Nevada GOP to report presidential caucus results via Twitter

Las Vegas Sun reports: How do you increase your number of Twitter followers exponentially in a matter of a few days? Use your account to report the official results of a major presidential primary contest.

The Nevada Republican Party announced today it will release its official caucus results live on Twitter and will also use Google maps to display the live results visually on its website.

While it’s the second time election results were reported via Google maps—Iowa did it in January—it’s the first time a live Twitter stream has been dedicated to reporting official results.

“The Nevada Republican Party wanted to be very innovative, very cutting edge, and utilize these platforms as a way to get these results out in the fastest most effective way we think that has been done to date,” said Jim Anderson of Cap Public Affairs, the consulting firm hired by the party to help conduct the caucuses. “We think we’ve got a tool for this caucus that could be a model tool moving forward for primaries and caucus for states all around the country.”

Before the results are released, Twitter will authenticate the party’s handle — @nvgop — to ensure the information is secure and accurate. That handle, which had only 609 followers as of noon Friday, will be used to report aggregate results.

A second Twitter handle will be established to report precinct-by-precinct results as they roll in. The name of that handle hasn’t yet been released.

Silicon Valley changes lobbying game

Politico reports: Silicon Valley was once criticized for not “getting” Washington and being slow to start lobbying. Now, as it celebrates what appears to be a victory in its Capitol Hill fight over fast-moving copyright bills, the tech industry may see itself as an innovator in lobbying, using the tools it created to beat the opposition at its own game on its own turf. “There’s a new kind of lobbying,” said Ron Conway, a prominent investor in the Valley. “It’s from the grass roots. It’s as pure as lobbying can get — individual to individual.” The events of the past week have been “a tremendous watershed moment in lobbying and advocacy,” said Andrew Shore, a tech industry lobbyist at Jochum Shore & Trossevin. “Anyone who doesn’t pay attention to it will be at a severe business disadvantage in the coming years.”
Read more here.

Breaking: Aneesh Chopra, WH CTO, is leaving his position

Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, is leaving his position, an administration official confirmed to POLITICO. The White House is expected to put out a statement today. 

Obama campaign launches first TV ad and uses my favorite campaign word ever = "unprecedented"

AP reports: President Barack Obama launched his first television ad of his re-election campaign, defending his energy record against criticism from a Republican-leaning outside group in a sign that the presidential race is entering a new phase even though Republicans have yet to pick a challenger.

The ad, released Wednesday, responds to a $6 million ad campaign by a group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers accusing Obama of conducting pay-for-play politics in the bankruptcy of California energy company Solyndra, which imploded despite a $528 million federal loan.

 Obama's ad opens by citing "secretive billionaires attacking President Obama with ads fact-checkers say are not tethered to the facts." It says that the president has added 2.7 million clean energy jobs while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, calling Obama's record on ethics "unprecedented."

 The voiceover ends by saying, "President Obama. Kept his promise to toughen ethics rules and strengthen America's energy economy." The Obama campaign has bought ad time in Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Iowa and on national cable television, according to a campaign official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal campaign strategy.  Here is the ad:

Why social media isn't a waste of time (infographic)

Courtesy of: Schools.com

Twitter able to censor tweets in individual countries

The Guardian reports that the censorship tool is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening.

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced on Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or tweets, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweet containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed. That is similar to what internet search engine Google has been doing for years when a law in a country where its service operates requires a search result to be removed.

Read more here.

Study: Workers Spend $1,000 Yearly on Coffee

Fox 5 reports: American's weakness for coffee is proven once again in a new survey conducted by Accounting Principals .
In a telephone survey of 1,000 Americans who were currently employed, ages 18 or older, the participators were asked how much money they spend on "work-related" expenses.

Despite recent tough economic times, results showed that 50 percent of the American workforce regularly spent money on coffee. This totaled, on average, $1,000 a year on coffee alone.

Broken down ever further, it was found that more men splurge on coffee than women (54 percent versus 45 percent). And the younger crowd, ages 18-34, spent almost twice as much on coffee than their older co-workers ($24.74 versus $14.15 weekly).

comScore: U.S. Online Holiday Shopping Already Up 14 Percent To $9.7 Billion

TechCrunch reports: It looks like will be a joyful holiday season for many online retailers this year. comScore is reporting that holiday retail e-commerce spending for the first 20 days of the November to December 2011 season is already up 14 percent from the same period last year. Wednesday, November 16 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $688 million.

comScore is forecasting that total online retail spending for the holiday season will reach $37.6 billion, 15 percent increase from last year’s season. For background, the 2010 holiday shopping period saw a 12 percent increase from 2009.

In a recent survey conducted with consumers, holiday shoppers say that retailers’ promotional activity for the early part of the season has increased in relation to last year. Specifically, 33 percent of respondents indicated that they are seeing more discounts, sales and promotions vs. last year compared to just 7 percent who said there were fewer.

First Football Endzone Hashtag Touches Down in Mississippi

Mashable reports: :

The ol’ endzone dance just got even more social. When players in this Saturday’s Battle for the Golden Egg — the annual college football clash between Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi — celebrate after scoring a touchdown, they’ll be doing so on top of a massive Twitter hashtag.

In what’s believed to be a first for college football programs, Mississippi State has painted #HAILSTATE — the school’s traditional rallying cry and fight song — in its north endzone.

College teams typically decorate endzones with the title of their school, mascot nickname or a colorful pattern. But Mississippi State’s Twitter-based variation has already created buzz in the sports world.

“It’s a phenomenal idea,” Dallas Mavericks owner and Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban said in an email to Mashable. “It’s a fun way to involve social media at the game, and to TV viewers it’s going to stir up some emotions between both teams.”

“I can definitely see the the Mavs and other teams doing it,” Cuban added.

Mashable: “Tweet” and “Social Media” added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary

In further confirmation of social media’s penetration into the language, Merriam-Webster has added both “tweet” and “social media” to its Collegiate Dictionary.

M-W, which announced the move Thursday, is a bit late to the game. The Oxford English Dictionary just added “tweet” and “retweet,” not to mention “sext,” last week. Collins English Dictionary added “Twitter” as a verb and a noun in 2009.

M-W’s Collegiate Dictionary, the country’s best-selling dictionary, added 150 words, just a few of which are tech-related. Others include “m-commerce” and “crowdsourcing.” Among the other new additions are “fist bump,” “bromance,” “cougar” (in reference to middle-aged women on the prowl) and “helicopter parent.”

This was the first time M-W added new terms since 2009. Back then, the dictionary added “vlog,” “webisode,” “flash mob” and “pdf.”

Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for the dictionary, says the new terms are decided upon in an informal manner. “It’s just a process of seeing a word used frequently and in many different sources,” he says, noting that inclusion in outlets like The New York Times is a big consideration.

NYT: Condé Nast deepens its social connections

Readers of the online versions of Condé Nast publications will have to look no further than the bottom of their screens to see what content other readers have deemed worthy of a “Tweet” on Twitter or a “like” on Facebook. And right below that social media will be a hefty dose of advertising.

On Monday, the magazine publisher will begin using a module called the Condé Nast Social Sidekick at the bottom of article pages for the Web versions of magazines like W, Style.com, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Lucky. “Consumer engagement has become a top priority,” said Louis Cona, chief marketing officer at Condé Nast.

The company is hoping the new tool will encourage readers to view content from other Condé Nast sites, while giving advertisers like Gucci, the premiere sponsor, the option to showcase their own multimedia promotions.

In a statement, Robert Triefus, the worldwide marketing and communications director at Gucci, said the new module “allows us to reach the broad and highly qualified target audience associated with Condé Nast brands.”

NYT: In Britain, a meeting on limiting social media

British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.

The government’s home minister, Theresa May, according to one account of the meeting, said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to instead “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers.”

DFP: GM reshuffles marketing unit again

General Motors continues to tweak its marketing department, one of the most turbulent during the company's restructuring, by creating global brand heads and shuffling some management.

Joel Ewanick, who took a newly created global chief marketing officer position in December, has pushed a two-pronged worldwide brand strategy, emphasizing Chevrolet and Cadillac. He started by encouraging Chevrolet's well-funded U.S. team to coordinate and share more with marketers in the other 130-plus countries that sell the brand. The next step, he said, was to create a global Chevrolet chief.

Chris Perry, Ewanick's former Hyundai colleague who had run all GM's U.S. marketing since early this year, now heads Chevy marketing worldwide, Ewanick said in an interview Friday. The U.S. marketing job, which had changed hands four times since GM's 2009 bankruptcy, has disappeared. Ewanick will supervise the global brand heads.

Management shake-ups have characterized GM's restructuring since its bankruptcy, with the marketing department having the fastest revolving door. Ewanick, of Hyundai fame, arrived last year after a several-week stop at Nissan, to run GM's U.S. marketing. He quickly scrapped plans and agencies for Chevy and Cadillac advertising and then, about a year ago, brought in Perry to run Chevrolet.

NYT: For top-ranked Djokovic, next makeover is in marketing

Pressed against a barricade, fans glimpsed Novak Djokovic and readied their cellphones. Necks craned. Cameras flashed. Djokovic, the Serb now deep into a historic tennis season, had created an impromptu mosh pit at a recent tournament here.

The scene underscored the defining characteristic of his season: change, on all fronts, with more promised. In the past year, in a relatively extreme makeover, Djokovic changed his serve, his diet, his publicist, his fitness regimen and, because of all of this, his standing in men’s tennis.

The next phase — making Djokovic a household name, among the world’s biggest sports stars — will continue next week in the United States Open, where he was named Wednesday the No. 1 seed in the men’s draw. While Djokovic has surpassed his rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on the tennis court, he now hopes to at least join those two, who both reside on Forbes magazine’s list of the top 10 most powerful athletes, in areas such as endorsements, fame and global exposure.

“Of course, the world is looking at me differently,” Djokovic said. “I don’t want to sound like I’m pretending that I’m modest, but I don’t really consider myself a star, or something like that.”

Perhaps Djokovic was not widely regarded as a star — merely a very good professional tennis player — until his dominance this year. He has won 57 of 59 matches and nine tournaments since January because his game, a combination of speed and endurance and a counterattacking baseline style, robbed opponents of a precious element in tennis — time.

Suddenly, Djokovic himself is pressed for time. The task of coordinating the effort to boost his image falls to Goran Djokovic, Novak’s uncle and chief marketing strategist. This week alone, he planned 30 to 40 business meetings, while Edoardo Artaldi, the new publicist, handled the 30 or so daily media requests.

It takes time to appear on national talk shows (he taught Jay Leno and Katie Holmes a Serbian dance), time to sift through marketing pitches, time to pursue Djokovic’s next dream, acting, in Hollywood.

“Our job is also to show the world, to show the United States, that there is a new No. 1 in the world,” Goran Djokovic said, leaning forward Tuesday in the lobby of the Mondrian Hotel in Manhattan. “We have to adjust everything, what we are doing now. But let’s say we are preparing for that all our life.”

Gigaom: The Twitter effect: We are all members of the media now

Anyone who has gotten the latest news about Steve Jobs’ resignation or the revolution in Libya from Twitter is probably used to the idea that the real-time information network has become a powerful tool for journalism — a point we’ve made often. But that reality is still filtering down through the world of political reporting, as a recent piece in the American Journalism Review describes. Just as CNN created the 24-hours news cycle for television, Twitter has accelerated that news cycle to the point where news breaks every minute of every hour, and a tweet is almost as good as a page-one scoop. Not only that, but anyone can do it.

Read more from Mathew Ingram here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/the-twitter-effect-we-are-all-members-of-the-media-now/

Gigaom:Pound for pound, Pandora ads now worth more than radio

Internet radio company Pandora reported the financial results for its first three months as a public company on Thursday. The Oakland, Calif.–based company confirmed that while it still has a long way to go before it reaches the listener levels of terrestrial radio, its ads are now just as valuable as traditional stations’.

Pandora posted total revenue of $67 million during the second fiscal quarter of the year, more than doubling its revenue from the same period one year ago. Revenue from ads accounted for the lion’s share of Pandora’s Q2 sales, totaling $58.3 million.

And while Pandora did not turn a bottom-line profit for the quarter — the company’s net loss was $1.8 million — it seems to be impressing Wall Street with the traction it has gotten thus far. On a phone call with investors and analysts after the stock market closed on Thursday afternoon, Pandora confirmed that pound for pound its ads are just as valuable as those broadcast on traditional radio.

Read more from Colleen Taylor here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/pandora-ads-traditional-radio/

Gigaom: Fluid personal communication in the era of Facebook, Skype and Google+

This week’s announcement of Skype’s acquisition of GroupMe, and the recent introduction of Facebook’s Beluga-based Messenger, are part of something much bigger than group text messaging: The landscape of personal online communication is changing. The very communication paradigms we’re accustomed to — email, text messaging, chat and wall posts — are starting to be blurred and redesigned. In the next generation of social media interaction, users will communicate online in ways that better mirror their organic interactions in real life. Welcome to the age of fluid personal communication.

Read more from Yoav Shoham here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/27/fluid-personal-communication-in-the-era-of-facebook-skype-and-google/

College freshmen turn to Facebook to find roommates

The Washington Post reports: For generations, one of the first challenges of going off to college was meeting the stranger the school chose to be your roommate. Today, a growing number of students are bypassing that tradition and making the choice themselves through online social networking.

Addicted to smartphones: the latest Ofcom communications results

Guardian reports:
Almost half of teenagers own a smartphone and 60% claim to be 'highly' addicted. Find the latest results of the Ofcom communications report. The popularity of smartphones just keeps rising according to the latest survey results from Ofcom's annual communications report.

Teens seem to be the biggest fans of smartphones such as Blackberrys, iPhones and Androids with 60% admitting to being 'highly' addicted to their phones. The survey results show just how smartphones have taken over the market - in the first quarter of this year 48% of mobile sales were smartphones.

The Hill likes its communication tools traditional

ExecutiveGov reports: Most members of Congress use social media to reach their constituents but staffs still favor more traditional forms of communication, a Congressional Management Foundation report says.

FierceGovernmentIT reports senior managers and social media managers still view e-mail newsletters and franked mass mailings as more important than social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The CMF found 81 percent of managers saw the e-mail newsletters as somewhat or very important, and 80 percent said this is the case for mass mailings as well.

However, the newer forms of media are catching up. AFP reports 74 percent of managers said Facebook is somewhat or very important for communicating their members’ views, 72 percent said the same for YouTube and 51 percent said it of Twitter.

“These technologies are starting to change how Congress communicates with their constituents and is allowing members to reach citizens who otherwise might not engage in the democratic dialogue,” said Bradford Fitch, CMF president and chief executive.

Click here to read full report.

Gap makes big move into social and digital advertising

Straits Times reports: Gap Inc is spending a lot more on digital and social media in its first major marketing campaign since a management shake-up in February, as the apparel retailer tries to lure younger customers.

The autumn marketing campaign, which focuses on Gap's 1969 jeans brand, will mainly be distributed through the company's Facebook page, Pandora Media , Hulu and trend-watching websites including DailyCandy, FabSugar, Glam, LookBook and Refinery29.

This fall, Gap is allocating about 40 per cent more money to digital and social media than the year-ago period. That means less spending on traditional media like TV, radio and magazine ads and billboards.

A spokesman declined to give a dollar figure. However, Gap as a whole spent US$119 million (S$143 million) on marketing in its latest fiscal quarter and typically spends more later in the year.

The shift is being overseen by Gap chief marketing officer Seth Farbman, who joined the company in February, when Art Peck replaced Marka Hansen as president of Gap North America and top designer Patrick Robinson was ousted.

Navy eyes Google+ as outreach tool

USA Today reports: The Navy may soon use another social media outlet alongside Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to reach sailors and their families.

Google+, Google's latest social network venture, may be the next way the Navy shares news, videos and pictures of the service's daily affairs.

"We're considering it," said Lt. Lesley Lykins, the Navy's director of emerging media integration. "We're still waiting to see the platform itself."

The Navy is evaluating Google+, as well as a handful of other outlets, including Swayable, a website that asks visitors to say which of two options they prefer, and a program that was used to stream the carrier Enterprise's homecoming online in July, Lykins said. A few factors are being considered, including operational security; the Navy needs to be sure that sensitive information, like ship movements and capabilities, can be kept secret.

That Channel Versus - the one with hockey and cycling - to be called NBC Sports Network

Philadelphia Inquirer reports: NBCUniversal plans to rename Versus, Comcast's ratings-challenged sports channel, as the NBC Sports Network in January 2012. The goal of the name change is to make the sports channel more popular with fans so that Comcast can charge higher per-subscriber fees.

Al Jazeera English Arrives in the Big Apple

NYT reports: Al Jazeera has not gained distribution on any major U.S. cable or satellite system. Nonetheless, the Qatar-based news channel is making headway. On Monday, Al Jazeera will be carried in New York City for the first time, though only by subletting space from a channel owner.

Pew Report: E-reader ownership doubles in six months

From Pew Report executive summary: The percent of U.S. adults with an e-book reader doubled from 6% to 12% between November 2010 and May 2011. Hispanic adults, adults younger than age 65, college graduates and those living in households with incomes of at least $75,000 are most likely to own e-book readers. Parents are also more likely than non-parents to own these devices.

Tablet computers have not seen the same level of growth among U.S. adults in recent months. In May 2011, 8% of adults report owning a tablet computer such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Motorola Xoom. This is roughly the same percentage of adults who reported owning this kind of device in January 2011 (7%), and represents just a 3 percentage-point increase in ownership since November 2010. Overall, the highest rates of tablet ownership are among Hispanic adults and those with household incomes of at least $75,000 annually.

For full report - click here.

16.8 Hours = Average number of hours US internet users spend watching online video

comScore just released new data for online video watching in the US. The report shows that that 178 million U.S. internet users are watching online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. The report also stated that the audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month, an all-time high.

Here are the top ten online video properties:

1) Google sites
2) VEVO
3) Yahoo! sites
4) Microsoft sites
5) Viacom Digital
6) Facebook.com
7) AOL
8) Turner Digital
9) Hulu
10) Amazon sites

For the complete report - click here.

TechCrunch Giveaway: Two Free Tickets To Disrupt SF #TCDisrupt

TechCrunch a is giving a pair of tickets to Disrupt SF scheduled for September 12-14.

To be a part of this contest - click here for more details.

Foursquare now has 10,000,000 users

Foursquare announced that 10,000,000 accounts have been created since the tool went live in March, 2009.

To celebrate this achievement they have rolled out a timeline of benchmarks, an info heavy chart of cool facts and check-ins as well as a wonderful time elapse video of the world showing when and where accounts have been created.

Check it here at https://foursquare.com/10million.

Google+: The Complete Guide

Mashable's complete guide to Google+ = click here for more info.

Missouri Forbids Teachers and Students To Be Facebook Friends

Mashable teports: If you’re a student living in Missouri, you’d better not be Facebook friends with any of your teachers – that will soon be illegal.

According to Missouri Senate Bill 54 that goes into effect on August 28, any social networking — not just Facebook — is prohibited between teachers and students. It’s all part of an effort to “more clearly define teacher-student boundaries.” However, KSPR reports that It’s only direct social media contact that’s prohibited; teachers are allowed to create Facebook Pages where all students have direct access to the teacher in a more public setting.

Inappropriate contact between students and teachers is at the root of the legislation. Senate Bill 54 is designed to protect children from sexual misconduct by teachers, compelling school districts to adopt written policies between teachers and students on electronic media, social networking and other forms of communication.

Teachers and students usually shouldn’t be friends, anyway, so on the surface this sounds like a good idea. However, we wonder how this will be policed. Will the state be allowed access to Facebook accounts, personal computers or Internet service provider records to see who’s befriending teachers or students? Inappropriate relationships will be hard to detect, especially since teachers and students engaged in such relationships would probably be concealing their communications, electronic or otherwise.