Mac|Life Election 2008 RSS Feed

Twitter Vote Report Going Strong

Roberto Baldwin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:46:11 -0600

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told us earlier this week that he wasn't worried about Twitter crashing and burning today. So far, we're happy to report that Twitter is chugging along without any major issues.

In fact, Twitter's Twitter Vote Report is bringing poll reporting to the masses. Twitter users can report on today's election by including “#votereport” in their tweet. For instructions on how to include more detail into your tweet, check out their how-to.

All tweets will be tracked by the Twitter Vote Report and can be seen in the interactive map below or at TwitterVoteReport.com.

The Completely Fair and Balanced Mac|Life Guide to Waiting in Line to Vote

Roberto Baldwin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:00:47 -0600

The Mac|Life staff has a case of election fever. Although, it may be electionitis--we're still waiting for a call back from the ear, nose and vote specialist. (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!) Regardless, we're all jazzed to make our voices heard tomorrow, and hope you are too. (Unless you're not a U.S. citizen, or you're a nonvoting felon, or you're under 18. You can still make your voices heard by busting out some inspirational Hammer lyrics.)

Unfortunately, we've been hearing rumblings that the line to vote is going to be a long one. Look, record voter turn out is wonderful, and we believe anyone who can vote, should. But standing in line--for what some folks are guessing could be more than two hours--isn't so wonderful. Especially when what waits for you at the end of that line isn't Space Mountain or a free puppy, but a voting booth.

So, in order to make your participation in the democratic process during this historic 2008 election a bit less boring, here are some line-waiting tips.

Fill Out a Voter Cheat Sheet - Figure what you want to vote for before you head off to the polling place. Write your choices on a cheat sheet so you're in and out of the voting booth lickety split. (Don't worry; it's not really cheating--this ain't the SATs.) If everyone does that, the lines will go so much quicker. So. Much. Quicker. We're just saying.

Load Up on Media - Make sure you iPhone or iPod is chock-full of tunes, videos, and/or games. Throw a few episodes of your favorite show, or grab the latest game from the iTunes App Store. You political junkies out there can peruse our list of 7 Essential Election Apps for some "fun" suggestions.

Make a Friend - You're going to be in line for while, so why not make friends with your neighbors? After all, they live in your voting precinct, and you've never even had them over for coffee cake! If you happen to bring an iPhone or iPod touch with a two-player game like Tap Tap Revenge or Paper Football, well...you've just scored a new BFF.

Don't Go Crazy with the Coffee - What if your polling place doesn't have a bathroom? I think we've said enough. (Seriously. We thought of a few jokes to put here but they were all way too inappropriate, trust us.)

Charge Your Devices - Make sure you charge your iPhone, iPod, or random entertainment/gaming/tasing device. You don't want to be in line for 30 minutes and have your gadget stop working. That would suck.

Check the Weather - At risk of sounding like your Nanna, bring a jacket or umbrella. Even if there is a slight chance of rain, you just know it's gonna rain if you don't bring an umbrella.

Portable Chair - Pick up one of those portable walking stick/chairs. The thing will pay for itself in the first 20 minutes. And when you leave after voting, you can sell it to the poor schmuck at the back of the line--ka-ching!!!

Leave the Dog at Home - Fido may be part of the family, but he's not really part of the democratic process. Making your dog stand in line with you for hours is cruel. That's what your kids are for!

Books - Grab a paperback book. They're light, easy to toss in a jacket pocket, and they kill time like there's no tomorrow. Plus, a book's battery will never die. (OK, OK, unless you read on a Kindle, SMARTYPANTS. If so, be sure to juice your Kindle. Does that last sentence sound dirty?)

Vote Early - The longest wait times are expected after 5pm. If possible, make arrangements with your boss to show up late on Tuesday. When you're at home enjoying a nice cup of cocoa at 10pm and you see the local news pointing to all the voters still in line, you'll be happy you voted early.

Bring Your Own Pen - In a country with a Starbucks on every corner, you would think pen shortages would be a thing of the past. (Not sure how Starbucks links to pens? OK, neither are we, but stay with us here...) Now think about hundreds of people walking away from the polling place after inadvertently placing a pen in their pocket. Bring two pens: one black, one blue. Just in case.

Bring a Video Camera - Polling-place shenanigans can happen anywhere. Video evidence of the dastardly deeds will help bring the evildoers to justice. If your polling place is on the up-and-up, you can make one of those video diaries to show your kids when they're old enough to vote.

Next Time, Get an Absentee Ballot - Since most lines end in some sort of amusement ride, sandwich counter, or visit with Santa Claus, standing in line just to vote can seem pretty boring by comparison. If you don't want to ever stand in a voting line again, check to see if your state allows you to vote via absentee ballot--or maybe just vote early. Of course, if you use an absentee ballot you don't get one of those sweet "I Voted!" stickers. And isn't that what it's all about? (Hint: No. It's about democracy. The stickers are just a charming, sticky bonus.)

Happy voting!

Twitter Says it's Ready for Election Day

Michelle Delio — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:00:44 -0600

Biz Stone is not afraid.

On the contrary, the co-founder of Twitter is not even a tiny bit nervous that his beloved micro-blogging service might collapse this Tuesday under an anticipated crush of incessantly tweating users.

“We're very much looking forward to Tuesday,” said Biz. “We'll be working late at Twitter just to make sure everything goes smoothly but we've decided to make it an election party -- we're inviting friends and family to watch the election unfold from our headquarters in San Francisco.”

Twitter has morphed from a toy to a serious communications tool over the past year, and will face a pretty big test this Tuesday when people will put it to use as a weapon against voter disenfranchisement and trendy TV bling for media coverage of the election.

Chirpy citizens can use Twitter Vote Report to share information and resolve problems at the polls across the U.S. Volunteers at Twitter Vote Report will plot problems on a Google map, enabling people in the same general vicinity to offer on the spot to people who are having issues to cast their votes.

Curent TV, a cable channel, co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, will feature a "multimedia dashboard" displaying live messages from Twitter during the evening of November 4. Twitters own election site is already displaying all political tweets on one handy scrolling feed.

Stone says that Twitter has previously coped well with live events such as earthquakes and music festivals -- The American Red Cross uses Twitter to communicate with rescue workers and locals during disasters. He expects the service will be fine and dandy on Tuesday even though usage numbers have been rapidly spiking throughout the election’s end game.

“For example, Friday is typically a slower day on Twitter but not the Friday of the first presidential debate,” says Stone. That Friday updates jumped 18.5% from previous Friday, Updates during the debate increased 160% compared to same time last week, Signups on Friday were up 23%. Signups during the debate itself were up 135% compared to same time last week.”

Service outages plagued Twitter in 2008 (leading users to dub downtime the "fail whale" in response to the cutesy image of a whale that’s displayed when Twitter is down and out). But Twitter has been pretty solid since August, according to stats provided by site and server tracking firm Pingdom’s blog. Stone credits backend adjustments and optimization for the improved uptime.

“Our approach has been to find the weakest point, fix it so it's no longer the weakest point, and then move to the next weakest point and continue on in that fashion,” said Stone. “Reliability and performance have steadily improved at Twitter. We anticipate record levels of activity during the election process but we don't anticipate performance problems.”

Twitter had a bit of a test run in October, during the Canadian elections. Despite a countrywide media blackout so that people in Western Canada wouldn’t be influenced by results from elsewhere in the country, people on Twitter, including reporters who just couldn’t resist the temptation, were sharing results with the entire country hours before the polls closed out west.

iTunes Gets Political

Carol Pinchefsky — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:28:00 -0600

There are two major candidates for the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Many voters already know if they’re leaning left or right, but some are still on the fence, bringing confusion and chaos to pollsters nationwide.

Fortunately, the iTunes Store can help even the most indecisive Americans form opinions, by providing a wealth of information about the candidates and the issues that comprise Election 2008.

Better yet, you can download this information to your iPod or iPhone for easy access, so when a supporter of the opposite party slanders your presidential hopeful, you’ll have a more intelligent comeback than, “You’re just plain wrong.” And on Election Day, you’ll be able to put your best foot forward… toward the voting booth.

Here’s a look at the four sections of the Election 2008 page:

ON THE CANDIDATES

To the left (of course), iTunes displays Obama’s official video podcast, audio editions of his books (narrated by the man himself), speeches from the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and his presidential election biography, courtesy of A&E TV. The official video podcast is a combinational of polished and documentary-style videography and includes his speeches, an interview with his sister. All of it equates to one big infomercial, but after watching a few of these video podcasts, you really do walk away with a sense of who Obama really is.

McCain has less personal information available on iTunes, only audio editions of his co-written memoirs--one on himself and one on his family (he narrated the latter). There’s also a biography of Sarah Palin, as well as video highlights and speeches from the 2008 Republican National Convention, plus McCain's A&E biography.

DEBATES

You can watch the debates courtesy of CBS or listen to them on C-SPAN. But C-SPAN follows up those podcasts with campaign events from Obama and McCain, plus lectures from Independent candidate Ralph Nader.

Just as important, CNN is giving away episodes of Anderson Cooper 360 Daily, which is a treat. Watch the news anchor as he watches the candidates.

PUNDITRY

The punditry section is a showcase of political insight, from podcasts of the NPR show, It’s All Politics; books with a political theme (like Fleeced by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann); and political apps (like Campaign).

Best of all, iTunes tosses in a little levity to give a reason to laugh your way to the voting booth. The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update (but not, alas, the infamous Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin segments) show the world that politics really is a laughing matter.

Also recommended is Political Lunch, a tasty snack for those who like their political information on average in six-minute chunks.

ITUNES U

iTunes U, which has impressed us in the past with its length and breadth of knowledge, falls a little short here. The panels and discussions are presented in a dry manner. Even though the information is interesting (for example, in a University of California lecture, you hear just how “undocumented migrants” benefit America), it’s hard to rally enthusiasm for monotone lectures with topics like, “Diversity in the Public Sphere: Producing and Reproducing Power, and Performance in Dominant Culture.”

There’s one notable exception. Link TV’s What Change Looks Like has some engaging broadcasts: journalist Amy Goodman describes the circumstances of her arrest during the Republican National Convention. And the former president of the Log Cabin Republicans Abner Mason discusses the issue of gay marriage.

Although the average person might not care to look “Deeper into McCain’s Economics.” if you’re fascinated with the study of politics, there’s no better place to be than the iTunes U section.

7 Essential iPhone Election Apps

Carol Pinchefsky — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:58:00 -0500

Election Day is just around the corner, and the presidential election is coming to a head. The guys at the deli counter, every other television commercial, and even YouTube clips are all telling you to get out and vote.

Now Apple has grabbed a slice of that American pie by adding political-themed apps in the iTunes App Store. Some of these rate better than others. But they’re all dedicated to making you more politically aware before you cast that ballot.

Campaign
$0.99
Gorloch Interactive

Campaign is an excellent application, and it’s a pity that its usefulness will expire after the election. It garners the top headlines from news sources such as The Huffington Post, Reuters, and Newsweek; it displays the latest polls, including polls in battleground states; it lets you focus on each candidate and read their blogs and where they stand on the issues; and it gives you a forum where you can voice your opinions on topics like foreign policy and security. Heck, it does everything but vote for you.

It’s not a perfect app—it crashed on me three times—but it’s darned close.

If after the election Gorloch Interactive reworks their app to focus on current political affairs, they will have a winner on their hands.

iRepublican
Free
Shekhar Yadav

iRepublican is a free app, which is a good thing, because it’s only a screenshot with the words “Proud to be Republican” underneath a picture of a patriotic elephant. (its sister app does the same thing, but substitute “Democrat” and a patriotic donkey.) If you’re the type who dresses in your party’s color on Election Day, then by all means download it. But for the rest of you, it’s not even worth the storage space on your iPhone.

Election
$0.99
Cascade Software Corporation

Election is a good collection of polling material from across the country. Election divides its data into national, state, and battleground states, charting the country’s perceptions of the two major candidates over the last month by averaging multiple sources. Every state includes historical data from the 2004 election.

Election also include extra polls from companies like Gallup and the Pew Research Center, as well as news sources like NBC and the Washington Post. Questions, updated frequently, include, “What is the single most important issue in your choice for president?”

Unfortunately, the “commentary” section refused to load multiple times because of a “temporary internet connectivity glitch.” Despite that flaw, Elections makes a tasty bite for those who enjoy food for thought.

Votetastic
$0.99
One Pony

It’s electoral votes that count in an election. With Votetastic, you can count those electoral votes yourself.

Votetastic displays the name of each state, plus its number of electoral votes. Underneath is a bar with the colors red or blue, for Republican or Democrat. If you predict a blue state like New York will vote red, select the state and hit “McCain.” Votetastic will recalculate electoral votes. If you or the state is undecided, you can select the center question mark, and the electoral votes go uncounted.

So on Election Day while watching the news, you can learn how each state votes and see if your forecast was correct. Or you could edit each state as the results pour in.

Votetastic is an interesting thought-experiment for people who like to play with numbers and are invested in politics. Votetastic’s appeal, unfortunately, is limited to those few.

Electoral 08
$0.99
Zentropy Software

Electoral 08 is a lot like Votetastic, only it displays a map, rather than a bar. Unfortunately, despite polls that currently place Barack Obama in the lead, Electoral 08 has John McCain winning by 34 electoral votes. (CNN says Obama is ahead 286 to 183, with 89 electoral votes undecided.)

As with Votetastic, Electoral 08 has limited appeal. But it does put the votemap in perspective by giving us historical data from each presidential election since 1972, when Nixon beat McGovern 520 to 17.

Go DEMS!
$1.99
Ontomni

Go DEMS!, and its sister app, Go GOP!, is like whack-a-mole, but instead of a hammer and a mole, you’re armed only with a finger and the spirit of the times.

We purchased Go DEMS!, where we annihilated red elephants of varying sizes and speeds. But don’t be so quick to whack: blue donkeys also appear. And if you slap down your own party, you’ll lose points. Depending on the mode, the game ends if you miss too many pesky elephants, if you hit too many blue donkeys, both, or when the timer goes of.

Go DEMS! has a rather drab background, and the game provides no sound, but you can crush your opponents with your own soundtrack. (We recommend Carmina Burana: O Fortuna, which can turn a mere smack-down into an epic battle.)

WhackaPoll
$0.99
Frontier Design Group

WhackaPoll bears a striking resemblance to Go DEMS!: a finger-whacking game of political snarkiness. WhackaPoll has other benefits, but it also has one important drawback: you only have your opponent party to whack, which makes the game about speed but not skill.

First, choose either Democrat or Republican (to keep things politically neutral, we played both), then whack away at the pop-up icons. You’ll see immediately that WhackaPoll is more attractive than Go DEMS!, and the sound is kinda cute. If you hit the icon, your party advances, but if you miss a chance to beat down an icon, the other party sneaks up on the presidential meter.

But the real fun happens when you win a game. Frontier Design then sends you to a Safari page, where it tallies your victory and displays the collective results. (Before press time, whackers worldwide had claimed the presidency for Barack Obama.)

Obama vs McCain: Who’s Got More Tech Cred?

Amy Keyishian — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 04:33:00 -0500

Time was, when a feller ran for office, the only technology he needed was one of those fancy poster-printing contraptions and a mule. Those days are gone, friends, and these days any politician worth his or her salt is going to require the assistance of code, software, and hardware. So how do the 2008 presidential candidates stack up in the tech department?

McCain famously announced not too long ago that he was just “learning to get online” to use “a Google,” prompting w00ts of derision. But regardless of his personal tech savvy, he knew enough, in 2000, to hire Campaign Solutions, an Internet consulting company that has since put online fund-raising on the map with its record-breaking results on McCain’s behalf. But what’s he been up to lately?

The guy some people call Mac launched a social networking site called McCainSpace as part of his larger website, JohnMcCain .com. The first version was called “virtually impossible to use” by Adam Ostrow, a tech blogger quoted in the New York Times. But in August, Ostrow followed up with an article (on mashable .com) praising the relaunched site as “extremely easy to use.” McCainSpace features video updates from the candidate as well as discussion forums, virtual groups such as Hillary Supporters for McCain (62 members and counting, at press time), and blogs. It is, indeed, easy to use, but it remains to be seen whether it will attract an active audience.

Obama’s been busy on the tech front, too, flagrantly Blackberrying in front of Politico reporters and using videoconference hookups to stay in touch with the fam when he’s on the campaign trail. But the guy himself is one thing; whom he hires and how he networks are what counts. Obama got his social networking site up first, and it’s worth noting that it was developed by Chris Hughes, a Facebook founder. Is it also worth noting, then, that while Obama’s my.BarackObama.com has the Facebook pedigree, the McCain social networking site’s very name invokes the implied class differences between Facebook and MySpace users? Maybe not, unless we’re overthinking things.

That said, the Obama campaign has been much more active online than McCain’s has. Rather than spearheading all efforts themselves (and despite a much bigger online spending budget), the Obama camp focuses “on building online tools to empower Obama supporters to take the campaign into their own hands,” Hughes says. “Using the tools on My.BarackObama and other networks like Facebook and MySpace, supporters organize events in their communities, join local groups, and do traditional work, like phone banking and fund-raising.” The central Obama site does its part, though: Phone banks are coordinated via email; text messages remind supporters of their local polling places; a networking strategy matches up random donors (of as little as $25), so they can exchange notes about why they donated and, presumably, continue a conversation about the campaign.

TechPresident.com tracks each candidate’s online presence—not just how each uses the Net himself, but who’s picking up what, blogwise. For example, items posted on the site noted when Twitter was used during protests around the Republican National Convention, chased down the veracity of the Anne Kilkenny/Sarah Palin email, and timed the “epic fail” of a promised text from Biden.

There are some online tools both campaigns use: Facebook groups (McCain: 318,573 supporters; Obama: 1,748,234, at press time), YouTube videos (in the wake of any out-of-context quote that’s aired or published, both sides’ supporters flock to the video site to get the fuller picture), and one iPhone app each: the Obama Inauguration Countdown and the McCain Inauguration Countdown, 99 cents each in the App Store.

In the end, how fast each guy is at thumb-typing or whether he’s capable of editing his own Wikipedia entry doesn’t determine his ability to lead the nation. But whether he can inspire his supporters to stump for him in cyberspace—that may well make quite a difference.

Macs: The Preferred Platform of Democrats?

Carol Pinchefsky — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:02:29 -0500

Don’t tell hardcore Mac user (and Republican) Rush Limbaugh, but Apple’s market share skews towards Democrats. According to Vincent Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of Marketing and Strategic Alliances, there “seems to be quite a strong correlation between typically Democratic voting states and higher concentrations of Mac usage.”

Click to embiggen

Take a look at the 2004 electoral college votes and compare it to the this map of the Macs state-by-state market share. As you can see, the statistics are far more interesting than what you learned (and promptly forgot) in college about negative binomial distribution.

Vizzaccaro said, “I believe it comes from the masses of students heading back to school in September, and going from predominantly Windows machines at home to a much higher percentage of Macs at schools. This trend is blended with a general growth pattern for the Mac, but the September spikes are noticeable.”

“So, it appears from the data that Democrats and students do prefer Macs in greater numbers than the rest of the population.”

And then we have the applications. Both canidates have an inaguration countdown app, and either party can download their very own iDemocrat or iRepublican app. Unfortunately for McCain, Obama’s campaign one-ups McCain with a free app, the Obama 08 iPhone app, dedicated to campaign stats, news, events, and issues. It also organizes your friends by state (prioritizing the battleground states), so you can call them up and track who they’re voting for. The GOP might want to reach out to iPhone developers soon.

iPhone app developers aren't necessarily Democrats. Project director of the Obama 08 iPhone app, Raven Zachary said that he and his team developed the application because the Democratic Party asked him to. Zachary said that the Democratic Party may have been interested in the iPhone because, with the iPhone’s web browsing capabilities, it’s an excellent tool for communication. Also, he said, “Google’s phone won’t be available until days before the election.”

Voters can take a better look at the candidates when Frontline airs its biographies of the two presidential candidates on October 14, 2008 (also the rumored date of Apple’s announcement of a potential new notebook line); the biographies will be available online for free October 15 on iTunes, YouTube and streaming on Frontline's website.

Mac|Life wants to remind everyone to vote on November 4.