This US election will be the most online, real-time election in history, without a doubt. There’s a Flickr show with pictures tagged with "election08", countless blogs and all the online news sources, of course. But perhaps the most interesting example of the new social technologies at work is Twitter. You can see a stream of people voting on Twitter search and the tag #votereport has been used to allow citizens to report on conditions on the ground at the polling station. If there are irregularities in voting in any parts of the country, I wouldn’t mind betting it will be Twitter blowing the whistle.
Monthly Archives: November 2008
Replacing the newspaper
Jeff Jarvis is following up from his New Business Models for News Summit at CUNY with a thoughtful post outlining the way forward for local news organisations. It sets out the framework very well, I think. The comments add some real insight, too, so do read it…
Salesforce links with Amazon and Facebook
Salesforce, the software-as-a-service customer relationship management platform, has announced integration with both the Facebook platform and Amazon’s on-demand cloud computing services, reports MacWorld.
The Facebook development will allows developers on the "Force" platform to build applications which operate within Facebook. An example might be a recruiting app which allows Facebook users to recruit from among their social network.
The connection with Amazon is particularly interesting, though, as it apparently makes Amazon’s on-demand storage and computing available from within the Force platform. One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Force is that it’s data storage costs are relatively high, so giving access to Amazon’s cloud should be a welcome development.
APIs galore
Techcrunch has some interesting charts showing the development of web APIs, based on the sterling work done by ProgrammableWeb, has been tracking the development of APIs for over three years. The total tracked has now climbed to over 1,000, which shows just how mainstream the mash-up is becoming. The ProgrammableWeb site is a great resource for those looking for functionality to plug in.