As much fas as I have watching Stewart own Bill O’Reilly, I can’t help but think these guys are part of the problem. O’Reilly is much more obvious but we saw who Stewart is working for this election season. I know Jon Stewart is on Comedy Central, I know… but still. If Jon Stewart wanted to work for individual liberties and freedom he should reject his own statist cheerleading. I could obviously go on but the fact is, Stewart is good for a laugh. Thanks any way.

Whew, I am glad that is all over. Can’t wait for NPR to cover something besides the election. Now what does our future hold? Has anything really changed… BUZZ WORD ALERT! The answer is no, we are still screwed financially, we are still at war. On a side note, we are not racist.

The D party now hold both Houses and Executive branch. Butler Shaffer puts it well here. It is pretty much a given we will see our 2nd amendment rights trampled upon, higher taxes, redistribution of wealth, and who knows what else. My suggestion is you educate yourself and arm yourself. Have a plan. GTD People.

What can we expect to see tomorrow? What will the markets do? Will there be riots if candidate X loses and Y wins? I woke up this morning and turned the dial to NPR, this morning was different. I didn’t care anymore. I guess I finally get it, the system doesn’t like to lose power. All I can do is pray for a smooth transition for the next president, and hope our liberties aren’t trampled upon. You know what they say about the Bill of Rights, use them or lose them!

Liberty or Death, it is an ultimatum.

This year has been an incredible ride for political spectators. It really has been a game changing year, as politicians are opening up new channels to deliver their message. Blogs, podcast, twitter, and youtube to name a few. I really apreciate the authentic politicains participating in two way communication. My problem arises when politicians campaigns do the participating on their behalf. Take a look at Bob Barr’s twitter posts below.

My first impression is positive, this guy is tip toeing into social media. He is forgetting a major unspoken rule, authenticity. His twitter page is great and all but he does not post personal messages, instead some intern is plugging links all day to Bob Barr content. Sure he wants to spread his message but you need to look at some other twitter profiles to see the potential of web 2.0. Please see John Culberson of TX below.

This image doesn’t do Rep. Culberson justice. He is an avid twitter user and he commonly replies to questions and participates daily. His profile has a more human feeling.

I could ramble on about facebook and political debate sprouting from simple status updates and the correlation between Obama and Apple stickers but I will spare you.

I am happy to see communication open up in this way. I can’t imagine what the political landscape will look like by 2010 elections.

I heard about Facebook Lexicon a few weeks ago but gave it no immediate attention. Today was very enlightening as I gave the database a few minutes of my time. It was insightfulk to see some of the figures, however, I have many more specific questions.

What is Lexicon?

Lexicon is a tool to understand what Facebook’s users are talking about on Walls. Use the tabs at the top to explore different trends in the topics listed in the drop-down menu. Lexicon never looks at messages, Chat, searches, or other private data.

First Impression

Simple is better. I agree, but I think Lexicon should incorporate an easier font to read. I guess my prescription needs a tune up. You will also see popular terms aggregated into drop-down lists. Just see it for yourself here.

What I learned today

About those republicans…

As you can see, the graph shows how many and what percent of posts by gender and age. One thing lacking is the attitude of the numbers or to what party they follow. It might be helpful to know how many democrats are posting the topic “Republicans”. I also noticed more male posters than females posters.

and those dems…

The term “democrats” are less frequent, but again, you do not know the attitude of posts. It might be better there are fewer posts, as the “republicans” higher number of posts could very well represent negative sentiment towards the incumbent president or general dissatisfaction with the party. Similar to the “republicans” data, more posts are by males 2/3 and females 1/3. Not that gender is relevant or vital to getting value out of this data.

The Gender Card

Oh yes I did go there. Apparently women are posting about Palin. This is astounding!

I can see the headlines… BREAKING NEWS!—WOMEN ARE POSTING ABOUT WOMEN! Anyways, nearly as many posts are about “Palin” as “Obama”. Look at the numbers below.

“Obama” has evenly distributed gender stats and number of posts. However, it looks like more women are mentioning his name than men. I guess I should post “McCain” and “Biden” stats but it really is not worth my time. I don’t want to waste any more keystrokes. Just check out Lexicon and let me know what you think!

Do you remember making mixtapes when you were a kid? You know when Ace of Base and TLC would come on and you would run to press record? Fast forward to now, the web has your modern day mixtape, Muxtape. The cool thing about this is you don’t have to run to the tape deck to press record. As it turns out, Muxtape is having some legal issues with the RIAA.

Enter Opentape

Supply and demand is such a powerful force. As quick as Muxtape was up and popular, it was down. The market needed their mixtapes so a group of developers created their own opensource webapp now known as Opentape. In just a few clicks, I had Opentape up and hosting a few MP3’s of my choosing. Click Opentape to see my mixtape.

So What?

In closing, I really like Opentape. It’s simplicity is amazing and it works. Check it out.

This is a test to show Gene the easyness.

“Does Google know you?” Really, who are you if the big G doesn’t know you? I covered this in detail a few posts ago so I won’t beat a dead horse. After a few weeks of knee deep participation in social media, I was finally noticed.

Was Noticed

It’s important to follow my tense. I got my results from commenting on blogs, Twitter, and FriendFeed. I was suddenly propelled to the 1 spot. Not to mention my name IS the domain name. 24 hours later I have been cast out of the relevance light to midway page 2 of google organic search.

What gives?

Why the change in search ranking. For one thing, I basically have been silent on Twitter and friendfeed the past week. Honestly, it has been relaxing but #1 in organic search was a pretty nerd/core bragging right. I am wondering if restructuring my site and homepage have any thing to do with the sudden change. I am leaning towards yes.

So What?

First things first. I am NOT going to mess with my site/blog layout. The more I think about it, the more I think my wimpy link building through social media may all be broken. I plan on focusing on the blog and trying out a podcast. Anyways, have a great weekend, I’ll be on the beach.

Friendfeed is gaining a lot of momentum as the channel of choice for communication among bloggers and the new media community. As an early adopter it has been a fun ride seeing the platform develop through its short life. The company was founded by a group of ex-Googlers so you know they command major street cred.

Here is my friendfeed.

Throttle the Noise

One issue I have heard is the amount of noise generated by FriendFeed. If you were following a lot of people and rooms, there would an information overload. The reason for this is because FriendFeed aggregates multiple streams of information from each users and dumps thim into bigger channels. For example, if I am browsing FriendFeed by friends, you will see every item posted from each of their selected services. Multiply that by many friends, you can see where there would be a bit of noise. Especially if your friends are active on many channels. For instance, below are some recommended friend from FriendFeed.

To tell you the truth, I don’t really care about Bret Taylor’s amazon activity or Dave Winer’s Netflix que. FriendFeed, give me the ability to silence services. Just give me the ability to X out services for my friends. Here is my mock-up.

Sounds simple enough. The bottom line is this, not all their lifestream is relevant to me.

Empower the Users

As I mentioned in my post titled Filter to Evangelist, you must empower your users to use your platform if you want brand evangelists. FriendFeed is empowering their base because they have an open API, in other words, they released the framework to developers so they can bring FriendFeed to you, the user, through 3rd party platforms. Here is an example, twhirl on my desktop.

It is pretty cool, but I prefer the web version, even on the iPhone. I really want them to go the extra step. Twitter allows users to copy and paste the code from their feed right into their blog, why not friend feed. And let me style the feed while you are at it. I know everyone is not a web designer, but offering portability will win a loyal base.

So What?

I like FriendFeed. I think they have some good leadership. My small suggestions might not be desired by all users, but options and portability are a plus. Go to friendfeed and setup an account of your own. You will find an engaging community and great discussion.

If you are still lost, just post a question in the comments. Connect with me.

I am a self proclaimed Apple fanboy and you might already know, the iPhone is going to change your life… atleast, that’s what I said in a previous post. It has been an awesome day, except for the 2-3 hour delay to authenticate the new iPhone OS. I am not sporting a new iPhone but I have the updated software on my 1st gen. unit. I am impressed by the number of apps available upon launch. If you have been living under a rock, go to the Apple website.

First impressions

I was pretty pissed when I synced and installed the new software at 8a.m. and could not enjoy the platform until after 2p.m. Shame on Steve for not anticipating and having their servers ready for the boom.

Once the iPhone connected with the iTunes servers the device was ready to download some apps. Twitterific is beautiful, Facebook is lacking, Remote is a winner, Evernote is clever, Google needs help, and this is only day one.

Twitterific

Facebook

Remote

Evernote

Google

So What?

Besides the early morning delay, I am pumped. I feel like I have a new toy, I can probably wait a little longer for the 3g now. My advice, go to the nearest Apple store and play with one. You will probably want one. Use that $$ Uncle Sam gave to you and dump it in the economy.

What are your first impressions, comments whatever? Leave a comment.