The Obama Effect
As the TwitVote experiment likely proves, the Twitter community—itself a reflection of online technologists and other early adopters—is pro-Obama. I suppose I’m no different.

The Twitter community is a bit biased

This election cycle has been far more uplifting than the past several if only because it seemed several reasonable options among the many candidates, in a race that included an historic battle late into the primary season. Barack Obama isn’t my ideal candidate, but when I show up at Meadowwood tomorrow morning—some 3.3 miles away from my house—I’ll be voting for what he inspires.

We forget, often, that the President may be the most powerful leader in the world but he also holds an office that doesn’t make laws, establish budgets, or rule on Constitutionality. Presidents merely influence these things through the people they choose to surround them and the way they conduct themselves in public. I’m sure Barack Obama has great ideas about how to fix the economy or health care, etc., but that isn’t the reason to vote for him.

If you want a sign of what kind of nation we might be under Obama, look at the army of citizen volunteers willing to go door to door to fight for his candidacy. They change avatars and middle names on Facebook in a sign of support. They compose songs. Most importantly, they get involved with local politics and become active in their own communities. Kerry and Gore didn’t invoke the same degree of passion. Obama is attractive because of the reaction the nation has had to his campaign.

Vote Report
Obama can’t take credit for any of the work done on Vote Report—a community-sourced election oversight project—but I have to wonder whether it comes to fruition without his Presidency motivating people to get involved.

Vote Report is led by a group of online activists that include Micah Sifry and Noel Hidalgo. For the many voters who experience voting problems—long lines, broken machines, missing names on registration rolls—this project provides a conduit to register a complaint on location. Using Twitter and hashtags (like, “#wait:120″ for a 2-hour wait in line), messages are distributed and aggregated to give a real-time look at where problems arise in the 2008 national elections. You don’t have to use Twitter in order to participate; Vote Reports has other ways to send your experiences to the volunteers, including phone (an automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683), or talk to a human at 1-866-OUR-VOTE).

Community-source election oversight

One of the outcomes of this mass of information is a Plodt graph to show how the data changes over time. The team of developers is also working on a mashup with Google Maps. For developers and researchers, there are also several ways to get the raw data. Vote Report is a massive collaborative effort that includes support from organizations like Rock the Vote, Common Cause, NPR’s Social Media Desk, Women Donors Network, PBS, and Demos.

Behind the scenes at Vote Report

For more on Twitter and politics, visit Warren Sukernek’s list of political Twitter bookmarks. It contains a growing number of web articles and tools surrounding the current political season.

Earlier this week they were playing with friends Robby and Teddy and creating their club.

Carter: (waving a big stick) This is my staff of leadership.

Robby: So, does that mean you’re the president?

Carter: Well, we could vote. . . .

This conversation resulted in several unusual voting moves, documented in our special investigative report- How many votes is fair?

Later this week, Archie and Carter got back to work sorting out leadership for their newly formed club, G.R.O.W.P.- Get Rid Of Weird People. Carter later admitted that he liked the sound of “Get Rid Of Weirdos” better, but had already drawn the shirts:

G.R.O.W.P. official t-shirt

Archie: I’m the president.

Carter: Yes, you’re the president.

Archie: So I tell you what to do.

Carter: Well, I am the supreme leader of all eternity.

Archie: So does that mean I tell you what to do, or you tell me what to do?

Carter: Let’s just not worry about hierarchies and stuff like that.

Archie: Okay. (heading out to play)

Carter: But I am still the supreme leader of all eternity.

After all, he does possess the staff of leadership.

The Twitties are the first annual awards for top tweets.

If the IDs for Twitter status messages are to be believed, the leading microblogging service has racked up almost 870 million tweets since it was created two years ago. As Twitter has grown from 200,000 members to 2 million in a single year, there are now over three million messages being piped through the system each day. By the time the second annual Twitties rolls around, there will be over a billion new candidates for a handful of awards.

There are fourteen categories for this first Twitties nomination period, which ends on August 30:

1. Best Tweet—Which Tweet takes the cake?
2. Funniest Tweet—Which Tweet makes your sides split?
3. Smartest Tweet—Which Tweet flew right over your head?
4. Best Avatar—Which avatar beats the rest?
5. Most Informative Tweet—Which Tweet informed you better than Matt Lauer?
6. Best Use of Twitter to Break News—Which Tweet kept you most up to date?
7. Best Putdown—Which Tweet would make your mama proud?
8. Snarkiest Tweet—Which Tweet is razor sharp?
9. Dopiest Tweet—Which Tweet gives new meaning to moronic?
10. Best Use of Twitter for Business—Which Tweet has the most business savvy?
11. Best Use of Twitter for Journalism—Which Tweet belongs in the New York Times?
12. Best Use of Twitter by Media—Which Tweet is the most media friendly?
13. Best Flirtation—Which Tweet makes you blush?
14. Best Straight Man—Which Tweet is the best comedic backboard?

A list of infamous tweets was recently compiled by Inside CRM. You won’t find any of my nominations on that list—I drew from the 79 favorites I have starred since joining Twitter in early March 2007, and the oldest one of those dates back only to last February. Some of the categories above don’t fit my favorite tweets, but here are the best ones from my personal information stream.

“[audio] 134-Year-Old Man Attributes Longevity To Typographical Error http://twurl.nl/rpde2m”
(The Onion)

“I now own Jesus band-aids.”
(Darren Brockes)

“Twhepherd = The Twitter employee that finds and restores lost followers to your twaggle. ”
(Tweet Crunch)

“is embracing her inner FailWhale.”
(Fluff T. Bunny)

“The fact that people are COMPLAINING about the WATCHMEN trailer proves that Internet=most efficient pure disgruntlement engine in history.”
(hodgman)

“flatbush ave=yet another bklyn street named by random compound word generator.”
(hodgman)

“‘cakey: Can you build websites with firefox? imarock: can you build cars with roads?’”
(Brooks Guthrie)

“Realizing that ‘goddamn elves’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘fucking elves.’”
(hodgman)

“The friendly dirt has salts and nutrients magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride. And pH of 8. You could grow asparagus, say scientists.”
(MarsPhoenix)

“retweet: @der_mo showed me twitter knows Unicode: ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ ▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ ▁ ▂ ▃ ”
(JeffClark)

“Q: ababaaabbaaabbaabbbbbaaabababaab A: long time no ‘C’”
(shveta aneja)

“OH: ‘How do you spell required, because the paper doesn’t correct me like the computer.’”
(Amy Makice)

“Monroe declared disaster area”
(Mark Bell)

“How does Rick Astley promote a concert schedule? As a Prairie Home Companion gig? http://tinyurl.com/5ml8ze”
(Kevin Makice)

“Our government only breaks international law to take lives, but never to save them.”
(Noah)

“I don’t want to be this fly on the wall: http://tinyurl.com/59hbt9”
(Amy Makice)

“Sometimes, twitter is that friend you turn to in class when everyone’s being a moron, just to say, ‘really? Really?!’”
(katrina_)
NOTE: I tried to nominate this one, but the Twitties didn’t like the underscore in the username

“What do you mean, my birth certificate expired?”
(ankitkhare)

“i think that from now on, when i get cold calls from random marketing people, i will just act like i am drunk. ”
(Jenn Hileman)

“I read somewhere recently that cinnamon can help prevent fatigue. I put a lot in my coffee this morning. I think it’s bullshit.”
(Adam Williams)

“The word ‘webinar’ can never be scrubbed from my brain.”
(Kelly Prill)

“‘Flocked’ – when your twitterific catches up after being off for a while and your screen is covered with growl updates.”
(change02)

Voting will begin on September 1 and run through the end of that month. Winners will be announced on October 1, 2008.

Which are your favorite tweets of the year?

There are no mulligans in Crunchies voting.

Based on nominations submitted by the Internet community, the awards committee chose five finalists for each of the Committee will choose five finalist companies last month for each of the twenty award categories, based on the nominations submitted by the community. At the moment, just under 108,000 ballots have been cast. Voting ends tonight at midnight PACIFIC.

My votes below have been greatly informed by (a) regularly following blogs big and small for the past 8 months or so through Google Reader, and (b) jumping into new communities as a beta tester or early adopter. In some cases, these tools proved valuable enough to incorporate into my daily and weekly routines. Others? … not so much.

The Crunchies voting site is fairly straightforward, providing a short list of candidates with links to each home site for more investigation. Unfortunately, I had the equivalent of a hanging chad in my vote for Best Overall. I selected “Twitter” but wound up with Zillow, a real estate site of which I had never heard. Unfortunately for all of the recount scenarios, there is no way for me to correct that. Twitter faces stiff competition from Facebook, the former student social network that made a splash with an open application platform in 2007. Doh.

The toughest category for me, by far, was the one for “Best new gadget / device.” It featured five strong entrants in the iPhone (Apple’s revolutionary phone), Kindle (Amazon’s e-book), Ooma (an internet phone), Pleo (an affordable robot pet), and the Wii. If the Pleo had a longer interactive play time—my initial tests showed only 90-minutes of steady play, with no way to automatically recharge or buy backup batteries—it would have trumped my eventual choice—the Wii—based mostly on its potential for community around these little robot dinosaurs. The Wii technically could be considered a 2006 gadget, but we didn’t get ours until last Christmas.

• Best technology innovation / achievement—Recognition for best new technology achievement or breakthrough
  Nominees: Earthmine, Like, Move Networks, Twine, Viewdle
• Best bootstrapped start-up—For a company that has raised less than $100.000 from individuals, angels or others
  Nominees: FriendFeed, PoliticalBase, ProductWiki, Techmeme, UpNext
• Best new gadget / device—For the best new Internet-accessible electronics device launched in 2007
  Nominees: iPhone, Kindle, Ooma, Pleo, Wii
• Best business model—For a company that’s pioneering new revenue-creation opportunities
  Nominees: Glam Media, Imeem, Prosper, Weatherbill, Zazzle
  NOTE: I don’t know enough about any of these, or business, to make an informed vote.
• Best design—Recognition for best user-interface design
  Nominees: Etsy, Jackson Fish Market, Netvibes, SmugMug, Songza
• Best enterprise start-up—For a start-up focused on enterprise or business-to-business applications and services
  Nominees: 37Signals, Attributor, EditGrid, Ribbit, Zoho
• Best consumer start-up—For a start-up focused on consumer-facing applications and services
  Nominees: 1800-FREE-411, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Meebo, Zillow
• Best mobile start-up—For companies who provide mobile content or mobile distribution platforms
  Nominees: AdMob, Fring, Loopt, Shozu, Twitter
• Best international start-up—To recognize start-up achievement outside the United States (company must be founded, headquartered and operated primarily outside the US)
  Nominees: Atlassian, Gizmoz, MusicShake, Netvibes, Openads
• Best user-generated content site—For sites who rely on content created primarily from users
  Nominees: Digg, Facebook, Geni, Instructables, Yelp
• Best video site—For sites who distribute video and/or other rich-media content
  Nominees: Aniboom, Hulu, Joost, Justin.tv, Tokbox
• Best clean tech start-up—For companies focused on environmentally conscious technology applications
  Nominees: A123Systems, Ausra, GridPoint, NanoSolar, Tesla Motors
• Best use of viral marketing—For the company that has demonstrated the best use of viral marketing techniques to drive distribution
  Nominees: Flixster, iLike, iminlikewithyou, RockYou, StumbleUpon
• Best time sink site—Favorite site to use when you’re not working or not wanting to think about work
  Nominees: College Humor, Duels, Kdice, Kongregate, Pandora
• Most likely to make the world a better place—To recognize a site that is making an important social impact in the world. Site does not need to be a non-profit to qualify.
  Nominees: Causes, DonorsChoose, ZeroFootprint, Kiva, One Laptop Per Child
• Most likely to succeed—Site most likely to meet with future financial success (may be defined as revenue creation, a big exit, or other future accomplishment)
  Nominees: Kayak, Mint, Slide, WordPress, Zivity
• Best start-up founder—Award to recognize an exemplary start-up business founder
  Nominees: Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Max Levchin (Slide), Kevin Rose (Digg), Evan Williams (Twitter), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
• Best start-up CEO—Award to recognize an exemplary start-up business CEO
  Nominees: Gina Bianchini (Ning), Dick Costolo (Feedburner), Toni Schneider (WordPress), Rob Solomon (Sidestep), Lance Tokuda (RockYou)
• Best new start-up of 2007—Company must have been founded in 2007
  Nominees: Hulu, iMedix, Joost, Ribbit, Tumblr
• Best overall—For the best overall site or product of 2007
  Nominees: Digg, Facebook, GrandCentral, Twitter, Zillow

The Crunchies Awards Ceremony will take place in a week, on Friday, January 18 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. A limited number of tickets to the 900-seat old world theater are being released here to the general public over the next two weeks.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: We’re having our weekend on February 8-10, regardless of the outcome of the voting.

Having been in contact with SW founder Andrew Hyde—and now multiple weekend veteran Tyler Willis—since fall, my expectation is that Tyler will be flying out to Indiana in early February to facilitate our event. I also expect that we’ll finally get that “Date TBA” tag lifted and Bloomington moved to the “Future Weekends” as an endorsed event. Until that happens, though, it is a little difficult to put the hammer down on a massive local campaign for sponsors and participants. I’m not sure why that trigger hasn’t been pulled, but it will be their loss if they can’t make it work.

Gone, apparently, is the support of a subdomain on the SW website. We will be rolling our own event blog and wiki this week, probably courtesy Bloomingpedia and Suso, as well as creating our own groups in various social networking communities. We have an open meeting tomorrow noon at the Design House on Woodlawn, across the street from the Informatics parking lot. Anyone within reading and driving distance is welcome to attend, but the purpose is primarily to get the original committee up to speed and start designating assignments.

More on this later. For now … Vote early. Vote often. Tell your friends, and have them do the same. We may not have the population of some of the cities in the mix, but we do have an opportunity to show how technologically active this area is.