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Voters From All Parties Support PBS, Study Shows

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Jeremy Toeman and Greg Franzese

A recent bipartisan survey found that “69 Percent of Voters Oppose Congressional Elimination of Government Funding for Public Broadcasting.” Even those voters who support general budget cuts believe that PBS has value and should still be funded.

Voters across the political spectrum [are] opposed to such a cut, including 83% of Democrats, 69% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans. More than two-thirds (68%) of voters say that Congressional budget cutters should “find other places in the budget to save money.”

I support and enjoy PBS and believe that there is a place in our budget for quality, public broadcasting. After all, the company that brought us Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers deserves our tax dollars. No matter what your politics are, I think we can agree that PBS is really smart TV.

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Posted in Video/Music/Media | Tags: Jeremy Toeman, media, PBS, PBS Funding, politics, television | 1 Comment |

Can the Government Please Hire Tony Fadell to Build Voting Machines?

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Jeremy Toeman

Who’s Tony Fadell?  The guy who built the iPod.

What’s wrong with voting machines (just in case you really needed to ask)?  Everything.

So let’s think about the criteria of a good voting machine, and put it in context to an iPod…

  • Voting Machines must be secure. The iPod is a very secure device, it even satisfies the criteria to make the content industry (including the RIAA) happy.  If those draconian organizations can sign-off on the device, I believe it’s safe to say Tony and crew can make a safe & secure voting machine.
  • Voting Machines must be reliable. The current generation of iPods are able to play music, videos, and games, and are extensible to an external developer community.  Granted there are third-party applications which can cause some issues on an iPod (touch/phone), but we are dealing with an extreme case.  Considering there won’t be any plug-ins or apps for a voting machine, it seems like Tony knows how to build a reliable enough device to work perfectly for a single day of the year!
  • Voting Machines must be easy to use. There are roughly 3 use-cases for a voting machine: (1) choose one of several options; (2) choose multiple of several options; (3) choose options in a ranked/cascading order.  There are a few other minor features, such as entering personal/private data, confirming selection, etc.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that an iPod (especially when you include iTunes) has many more features, many more complex features, and is a fairly easy to use device.

Per the link above, Tony Fadell left Apple to spend more family time, which I totally respect.  With 2 years until the next election, and 4 years until the next presidential election, it seems like we have a pretty good runway to build something much better than our current system.  Also, I have to assume that the US Government would probably be a lot less demanding than Mr Jobs, which should give Tony plenty of time with the kids!

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Posted in Gadgets | Tags: ipod, politics, tony fadell, voting | 2 Comments |

How the Internet Defeated the McCain Campaign

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Jeremy Toeman

My wording here is very deliberate, and I want to explain briefly why.  Back in 2000, as a Canadian citizen (with US Green Card), I watched the elections, but didn’t pay all that much attention.  At the time, I hoped for Gore to win, but I really liked John McCain and became forever resentful to GWB for his tactics in the primaries.  Now, as an American citizen (dual), I paid more attention, but it wasn’t until the announcement of Sarah Palin as running mate that I actually became engaged with politics.  As I began my research, both backward into the history of the candidates and in “real-time” dealing with timely issues, I quickly noticed a separation of John McCain, the man who ran for president in 2000 and 2008, and the McCain Campaign.

The McCain Campaign could be described as Rovian, full of attacks, negativity, and hate.  It selected Sarah Palin, an ambitious woman who appeals to a segment of America who somehow believe that education, success, and facts are less important than “being gutsy”.  Beyond Palin, the McCain Campaign ran ads proclaiming that Obama might be a terrorist, and if he’s not, he certainly pals around with them.  Other ads tried to scare Americans into believing Obama wanted to teach our children sex education in kindergarten, has questionable friends and allegiances, and might not be a US citizen.  It did more “spin” than a dreidel on the streets of Tel Aviv (is that a metaphor?  if not, it should be).  For as honorable a man as John McCain appeared to be, it was truly a shameful campaign.

And 8 or 12 years ago, they would’ve got away with it, if not for those meddling kids.  Thanks to the Internet, our ability to research and fact-check audacious claims was stronger than ever.  In fact, I’d argue that the Internet truly thwarted the McCain Campaign, which was clearly unprepared for the power of blogs (here’s my favorite), twitters, Google and youtube, digg, and social networks.

With the Internet at our hands, we as a nation of individuals were able to rapidly tear through the cleverly woven web of lies.  For every claim of “Obama had dinner with Khalidi”, the Internet had an answer, “McCain gave the guy $500K a few years earlier.”  And when these claimed attacks were revealed, they affected others by getting them more involved, more engaged, more active.

But the true defeat of the McCain Campaign by the Internet was the simple lack of a campaign.  When an attack ad was thwarted, or a debate claim debunked, McCain was rarely found making pro-active remarks.  As voters, we were being educated on what Obama was about (or more importantly, not about), but at no point were we given insight into McCain’s positions.

We heard words like maverick, but the Internet gave us voting records.

We were pitched on Palin as a reformed, but the Internet showed us her dubious use of finances in Alaska.

It took less than 20 hours for the Internet to reveal that a woman used a mirror to poorly scratch a backwards B in her face, despite other claims.

The Internet provided us with the information, and the people shared it across countless sites and services.  Now don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of lies spread as well (yes, Obama really is a citizen).  And I’m not saying Obama’s campaign was completely innocent either, plenty of attacks were made as well.  But for the most part Obama’s campaign represented Obama’s positions and politics.  Unfortunately for Mr. McCain, the McCain Campaign did not do the same.

Tonight, the senator gave an excellent concession speech.  I hope we remember him for his great services and the man he is, not the man his campaign made him out to be.

I also hope our politicians take warning from these results.  The era of politicians being able to say one thing while do another is at an end.  We the people are tired of the negativity, the fear, and the lies that politicians have perpetrated over the years.  The Internet was a major part of this election, and this is only the beginning.

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Posted in Web/Internet | Tags: politics | 2 Comments |

Why the Technology Stances of Our Politicians Are Meaningless

Posted on August 27, 2008 by Guest Contributor

I don’t much care about a politician’s stance on technological issues. Do you?

Joe Biden.Sure you do. The net? Gotta keep it neutral! Excessive penalties for minor copyright infringement? Joe Biden’s proposed legislation that would force electronics makers to ensure that the government could have access to any encrypted communications? Take my key and shove it, komrade Biden!

John McCain is against net neutrality legislation (not the idea of net neutrality, mind you, just the idea of legislating it. He’s super free-market, despite the fact that the free market can’t thrive where there’s no competition. How many broadband providers can you choose from, again?) Barack Obama, the geek’s stalwart, is all hat, no cattle, when it comes to punishing the evil telecoms and protecting you from warrantless wiretaps (I don’t worry too much, I just set my Twitter account to “Private” and don’t add “US Government” or “NSA” as a friend on Facebook. Plus, I totally jailbreak my iPhone That should solve it, right?)

All of this stuff is really important. Right? That’s what we say… until we get in that voting booth. Then, our pragmatic side finds that little things like national security and the economy are just a wee bit more important. It’s a natural reaction – in the grand scheme of our lives, having a sound economy and taking out the bad guys du jour are always going to trump our need access ESPN.com in 30 milliseconds instead of 90 milliseconds, or our fear about whether or not we’ll be ponying up a couple of grand because we swiped a copy of Bring it On 2: Bring it More On off of the Pirate Bay. It’s easy to support net neutrality, it’s another to shrug off short term worries in order to support it, especially when your candidate of choice may not be on the right side of the issue.

It’s a shame, (and here comes the pessimism) because net neutrality will be one of those topics that we look back and ten years from now and say “if only we had held lawmakers responsible back then, we would have something other to do on the net than tune to the Sports Portal (sponsored by ESPN), the New-o-Tron (CNNBCFOX), and LOL Cats Central.” But it also means that, when CNET publishes a story on McCain’s VP pick that’s as brutal as the story they published on Biden, you won’t have to fret too much if you’re a McCain supporter, because a bad tech record isn’t going to mean anything when you close the curtain to vote November 4.

Update: Ziff-Davis’s Larry Dignan covered this as well.

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Posted in General | Tags: politics | Leave a comment |

About

Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

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