Month: June 2008

Will the internet have an effect on the US presidential election of 2008?

The 2004 election saw a major change with the internet involved. For the first time ever, micro-donations made a difference and got noticed. The conversation online was rampant. People were screaming. I was so overly optimistic, I spent most of my time looking out to the rest of the world online knowing that people around the Earth who could not vote, could still influence voters.

But unfortunately, it wasnt JibJab, blogs, Howard Dean or anyone else online that decided the election in 2004, it was the TV commercials in rural America that played the greatest influence. And all that was required to win the most TV commercials was winning the most money.

The people who actually went out to vote were the people in small towns who didint know what a blog was and mostly didnt spend time online – they were not connected.

At the time, a survey estimated that 44% of US households were well connected whereas today, four years later, the number has grown only 13% to 57% [via]. The majority of these people are in the smaller towns.

While playing a large role, I’m inclined to believe that Sillicon Valley did not elect Obama, but that Obama truly represents the goodness and change that we all need so much after eight full years of intense damage by the worst president in the history of the world. The primary election was likely won by Democrats in all walks of life, but this has little to do with the greater Republican fight. 

Now its time to win the election and it’s the people in the small towns that matter the most.

For the last several elections, an overwhelming majority of all cities in the US with a population over 500,000 voted Democrat and almost all that were under 500,000 voted Republican [via].

The 2008 Election will be different but will it be different enough? Broadband pentration has slowed in reaching the smaller towns. Perhaps the youngest of the generations in the small towns are connecting, but perhaps they are too young to vote, and those that are older enough, may not actually make it out to the polls.

In otherwords, just because it seems obvious that the Democrats should win, it’s not going to be easy.

Image Fulgurator

Superstorm entering Manhattan now. Thick rain and darkness. (via Twitter)

TubeMogul is a new kind of platform that we at Rocketboom are calling a “Blaster”. You can upload a master video file to the service, add a set of metadata (i.e. title, description and tags) and then TubeMogul does the heavy lifting of blasting/redistributing the master file to multiple video hosts, like YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Yahoo, etc. This kind of tool has become indispensable for us.

Today, TubeMogul released their top 40 clients and Rocketboom ranks in at #13 ahead of Warner Bros, Fox, PBS and Sony Pictures.

For most on the list, YouTube is where the numbers count and in many ways, it’s likely there is a direct correlation between popularity on YouTube and popularity on Tube Mogul. Interestingly enough, the majority of our flash d/l come from Blip.tv which is not included in these numbers so it’s likely we would be much higher in the list (e.g. we have a higher view count on Blip than YouTube which is likely abnormal for most of the others on the list). Also, of course, this does not account for all of the videos we serve ourselves which is the great majority.

Rank/User

1Next New Networks
2Chris Pirillo
3Howcast
4For Your Imagination
5Tornante
6WatchMojo.com
7iJustine
8Nalts
9MyDamnChannel
10Ford Models
11CBS Interactive
12HBO
13Rocketboom
14FUNimation Productions
15National Lampoon
16Big Pictures
17Sub Pop Records
18Rhett and Link
19PopCrunch Media
20PBS
21Independent Comedy TV
22Billboard.com
23The Movie Preview Critic
24IPC Media
25Hayden Black / Evil Global Corp
26Century Media Records
27Tango Media
28DailyIdea.TV
29Effinfunny.com
30Newsbusters.org
31Katr Pictures
32Young Hollywood
33Warner Bros
34Fox
35Vlaze Media Networks
36Gagfilms
37Click for Lessons
38EMI
39Nike
40Sony Pictures

Square Wheels

Sarah Austin of Pop17 interviews David Karp, the 21 year old founder of Tumblr, a breakthrough blogging platform that allows users to easily reblog multimedia content.

Make pictures, not war. (via pop17)

The Petaflop Roadrunner Supercomputer is now the fastest computer in the world beating BlueGene by more than twice the speed. You may think this is fast, but just wait till you see this puppy inside of a thumb drive in 15 years. The New York Times

rocketboom:

Serious Bu$iness Dance Party Presented by Rocketboom and Blip.tv

FREE DISCO / OPEN BAR
> 9pm ‘till late
> Savalas, 285 Bedford Ave (map), Williamsburg

* Open bar sponsored by Rocketboom & blip.tv as part of NY Internet Week

* MP3s & more info: http://fffff.at/serious-business

* RSVP on the Facebook event