C-SPAN talks with Ken Auletta on new media vs. old

Word on the street has it that there's something out there now called new media that's going to somehow change society in unimaginable ways. Even politics, like Obama's $750-million campaign haul last year.

And this Internet Web thingy moves fast and doesn't need wires (How is that possible?). And somehow all this change threatens the old media that hadn't changed much since Johannes Gutenberg carved his first wooden letter of type about 600 years ago.

Well, that's all silly, of course. Traditional media has changed plenty; it doesn't use wooden type anymore, for one thing.

But Ken Auletta has gone ahead anyway and written another one of his intriguing looks at modern media. He wrote it in book form, though, one of those cursor-less collections of paper pages that you open by hand to read and then turn the pages to continue. Amazingly ancient. Called "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It."

So tonight, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, who has talked very calmly with every author who's ever written a book since Gutenberg, interviews Auletta about what he found. It's pretty interesting, even without antacid commercials.

We're going to watch because we're addicted to Lamb.

So we obtained for Ticket readers a little sneak peek here of the interview. It will air on....

...the "Q&A" program at 5 and 8 p.m. Pacific tonight and again at 3 a.m. Pacific Monday. Set your TiVo, not the alarm.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Psst! Obama warns all about cybersecurity

President Obama, who has his own specially encrypted BlackBerry, now proclaims that October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

That was among the headlines on some technology blogs Thursday -- a few spots above "WARNING: New Facebook Malware Attack Is Spreading."

Irony at its finest.

Obama writes in his proclamation: "In the Information Age, the very technologies that empower us to create and build also empower those who would disrupt and destroy."

At first, it sounds a bit reminiscent of the Bush administration scare tactics many became sick of. But he has a point.

Many Americans are constantly connected to computers and smart phones, feeding them countless pieces of personal information.

Ten years ago, seeing the gratuitous amounts of private stuff we plaster on our Facebook profiles and Twitter pages would probably incite a panic attack. Then, when you consider that Mint -- now a property of Intuit, which makes Quicken -- has bank and credit card information of millions of Americans... Yeesh.

These systems aren't invulnerable. And it's probably not a bad idea to take a month to think about the things you upload daily.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Twitter 101: A college class all abt Tweets (97)

This fall, some DePaul University students will learn how to report news in 140 characters or less, thanks to a new class centered on Twitter, which --

Ooops. We went over.

Of course, brevity will be only one of the many lessons the Chicago journalism students will get as they follow politics and politicians on the booming social network.

Last year's presidential election gave Twitter a chance to shine as "both a feedback mechanism and organizational tool," inspiring the course's professor, Craig Kanalley, to join the service.

That's what he wrote in an old-fashioned e-mail. Naturally, the subject of politics will be a recurring theme in the class.

Kanalley founded the website, Breaking Tweets, which bills itself as "world news, Twitter style."

President Obama's inauguration "gave me the idea for Breaking Tweets, chronicling major events around the world through citizen reports from the scene," Kanalley wrote.

A valuable use for plugged-in journalists on the Hill, Kanalley wrote, is to keep tabs on Congress members and officials by following Twitter accounts of those on their beats.

Reporters can then get crucial alerts from sources about, for example, when Rep. Kevin McCarthy is celebrating his wedding anniversary or when Rep. Dana Rohrabacher goes surfing. (Find out which beach, and you've got yourself an exclusive interview, Cub Scout!)

This new medium has a potential stumbling block, however. "It's important to verify that it's really them, and even then, you have to be careful attributing words to them because the updates could be from campaign staffers," Kanalley wrote.

Making the work easier for students, Twitter has begun verifying account holdersand placing badges on the pages of some public figures. Like an online Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

One unanswered question: How many characters in each class lecture?

-- Mark Milian

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Barack Obama's tweet suggests Twittering your Congress member on healthcare reform

Things to do this morning, according to President Obama:

Eat healthy (so much for that bacon-wrapped Krispy Kreme) and Twitter my congresswoman.

Obama has sent a tweet on the exploding social network encouraging his Twitter followers to send messages urging their Congress members to support healthcare reform.

"Are you calling & writing members of congress re: health insurance reform?" Obama's tweet asked. "Now you can tweet them too."

The link goes to a page on BarackObama.com called Tweet Your Senator. In addition to a tool for finding your senator by inputting a Zip Code and quickly posting to your profile, there's a nifty map that plots similar tweets from around the country.

Judging by all of the activity on the map, Obama is successfully leveraging some of his 1.8 million Twitter followers to help pass his healthcare legislation. Plus the regular e-mails to millions on his vast fundraising list. (Now, aren't you glad you gave away your address?)

Meanwhile, the White House eagerly tries to inflate its Twitter follower count to a million in order to achieve the same muscle as the president -- or Ashton Kutcher, for that matter, who is almost 3 million strong.

-- Mark Milian

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Obama White House loves BlackBerry but bars Twitter

Barack Obama's White House, home of the famously BlackBerrying president and first lady, has blocked online access to Twitter.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made the admission today (see C-SPAN video below), while acknowledging that he does not Twitter because the world knows enough already about what he's doing.

And the presidential spokesman says he doesn't really know why the chief executive's offices have blocked access to the popular social networking site. Maybe to avoid taxpayer-funded tweets that cost 140 characters.

In fact, the president himself allegedly Twitters in two places, @WhiteHouse and less frequently,  @barackobama

But now we know the staff will have to rely on their own non-work devices to keep up with the boss' tweets.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Gates and Mullen talk Twittering, texting, the modern military and Iran

Here's a very good video that goes beyond the cliched old-guys-don't-know-anything-about-new-communication-technology-and-social-networking guff that we usually hear so much about.

The Ticket reported here on the Twitter and Iran phenomenon on Thursday.

But also Thursday, a reporter at a Pentagon news briefing asked both Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the effect of new personal communication technology and social networking, specifically concerning Iran.

Gates recalled the role that the Internet played in penetrating the old Iron Curtain, helping the Soviet Union to crumble and liberating Eastern Europe from Communist domination. And Gates noted, with apparent pleasure, that some unnamed countries around the world (can you say Iran and China?) can try to block these evolving communications but can no longer shut them all down.

But the questioning and conversation itself evolved into how the modern military, run by older personnel but manned and womanned by young people (average age 21) must use these new methods to both get its operational messages and philosophies out but also to get valuable feedback back.

Gates admitted he hasn't "a clue." Mullen says he's on Facebook and Twitter to be connected to the younger volunteer armed forces.

Well worth watching. And, as we so often say on The Ticket, thanks to C-SPAN.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Funny headline goes here on Utah's Mark Shurtleff Twitter gaffe

Notes for wed morn ticket item: First, talk about twitter exploding all over. millions now--oprah, sarahp, bo. Called tweets. Now even pols want to look hip and cool and use it. But ez make misteaks, Tweet something to entire world when you don't wanna or think you're only DMing someone. Like oops!

How embarrassing that'd be. etc etc.

Then into how Utah attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, on some kinda trade mission to Israel (What does a state atty gen trade with Israel anyway -- one of their laws for one of ours?)

And how he musta heard on Twitter that fellow Repub, Tim Bridgewater, is launching primary run vs that old GOP DC guy, Bob Bennett, who hasn't been in Senate as long as Joe Biden. Still pretty long time.

Bridgewater announces his bid tuesday via Twitter, like Dem Gavin Newsom for Calif gov while back. 

So Shurtleff (almost 52) musta gotten worried & starts Direct Messaging a pal about jumping into the repub primary too, how he's lined up buncha conservs and it's "Time to rock and roll!"

Except OMG! he wasn't Direct Messaging his pal.

Nope. He was sending everything to everybody on his list of followers, more than 1,600 people.

And they start sending all his msgs all over and others did too. And oh boy what an embarrassing mess that'd be if you put out something priv that wasn't ready 4 public posting. Laugh a lot @ that. Geez, can u imagine? Bonehead move.

Insert link here to Salt Lake Tribune story.

-- Andrew Malcolm byline goes here

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For God's sakes don't post this thing until its ridy, cleand up & stuf!!!

oh And get ap pic of shurtleff maybe smiling like good sport

On her new Twitter page, Sarah Palin offers a more personal look

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may not have been able to name a news publication she reads in last year's interview with Katie Couric during her unsuccessful bid as the Republican nominee for vice president.

But now we know that Sen. John McCain's 2008 running mate reads Newsweek -- at least in less-than-140-character doses on her Twitter page. Also, the Juneau Empire, the Weekly Standard, Meet the Press, blogs from Politico and Karl Rove, several prominent Republican politicians and Mark Begich, Alaska's new Democratic senator.

Also on the list of the 42 feeds she follows on her new Twitter account as of late last night are Fox News, CNN's Breaking News, the Drudge Report, Bill O'Reilly, an apparent Sean Hannity imposter (the real one is over here, Gov), George Stephanopoulos and, oh yeah, John McCain.

Whoops, looks like McCain hasn't returned the following.

But then during the campaign he was famous for professing ignorance of online and communications gadgets. His running mate, however, was regularly multi-tasking, working her twin BlackBerrys (state equipment is prohibited from political use), even while tending to baby son Trig (see photo above).

Yesterday, The Ticket reported here that Palin has signed a book contract with HarperCollins for a memoir to draw from her personal journals for publication in spring of 2010, when she'll presumably be running for re-election as Alaska's chief executive.

In the two weeks since she started twittering, Palin is, however, using the service exclusively as a one-way medium. She hasn't engaged in public conversation with any of her more than 19,000 followers.

But she does provide a more personal window into her daily life, which is sort of what Twitter is all about anyway.

Oh, and for the record, the @AKGovSarahPalin Twitter account does indeed belong to Palin, wrote spokesman William McAllister. While Palin's staff oversees account maintenance, the messages are hers, McAllister e-mails.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo credit: Associated Press (Palin campaigning in September works her 2 BlackBerrys while holding son Trig); Getty Images (bottom).

Is this the 100th day Barack Obama is not really president?

According to the folks at a place calling itself the United States Justice Foundation,today is the 100th day that Barack H. Obama maybe perhaps should not really be president of all 57 states because they still question whether he was born in the United States, as the Constitution requires of its chief executives.

The courts would seem to have settled any question about Obama's nativity. Not that many people seem to be wandering the streets in doubt. Obama's sure acting like a president; ask Rick Wagoner, whose address is no longer GM.

And, of course, Obama took the oath twice. He's been greeting championship sports teams just like a president.

He even got a puppy like any real president. And he's signed a bunch of stuff and mortgaged the nation for a considerable period of time. Which might suggest to some that the issue is moot.

Uh, no.

Gary Kreep (not kidding) is dispatching thousands of e-mails in recent hours seeking -- well, seeking money, of course. But also seeking to raise questions about Obama being "a FRAUD, a USURPER, a man with no legal authority to sit in the position that he now claims to hold."

Loyal Ticket readers will recall that we've published a few past items on this issue here. And here. And over here.

In fact, last June we even published a copy of an Obama birth certificate from Hawaii. Maybe we'll do it again here. (Click on it to enlarge.)

None of this has satisfied those who demand that the man calling himself the 44th president produce his "real" birth certificate. Kreep writes:

If Barack Hussein Obama has nothing to hide, WHY doesn't he just make his real birth certificate public? WHY has he spent a reported $800,000.00 in attorney fees to fight efforts to obtain his ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE? The more that he fights these efforts to see it, the more you have to wonder, WHY?

The Obama supporters want everyone to believe that only "fringies," the people that they now call "birthers," in other words, only people that they claim are outside of the main stream of thinking, question whether Mr. Obama is eligible to serve as President. But the truth of the matter is that more and more people, including many federal, state, and local elected officials, AND many in the military, are questioning whether Barack Hussein Obama is a "natural born citizen."

"Please know," the e-mail adds, "that we are not saying that Barack Hussein Obama is not eligible to serve as President of the United States of America. The problem is we just do not know!"

Just taking a wild guess here, but this issue, like a few others in modern American history, seems unlikely to go away -- even after 200 days.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Obama's Oprah has big Twitter week; Watch out Ashton Kutcher

It has been a week since Oprah Winfrey sent her first tweet read round the Twittersphere, and it sent many, including those in the world of politics, into a twizzy.

In the short period of time since creating her Twitter account, Winfrey has cut the lead between her number of followers and those of top Twitter users, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN (@cnnbrk), in half. After quickly amassing 561,000 followers, some bloggers are wondering how long before the TV icon takes the No. 1 spot.

Others are trying to measure what effect @Oprah has had on Twitter's growth in the last week.

While Winfrey seems to have aptly adopted the short-blogging service rather quickly, posting behind-the-scenes video footage and announcing show cancellations on her Twitter page, she has yet to fully grasp the lingo.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd points out that Winfrey incorrectly addressed the Twitter audience as "Twitters" instead of "Twitterers," the preferred term, in her first message.

Later, she called them "tweeters" -- the name of a high-frequency loudspeaker. Well, at least Winfrey is no longer tweeting in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Which is considered bad form by those who don't have much else to think about.

Others have used Twitter in unusual ways this week. On Monday, we got a collective chuckle when Meghan McCain, the daughter of ...