On June 8th I attended Mashable and CNN’s conference about the intersection of digital media, news, and entertainment. Among other notable presentations was CNN’s medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Guptap’s (renowned neurosurgeon) interview of Mashable’s founder Pete Cashmore and CNN.com’s general manager KC Estenson. You can watch the video of the interview about the how CNN collects citizen journalist news from Social Media in addition to its world-wide news professionals, and the merger of Social Media with 24/7 TV. Another fascinating presentation about the “Science of Social Media” was given by Duncan Watts (Yahoo!’s Principal Research Scientist). Clearly the merger of Social Media, TV, and news has happened, but predicting the future is the next challenge.
NEAT BADGE FROM THE EVENT!
Former eBay and HP’s CEOs Win Primaries
Also on June 8th Meg Whitman (former eBay CEO) and Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO) won primary elections for the fall’s election for California governor and US Senator. Of course having high-tech leaders in the US Congress is not entirely new since New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg founded ADP (the payroll processing giant) and was first elected in 1982. But with the advent and growth to Social Media these primary wins are not a surprise.
High-Tech Politics
OpenSecrets.org reported that individuals and political action committees in high-tech businesses increased their donations “43% between election cycles in the last decade” to $41.4 million in 2008. Last year Google increased its lobby expenditures to $4 million. One can only expect more Social Media leaders to pursue elected offices since clearly President Obama proved that Social Media is the most powerful communications tool available today. Be assured that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other major Internet and IT companies are involved in future of politics!