links for 2008-08-20

• How Obama Did It
  The Tech Review on the social-networking strategy that took an obscure senator to the doors of the White House: "Throughout the political season, the Obama campaign has domi­nated new media, capitalizing on a confluence of trends. Americans are more able to access media-rich content online; 55 percent have broadband Internet connections at home, double the figure for spring 2004. Social-networking technologies have matured, and more Americans are comfortable with them. Although the 2004 Dean campaign broke ground with its online meeting technologies and blogging, "people didn't quite have the facility," says ­Lawrence Lessig. "The world has now caught up with the technology." The Obama campaign, he adds, recognized this early: "The key networking advance in the Obama field operation was really deploying community­-building tools in a smart way from the very beginning." (Thx SK)
  (tags: obama politics)
• The Trouble with Twitter
  Despite the headline, it's not just about twitter. It's one of the most concise but meaty explanations seen about why the dollar hype of social networking isn't panning out. (Thx PM for the link).
  (tags: socialnetworking)
• Marc Pesce on hyperpolitics and the future of democracy
  Brilliant talk by Marc Pesce (at Edge.org): "The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him" ... "We have a drive to connect and socialize: this drive has now been accelerated and amplified as comprehensively as the steam engine amplified human strength two hundred and fifty years ago. Just as the steam engine initiated the transformation of the natural landscape into man-made artifice, the 'hyperconnectivity' engendered by these new toys is transforming the human landscape of social relations. This time around, fifty thousand years of cultural development will collapse into about twenty" ... "Sharing is the threat. Not just a threat. It is the whole of the thing. A photo snapped on my mobile becomes instantaneously and pervasively visible ... pretensions to control, or limitation, or the exercise of power have already collapsed into shell-shocked impotence."

Comments

[alfonso]

Ciao Bruno,

thanks for this interesting link. The url you indicate didn't work for me, the www seems to be the issue, here the link that worked:
http://technologyreview.com/Infotech/21222/?a=f
see you soon
alfonso