Good morning world. Yes, Obama was elected yesterday.

What has happened to the state of politics in the USA now? Will people continue to stay engaged? And what were the triggers that led to the highest voter turnout in ages? I believe there were a few things that led to this: the internet, the state of our country, and an Obama campaign that stayed optimistic and focused on resolving our country's issues. It's no question that negative campaigning, while dramatic, is fleeting and doesn't manage a sustainable interest. It's like a sugar high and both are unhealthy.

My mom, I'm proud to say, voted for the first time in her life for an American president after becoming a US citizen a few years ago. Though she's lived in the US since 1970, she is still working on a strong command of the English language. Yet, she had a point-of-view on the key issues being debated. Where, in the past, we avoiding talking politics, we talked genuinely about the economy, health care and education in the days proceeding the election. Something was stirred.

Yesterday, as my mom routinely picks up my nephews from elementary school, my nephews called to say hello on their way home. One of them had a mini-election in their classroom and Obama won handily 17-3 (this in NM which voted Republican in the '04 election). 10, 9, and 8 years old, they were screaming for Obama to win (even though their parents seemed to oppose the candidate). Something was stirred. I thought more about creative ways that teachers could introduce the notion of a political system at an early age.

This is indeed a new era in the American political system which has (to a pleasant surprise) created a sense of ownership and participation among the masses. The streets of SF were alive and with energy last night - hooligans - but, for an election?! Something deep was stirred and there is great momentum in the country right now. As Obama mentioned yesterday, this first step is but a chance to enable change. There is a responsibility we all carry now. But, no doubt, there is even more confidence in our abilities after yesterday.

Congratulations to Mr. Obama, his family, and the entire campaign. I'm giddy.

Isn't it nice when you spot the leftovers in the back of the fridge wrapped with a thin spread of saran wrap and you realize, "Oh, it's the spaghetti with the delicious pasta sauce I made yesterday!"

Now imagine if that dish were either covered in a paper towel, aluminum, or better yet, dreadful styrofoam. Your thoughts might change to, "Crap. Must. Explore. Further." And then you rationalize how important it is to you at the time and either move the milk carton and OJ to see what's lurking or just leave it. Let's face it, mystery is fun, but only when its entertaining. Otherwise, it can be a frustrating nuisance.

Well, how about a new (more transparent) way to package some good ole' fashioned politics? Enter an industrial-sized roll of The Internet. I agree with A Huffington in that the web is changing the game of politics in two very distinct ways. One is that it's creating access, thus generating interest, to a generation of people who now head online for current events instead of buying a newspaper or watching TV.

The second, and more to the benefit, is that it's helping to establish a culture of participation and transparency. It's not at all perfect, but this election has employed a 'wiki' approach to fact check or provide a counterpoint to what the campaigns are saying via blogs, emails, and video on the web. The politics of before where lies were too much work (and possibly old news the next day) to chase down and verify by the media are coming to a close.

A Huffington mentions that, "Traditional media like moving on to the next shiny thing. But bloggers love revisiting a story." This has all but truly played out, for example, by the vast amount of user-produced video series on YouTube, highlighting the controversies, misleadings and obvious contradictions of the campaigns. Not to mention access to the syndicated debates and speeches one may have missed the night before.

Onwards towards a culture of transparency. The only way to build genuine trust is not so much by what people say, but by what they do. And if the people in public office behave in a more transparent way, this will bring back a trust in our government that hasn't been there for a while. Oh, and private companies, you're not out of this either. The same concept applies to you and your responsibilities to investors. The internet is coming for you.

Apple's latest ads for Mac are pretty hilarious. Now that Vista has been out for a while, there's no arguing the issues it has with its operating system. Apparently Microsoft is planning another advertising campaign with the (appropriate) tagline of "Free the People". But it's going to take a lot more than $200M in advertising to try and convince people Vista actually works.

Funny enough on the Mac ads, the Apple guy doesn't even say much, it's mostly the PC guy looking ridiculous trying to make excuses or ploys to convince the audience there is hope.

Ah PC Guy, it's a hard sell...

The word has been going around and around that software would be going online and subscription based, or free, in the near future. This future is slowly becoming more evenly distributed. We all know about Google's apps and are starting to see Adobe and Autodesk come off the shelves and into the cloud with Photoshop express and Project Draw.

[via apophenia] I always wondered who clicked on banner ads. There don't seem to be perfect data, but apparently "the 6% of the online population accounting for most of the click-throughs skews toward male Internet users ages 25 to 44 with household income under $40,000." I love the author, Danah Boyd's, beautifully politically incorrect hypothesis that, and I paraphrase, only dumb poor guys from the country click on banner ads. The best thing is the part of her hypothesis that says, and again I paraphrase, the same dumb people are the ones who meet up with strangers on social networking sites.

For most of us, this is no surprise. Nobody you know clicks on those idiotic epilepsy inducing things. You probably couldn't find anyone who does within a mile radius of your house, but there are probably at least one or two people making money off of them in your neighborhood.
The funny thing is, even though there is a lot of money being paid for clicks, these are not the clicks that most advertisers want. For instance. In meantime, other models of ad pricing are getting more traction.

Even though some are saying that this discovery has laid bare one of the biggest problems with online advertising, the real interesting thing to me is these people seem to actually be interested in the contents of banner ads. I have been known to fall for an especially funny or useful marketing ploy, but what is going on with these guys? They meet up with strangers online and then click a bunch of banner ads? I guess I never really thought about it, but I'm not surprised that the two activities are related.