not early adopters, we rushed out to test it, and were severely disappointed with its performance. Sure, it renders the Acid2 test properly -- sometimes, but it does a pretty poor job with many other sites, including Download Squad. And many of you told us you were having even bigger problems. Check out the IE8 reviews and comments left by Download Squad readers. Microsoft launches Office Live Workspace beta
IE8 wasn't the only Microsoft beta to launch this week. The company also pushed the first public version of Office Live Workspace out the door. And while the service does provide users with a way to store and share Office documents online, we can't help but wonder whether people who have gotten used to actually being able to create and edit documents online with services like Zoho and Google Docs are going to care.
After you take the quiz via the application, results showing your top three candidates are displayed on your Facebook profile. Your friends can click the candidates to see why you agreed with them (based on degree of similarity on specific issues).
Your friends can also add the application to their profiles and take the quiz to show for whom Glassbooth suggests that they vote.
Look, we don't know where you live. But statistically speaking, there's a pretty good chance that if you're in the US, your state is holding a primary election tomorrow. And if you still haven't decided who you're going to vote for, what better way to research the candidates than by watching YouTube videos?
Yeah, we're not entirely convinced either. But Google has slapped together a Super Tuesday map with a bunch of videos posted by candidates, news organizations, and concerned citizen/YouTubers. In theory, this should be an excellent way to find out what other voters in your area are talking about. Want to know if a candidate is addressing the concerns expressed by residents of your state? Just check the map and see what people are saying.
In practice, there really just aren't that many videos available at the moment. Anyone can upload their own videos, but time is kind of running out to have an impact on tomorrow's primaries. But we're guessing Google will create a similar map for the general election. And if the idea catches on, YouTube's You Choose site could become a valuable resource for researching information about the candidates, or at least gauging popular opinion.
If you're not sure which presidential candidate deserves your precious vote, spend 5 minutes on Glassbooth to learn which candidate's views most closely relate to yours. Glassbooth uses a two-part process to lead you to voting enlightenment.
The first part is a point-assignment exercise where you assign a total of 20 points to specific topics (gun control, abortion, health care, etc.) based on how important the issues are to you. It's kind of like video game "Create a Player" modes where you're given limited points to apply to your player's attributes to tweak the player the way you want.
It seems like there have already been more debates in the 2008 presidential race than there were in 2004, and it's not even 2008 yet. We're also not claiming there actually have been more debates. Like we'd bother to count.
But if you're suffering from debate overload, or if the debates just haven't been run the way you'd like, you can get directly involved. Kind of. It turns out that even when average citizens got to ask the questions in the recent CNN/YouTube debate, the candidates pretty much gave stock answers.
But now no matter what the candidates say, Yahoo! is giving you the chance to twist their words. As if you wouldn't have anyway. But seriously, Yahoo! is teaming up with the Huffington Post and Slate to create a candidate mashup. Charlie Rose is asking each Democratic candidate a series of user-submitted questions today. Tomorrow the answers will be available online, and Yahoo! is encouraging users to edit the video.
Want to see how Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich stack up against one another? Because we know that's what you've really been wondering. Go ahead and put their answers back to back and make it a two-person debate. You'll be able to mix and match the answers and share your mashup with other users. It looks like Yahoo! will provide all the tools on its own site, rather than letting you download and re-cut the videos, so mashup might not really be the best word for this, but it's the word Yahoo! is using.
Yahoo! plans to launch a similar candidate mashup featuring Republican candidates soon.
Who says software and politics don't mix? Google has released an update to Google Earth that adds a "2006 US Election Guide" layer to the cross-platform mapping app. The new layer includes two sub-layers: a "US Election Guide," which adds useful voting information like links to voter registration info for each state, and "US Congressional Districts," which, in case you hadn't guessed, outlines the United States' 436 congressional districts and gives information on the candidates. The Earth-Election mashup was created by two members of the Google Earth team during their "twenty percent time," and Google Earth and Maps director John Hanke says, "Our hope is that young people using Google Earth will make better, informed choices." As always, Google Earth is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
In addition to
requiring that all electronic voting machines used in the state keep a verifiable paper trail as well as voting tallies
even in the event of a power outage, a bill Wisconsin governor
Jim Doyle signed into law today requires that "the coding for the software that is used to operate the system
on election day and to tally the votes cast is publicly accessible and may be used to independently verify the accuracy
and reliability of the operating and tallying procedures to be employed at any election." While not truly open
source—voting software vendors will presumably retain all rights to their code—this is excellent news for
verifiable elections.
Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates -- and political bloggers -- and wondering if what they're saying is true, exaggerated, or just completely made up. That's where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance. 
As the 2008 US presidential election campaign finally approaches full steam, presumtive nominees Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama are facing off in the media to win hearts and minds. But which candidate is making the most of the of online social media services?
Been spending the week gearing up for 
