A little bit about Twitter and Jack Dorsey. And the IPO.

Jack Dorsey's first ever tweet.

It was July 15th 2006, when Jack Dorsey launched Twitter (although his first tweet was in March) with the now infamous 140 characters, designed by the way, so that mobile users could easily text, tweets. 

He was working in San Fran at that time when he approached a podcasting Software company Odeo and whilst he was obsessed with..... Trains...and Taxis. In fact he wrote software to co-ordinate Taxi locations.

The name was inspired by Flickr and it was first used as an internal service within Odeo.

7 years later, 200 million active users (over 500m registered users though), tweet 400 million times a day. 60% of tweets are from mobiles.

Now, in advance of the impending IPO, it has a value of between 10 and 15 billion us dollars. It had revenues last year of 250 million usd although that's likely to double this year.

Over time, Dorsey was moved out of the company in 2008 and following equity calls, had his stake diluted to just over 3% and he started to develop payments company, Square. That's worth over 3 billion us dollars today.

Twitter is now one of the 10 most visited websites and Justin Bieber the most popular on Twitter with over 44m followers. Obama is the highest politician and FC Barcelona, the highest followed sports club. 

Dorsey was born in 1976 in St. Louis, raised a Catholic and Forbes put his net worth at over a billion usd. With a forearm length tattoo and a drop out of New York University, he originally thought he wanted to be an artist.

Very interested in politics, there's been talk about him running as Mayor of New York. Real talk. 

But all in all, it's a fairly admirable story. Unlikely that Jack Dorsey will make a complete fortune from the Twitter IPO given his stake, he will always be seen as the founder of Twitter. 

And if you're not on it, get there.
It's absolutely an obsession.

Oh, it's @stuartfogarty btw.

Obama 'Prism' Spying now extends to UK Government.

It would seem that the US Government citizen spying programme called 'Prism', has been used by the British Government as a 'back door' to getting intelligence bypassing British law.

William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary and former leader of The Conservative Party, will today make a Statement to The House of Commons. A forthright man (we've interviewed him in Streamabout) and generally decent, fair-minded man, gave a dodgy performance on The Andrew Marr show yesterday. Uncharacteristically dodgy, in so far that he was unusually trying to dodge questions, which is not his style.

Indeed, he could easily have asked Theresa May to deal with The House of Commons today but has chosen not to - probably in order to kill the controversy at birth - which he won't be able to.

GCHQ, the UK's listening post has been gathering information through co-operation with The US National Security Agency since 2010 and The Guardian says they've generated at least 197 reports from Prism last year alone. They're circumventing UK legislation. Their work, in their own words, should be carried out "in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework" and it looks like it's not. 

Meanwhile Obama, in accepting that Prism exists and goes on, said that his Government "had struck the right balance" in collecting this data in the fight against terrorism. There's nobody doubting that terrorism data needs to be collected however, under a Court order in order to protect the rights of citizens. 

It's ironic too given Obama's criticisms of the Bush administration doing something similar (although to a far lesser extent) and on the same day when he is meeting China's President to discuss their spying and their anti-democratic controls. 

Ironic too that Obama has called his administration, "the most transparent administration in history". 3 months ago, Senator Ron Wyden a member of The Senate Intelligence Committee no less, asked James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans?". "No sir" came Clappers reply which we now know to be a lie. 

Last night the same James Clapper said the Prism programme was "important and valuable". So if your Director of National Intelligence is prepared to lie to an Intelligence Committee Senator, what does that tell you?

Prism collects data on US citizen phone calls (time, length, location on every phone call made in America) and there still remains the controversy about access to internet servers. 

Facebook released a statement under Zuckerberg's name, to say "we do not provide any Government with direct access to Facebook servers". Indeed. The key word there is direct access.

But what seems to transpire, according to informed sources, is that they do provide the information through a "drop box" scenario. So the Facebook language revolves around "direct access" when it does seem they do supply it, but just in a different way.

A reported NSA slide show also shows that Microsoft were the first to comply in 2007 and Apple complied last year. It also noted the compliance of Google and Yahoo. We hear too of compliance by Skype, YouTube, PalTalk and AOL. 

Twitter does not feature and has come out clearly and strongly of its refusal to take part.

This story is only starting. The difficulty Obama has, is the deceit and furthermore, the manner in which a scheme like Prism has been set up to get around the law. There's never been any problem getting data, just the safeguard is that you do it with a court order.

The British government are starting to get into trouble too for using Prism secretly and again, bypassing law. 

But perhaps more pointedly is the use of the data. Whilst the cries of anti-terrorism might have some bearing now, if that data was used politically, it will cause problems. In others words, to identify leaks to media or activities of politicians who are not pro-Obama. It's just the same as breaking into a Watergate building.

It will also cause huge problems to the Internet companies who provide data on you and me, globally and yet feigned privacy. 

This is the sort of story that brings down Governments. And rightly so. The whole thing is rotten. 

US Government Data Spying 'Prism'. This is worse than Watergate.

 

There is something very unnerving about the discovery this week of 'Prism', the US Government's ongoing secret collection of big data.

It's particularly surprising from an administration under Obama. And worrying.

The National Security Agency has been collecting personal data on US citizens notably from Verizon (a big telco) getting personal call details. Furthermore, reports also exist that data has been got from Internet platforms Google, Facebook, Apple, Dropbox, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft. This was reported by The Washington Post.

Although this morning, those companies are denying it quietly, but formal statements are awaited. Never a good sign when you see delays in formal statements because it usually means they need time to craft the language. For example, they may say they're not "participating" in Prism but perhaps comply when asked etc.

And sources in the know, say they are involved. We will see. 

And it could spell danger when in the past, these companies have gone to lengths in formal statements about their systems/structures/processes when dealing with Government information requests case-by-case. They've always tried to convey a sense of the enormous lengths they go to in order to protect their customers privacy. If they're involved in Prism, it flies in the face of those statements and could cause SEC problems.

Apple sources today, have said "they've never heard of Prism". 

The real issue here through the collection of data, is its use. No doubt the Government will put up arguments about defence needs and home security. They need the data to combat terrorism.

However, in that data will be phone/internet records for example, on Republican politicians and journalists. So if a journalist got a tip-off call on some White House issue, Obama's advisers will now know when and from whom, to whom.

There's never ever been an issue on giving data by ISPs on Terrorism, Crime, Sex offences - never.... and I know because I started one - but only on foot of a Court Order. Go to court, give your reasons and a judge will give you access. No problem.

But the hoovering up ('scuse the pun) of data on everyone is serious, appalling and outrageous in a democracy. It smacks of Nixon and if it's true (which it is in substance) then Obama is going to have real problems a la Watergate. Breaking into offices to get data is one thing, Prism is worse.

However, learn one thing - the US Government is spying on its own citizens.  

Citizens should not be afraid of their Government. Government should be afraid of their citizens. 

YouTube Top Videos of 2012 just in. The New York Times Presidential debates does really well. Nice to see Newspapers take on the TV Broadcasters and win!

YouTube has just announced its highest video ratings for 2012 which are interesting when compared to Google's Top 10 announced last week-ish and reported here http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/12/google-releases-its-top-search-terms.html

They are different - Whitney was number 1 on Google but Gangnam Style and Hurricane Sandy do well in both. Felix's Red Bull Jump did well on Google too. But the results generally are different.

So what I think that means is that Google search is not used for YouTube video. If you're looking for a video, you go to YouTube and use their own search...or so I suspect. 

70,000 hours worth of news related video was put on YouTube every 2012 day! 

The "exploding substation" video got over 4 million views in under 24 hours, the highest viewership.

During the US Presidential Election, Videos tagged either 'Obama' or 'Romney' were viewed 2.7 billion times during that election. Think you'd ever get that on TV viewing? Not a hope. And YouTube is free.

The debates themselves, drew in 27 million views on YouTube and The New York Times debate video got 13 million views alone, making it their biggest channel video ever. Isn't it great to see a newspaper going into TV in such a big way? Good for them.

350,000 Syria Protest videos were uploaded, and watched, over 200 million times. 8 million people watched Felix make his Red Bull Jump LIVE - now isn't that like TV? Except it's 100% better and far more effective - yes, because it's one-to-one, personal. Not like the "TV snacking" with 40% of viewers having a computer screen open at the same time.

Gangnam Style was the top trending video of 2012. Pity.

The Weather Channel's 70 hour live stream coverage of Superstorm Sandy had 13 million views.

These are extraordinary numbers.

They must frighten the life out of traditional TV Broadcasters (assuming they care or know, which I doubt) and open up opportunities for people involved in video trying to get their own channel going.

YouTube is really developing as a medium delivering huge, unbelievable audiences, without the cost.

Oh yeah. My YouTube Video of 2012? 
17 million views and 7 months later it was the Harvard Baseball Team "call me maybe" which started a whole trend of these types of videos to that song. 

That's it on the top of this. 
Smile.

Presidential Election. Where to watch it online, when the results will be out. And who wins.....

 

  

Interesting video with the results of all Presidential elections. Look at the great Lyndon Johnson in 64, Nixon in 72 and Reagan's walk-overs of 80 and 84. Great stuff.

With more than 100 million Americans casting their votes and especially in a tight election (which this one is, but Obama looks to have a 2% lead in some polls whereas others put them neck-and-neck at 48%), results will take longer to get out.

Normally you'd expect to see results from 3am to 7am Wednesday GMT but this close race could mean it could go on much longer. Alaska is the last state to close at 5am.

Each state is "called" after they close based on exit polls and actual votes - the ones that are clearly democrat or republican are easier to call early. The swing states are not (often called the "battleground" states) and they include Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia - there's about 13 in total. Ohio is the interesting one and closes at 1230am GMT with both candidates in Ohio today, as their last stop. No Republican has ever won the race without winning Ohio.

The President needs 270 votes to win.

BBC are planning big election coverage and live streaming here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20076298 

Ustream also seem to have a comprehensive coverage with ABC News here http://www.ustream.tv/election2012

The last point too is legal challenges. They've already started today, on both sides and I'd expect that if this race is as close as we think, that the courts will be involved - delaying the result further. 

So it looks to me like 9am GMT Wednesday morning for a clearer picture as to who won and if it's close, I'd expect legal challenges to go on until Friday.

And oh yeah, I think Obama has clipped this one.
Just about.

Obama Romney Campaigns online tracking exposed. This needs a debate.

More and more, privacy has become an issue and with the new, increasing sophistication of tracking, it is something to be concerned about. After all, when you visit a site and at a simplistic level, get a cookie, we know where you go and what you do. And it's used for ad targeting.

But a report from the US regarding the Presidential election, has exposed the advances made in tracking. Worrying advances.

Both Obama and Romney have ramped up their sites tracking capabilities to understand and target voters better. Unprecedented tools that create profiles about your habits on the web and therefore, target personalised Ads when you visit other sites. BarrackObama.com hosts an astonishing 160 unique tracking technologies. Romney has 110. So think about how much they know about site users. How much they know about YOU.

It's argued that this is new advertising techniques in a digital world, but the key issue is that users don't know they're being tracked so extensively. Online data collectors will benefit from this hugely and it's not disclosed on their homepages (yeah, it's in the real small print). So that's okay then? not really.

Most people are unhappy being tracked - a recent poll suggested 60% - but I think that's low. Most people I know, resent it full stop. 

Both politicos too, send targeted emails - but Obama's campaign seems to have brought this skill to the nth degree. They've embedded Facebook names of friends encouraging you to get them to vote - so they know who your friends are. 

In my view anyway, and coming from the Ad side, this needs a debate. It's beginning to get unacceptable. I blogged before about Facebook having the right, which they do, to use your photos commercially for example. How about your picture appearing in an Ad without you knowing? Happy? So Facebook is now the biggest photo library in town - without your permission (oh, sorry, yes it's in the small print). But you didn't know that?

That's the issue.
Permission.

No tracking without representation - there you go, a campaign slogan already.

Obama Romney Town Hall. Social Media results in and they're shocking! Shockingly quiet.

 

  
Obama Romney Town Hall debate last night didn't have the same Social Media impact that the first one did. Maybe because Obama seemed like a new man and it was all a bit "back to normal".

I stayed up until 4am watching it and in my book, Obama was well back on form and has put his campaign back on track. And in my view, this was the one he needed. The last debate will be too late to have an impact and traditionally, voters have pretty much decided by then. The only reason it comes into play if there's a screw up - otherwise, it desn't matter really.

Romney's reference to "binders full of women" got a big spike on Twitter and became Google's number 3 trending topic after "who is winning" and "live debate". Search for the words jumped 425%.

7.2m tweets were sent compared to 10.3m in the first debate.

The economy was the big issue with 28% of tweets, taxes 17%, foreign policy 16%, energy 13% and immigration 8%. 109,000 Tweets per minute at the peak which was when Obama had a go at Romney with "you're the last person to get tough on China".

Romney peaked when he said he'd get America back to a balanced budget.

It seems to me that the Social Media reaction was pretty stable, not too exciting and reasonable. Probably just that folks were "interested" rather than excited with a TV audience of circa 60 million.

In my view, that all points to Obama being back with a steady hand on the tiller. He didn't lose and probably just held his ground.

So a good night for him.

YouTube to broadcast Obama/Romney debates LIVE. Going to hurt the TV audience in a big way. And it's only the start.

It's getting nearer and nearer, the US Presidential race.

Three presidential debates between Romney and Obama and the vice-presidential debate, will be broadcast, live, on YouTube for the very first time. The first ever debate between candidates was Kennedy/Nixon in 1960 and it cost Nixon the election.

You'll be able to watch Obama/Romney on a laptop, tablet or even your phone (Iphone users who recently upgraded to IOS 6 will have to download the youtube app in the app store). But how cool is that.

They're also going to be available worldwide so without restriction on IP addresses. They're taking the feed from ABC News and of course, the full debates will remain on YouTube for viewing later.

A Spanish language version will be available and some YouTube partners will be discussing the debates online live, just after. Indeed, they'll be integrating Social Media throughout.

October 11, 16 and 22nd is when they're on the web and of course, the election is November 6. 

The significance of this is the fact that YouTube is entering live streaming broadcasting news, "as it happens". Something we've all being saying (http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/03/youtube-is-new-tv-keep-calm-people.html) and it will show where the real global audience is - on Social Media. These broadcast viewerships, will wipe the floor of traditional TV and cost them dearly on audience. You'd expect the audience to be circa 80 million so it will be interesting to see what slice youtube takes.

It's the start of online live broadcasting.
And the start of the dominance of YouTube as a broadcaster.

There's no doubt, this will be something special and a landmark in the world of TV.

Here's where you'll find them YouTube Elections Hub (http://tinyurl.com/94h8db7)