DNCC Sees the Silverlight
Following my attempt to link up the Microsoft Mesh announcement with Jeremiah Wright in real time, I received this very interesting announcement from the DNCC:
And in a first for a political Convention, Silverlight, Microsoft’s platform for interactive Web applications and HD video, in conjunction with the Level 3 Communications network, will bring live, gavel-to-gavel Convention video coverage of the highest quality to a worldwide audience via the DNCC’s Web site at DemConvention.com. Silverlight multimedia applications will provide an all-access pass for the Convention’s online audience, offering an unprecedented opportunity for viewers to individually tailor their Convention experiences.
“Microsoft is proud to be a technology partner for the Democratic National Convention through our donation of software, technology services and content,” said Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft. “Technology is playing an increasingly critical role in the electoral process, and contributing to the Convention allows Microsoft to help ensure that the Democratic Party, its delegates as well as voters watching in their homes and on the Internet are able to take full advantage of the benefits.”
This is exciting stuff. No more waiting till prime time for networks to broadcast; it’s there for you in real time. We’ll be talking more about this on NewsGang Live today, but this DNCC convention will be historic on many levels. This is an opportunity for us all to make our own decisions without the filter of the pundits.
As a blogger who hopes for an official credential to be present in real time, it’s very exciting to me to see the DNCC adopt technology that enables anyone and everyone to experience it alongside me. Bookmark the site, and get ready for a wild ride.
Full text of DNCC announcement
Technorati Tags: microsoft, DNCC, democrats, convention, silverlight, video, technology
Full Text of DNCC-Microsoft Announcement
DNCC NAMES MICROSOFT OFFICIAL SOFTWARE AND HD WEB CONTENT PROVIDER FOR 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
Software Technology to Support Core Party Business in Denver, Offer Dynamic Experience and All-Access Pass for Online Users
DENVER – In a move to create a technically flawless event and engage more people in the Convention experience using cutting-edge technology, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today announced that Microsoft Corporation has been named as the Official Software and HD Web Content Provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held August 25-28 in Denver.
“Microsoft’s standing as an industry leader in software development makes them an ideal partner for the DNCC,” said Leah D. Daughtry, CEO of the DNCC. “From voting to nominate the next President of the United States to adopting a national platform, there is a significant amount of important Party business that goes on at each and every Convention. Microsoft’s pioneering technology will play an integral role in powering the business of the Party in Denver.”
As the Official Software and HD Web Content Provider, Microsoft will provide the DNCC with technologies and applications to enhance engagement with Web viewers, delegates, members of the media and other Convention guests and to support delegate tracking, voting and the management of credentials.
A cornerstone of the DNCC’s technologically-savvy event will be the delegate voting system. During the nomination process, Microsoft technology will support a voting system that will provide up-to-the-minute delegate vote totals electronically to the Office of the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, allowing timely reporting of vote tallies as compiled by each delegation’s Chair.
The DNCC will utilize Microsoft software to support the delegate tracking system to gather and manage a multitude of information about Convention participants. In addition, Microsoft technology will support the creation of a software platform to support the DNCC’s credentialing operation, facilitating the management and distribution of credentials for the event.
And in a first for a political Convention, Silverlight, Microsoft’s platform for interactive Web applications and HD video, in conjunction with the Level 3 Communications network, will bring live, gavel-to-gavel Convention video coverage of the highest quality to a worldwide audience via the DNCC’s Web site at DemConvention.com. Silverlight multimedia applications will provide an all-access pass for the Convention’s online audience, offering an unprecedented opportunity for viewers to individually tailor their Convention experiences.
“Microsoft is proud to be a technology partner for the Democratic National Convention through our donation of software, technology services and content,” said Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft. “Technology is playing an increasingly critical role in the electoral process, and contributing to the Convention allows Microsoft to help ensure that the Democratic Party, its delegates as well as voters watching in their homes and on the Internet are able to take full advantage of the benefits.”
In addition to custom development, Microsoft is providing the DNCC with the latest in industry-leading software including business productivity, email, content services and real-time collaboration applications.
While providing valuable technological tools in the lead up to and during the Convention, Microsoft will also contribute to the DNCC’s “greening” efforts by tracking the company’s carbon footprint for Convention-related energy consumption, including all trips, deliveries, shipping transport of goods and staff air and ground travel. The DNCC aims to make this year’s Convention the most environmentally-sustainable event of its kind by applying sustainable planning principles to every decision in the lead-up to the four-day event.
Technorati Tags: DNCC, press release, Silverlight, Microsoft, video, technology, convention
Rev. Jeremiah Wright Gives God the Glory and the Devil the Blues
Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s speech before the NAACP tonight was a turning point, as was his interview on Friday with Bill Moyers. Whatever impressions were left with observers after the infinite looping of the 30-second sound bites, anyone watching Friday and tonight cannot possibly be left with the same impression. From what I’m seeing on Twitter and in blog comments, many are outraged at how twisted the story was told by the mainstream media outlets.
That isn’t to say that everyone will have a favorable impression. They won’t and will be vocal in their opposition, particularly if they were one of the groups Dr. Wright corrected in his speech tonight. But if they were listening, “putting their head down on the tracks and really listening, they heard the superliner approaching“. Its name was Different. Different, not deficient.
Steve Gillmor’s discussion on The Gillmor Gang about Microsoft Mesh offers an interesting illustration of how this place called the Internet is also moving toward celebrating and integrating differences, synchronizing devices, data, identity, and access in one place, accessible by many, cross-platform, mobile, social, living, interacting, and extensible.
Just as Mesh offers Macs, PCs, iPhones and Blackberries access and transport, so does a paradigm shift from a divided, authoritative, and uncommunicative society into a society where we embrace differences for what they are — differences — which in turn opens a new avenue of growth into a place where new, exciting, innovative, connective things happen.
Dr. Wright wisely connected us all through the music bridge, the one where 6/8 time can be counted as a march or where it is counted as a spiritual, both equally inspiring for different times and places. Then he took us to another place where drums beat new, syncopated rhythms, where differences are counted simply as differences, neither bad nor better, just different.
Just as there are fans and critics with regard to Microsoft, Dr. Wright will also have the same. His message will be panned by some, embraced by others. Those who reject it outright without giving him the benefit of an honest hearing accept their fear as reality, are comfortable there, and will still be running Windows 2000 in 2010. That’s their choice, but what they may discover is that fear is the one place that is clearly deficient and dissatisfying.
Some will continue to focus on personality rather than message, just as many of the commenters on the Gillmor Gang have. Rather than hear the message and learn from it, they chose to remain focused on the wrong target, to their detriment. However, on the Twitter stream yesterday, twice as many responded with the call to explore the change, eager to begin the discovery of how best to weave the mesh in a way that’s good for the wider population. And from those responders, came 5 more to each of them via invitations, weaving a new message toward any and all ready to receive it.
Microsoft isn’t God and neither is Jeremiah Wright. But they are bringers of a larger message, one that proposes to overcome the devil of missed communication.
When the Devil sings the blues, we’re on a track to better places.
Technorati Tags: Jeremiah Wright, Microsoft, Gillmor Gang, Techcrunch, blues, devil, politics, technology, Internet
Proof of Clinton’s Push Polling
This is something that needs to stop, and stop now. From Jasmine in NC, as posted on the Obama blog:
I just had the MOST disturbing political survey call. I live in Apex, NC the call starts off asking if you will do a political survey and then it asks several benign questions about affiliation and voting record…..then it asked how favorably you view each candidate, THEN when it sounds like a true survey, it asked about 7 question stating “facts” about Obama like he only passed two laws while in the senate and names two insignificant things and would you be more or less likely to vote for him, then he was only in the senate 18 months then running for president would you be less or more likely to vote, then he says he wants to do something about Afghanistan but didn’t even attend the committee he chaired, does this make you more or less likely to vote…..as I’m telling the hired man on the other end for a legitimate survey company that this better get less bias or I’m saying good night….. he says that the Clinton questions are coming up too, they are just paid to ask the questions as an independent company. The Clinton questions were things like she traveled to 80 countries and has foreign policy experience are you more or less likely to vote for her, needless to say all the Clinton questions were positive, another was about her offering health care to everyone while Obama claims that he will but will not, are you more or less likely to vote for her, she will do this and that for North Carolina education are you more or less likely to vote for her…….at the end I asked the man who paid for the “survey” he said that he could not say,……I told him that was ok it was pretty obvious.
OMG why can’t they be up front, if they want to make soliciting calls make them don’t be manipulative and frame them as a survey! Considering this was so much miss information stated as fact! Wow it must be illegal; is there a not slander law in politics? I must say if I was not well informed and knew that the questions were false or misstated it would have been a shocking moment of wow I did not know that about Obama….and it would have been VERY effective cause it was stated as fact from a neutral party.
This kind of polling is an insidious form of voter suppression, it’s underhanded, and it’s Republican. Here’s another account of the kinds of push polls they’re conducting.
Hillary Clinton has conducted push polls here in California as well, though she claims no knowledge of it. Her campaign conveniently “forgot” to follow up on the question with an answer when it was put to them back in February, and now her campaign is doing it again.
Question: Is this what we want to replace what we have? A pseudo-republican?
Not this time.
Technorati Tags: push polls, clinton, north carolina, voter suppression
Elizabeth Edwards, I’d Vote for YOU
Elizabeth Edwards for President, I say!
Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.
What’s more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I’m not talking about my husband. I’m referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden’s health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.
Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.
The lady speaks the truth. Bluntly. If Americans don’t quit sucking on the tits of corporate media they’re getting no more or less than what they deserve.
Technorati Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, news, reporting, media, networks, sloppy journalism
Photo by: Ben Strand
Inside a Clinton Presidency
What Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Looks like:
- Sloppy money management and big debts.
- Backbiting and infighting
- Advisors who work against the interests of the campaign
- Campaign directors who say one thing in 2004 and the exact opposite in 2008.
- Saber-rattling and threatening other countries with harsh and unnecessary rhetoric
- A First Laddie (his term, not mine) with his own legacy to preserve and a mouth he can’t control.
These are the hallmarks of a Hillary Clinton campaign. Will they be hallmarks of a Hillary Clinton presidency?
Not this time. Right?
Technorati Tags: Clinton, Penn, McAuliffe, hypocrisy, Iran,
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