From Good Morning Silicon Valley

The 140-character limit of Twitter messages doesn’t lend itself to extended discourse, but if you’re about to be dropped down the rabbit hole of a foreign and hostile justice system, you don’t really need to say a lot. Berkeley graduate journalism student James Buck, for instance, managed to boil down the essentials to just eight characters — ARRESTED — and as a result is a free man today. Buck is in Egypt working on his grad project on the country’s mostly leftist, anti-government bloggers. While photographing a demonstration last week with his interpreter and friend, Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree, the two were picked up by police. Buck fired off his tweet to a wide circle of friends in Egypt and the U.S., and almost instantly had a network of people contacting the university, the embassy and news organizations on his behalf. He was out of jail the next day and is now campaigning for the release of Maree, who was taken off to another prison…

Frank Shaw, however, is not too impressed.

There is always a huge urge to make technology, especially new technology, the center of things. It will change the world, it will revolutionize the way we build cities, it will make us smarter, etc. Lost in the hype is the fact that often the most profound impacts of technology are the ones that play out over time, not the ones we see right away.

Twitter is a cool service. But it didn’t get Buck out of jail. Four years ago, the story would’ve been that his blog got him out of jail. 10 years before that it would’ve been his cell phone that got him out of jail. 10 years before that it would’ve been a chain letter of protest sent to the government.

What especially grates in this story is the sense of hubris that comes through — the sense that the technology used was more important than what happened itself. It’s a valley view of the world, for sure. Technology can be a powerful communications tool, but what is said is more important than the tool.

… in 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a cockeyed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. The disaster marked JFK’s coming-of-age as President.

Urban infill gone wrong. If I were the architect of this mess I’d be tempted to shoot myself. And as for the planner who allowed it….

Interesting column by Virginia Postrel…

Plenty of candidates attract supporters who disagree with them on some issues. Obama is unusual, however. He attracts supporters who not only disagree with his stated positions but assume he does too. They project their own views onto him and figure he is just saying what other, less discerning voters want to hear. So when Obama’s chief economic adviser supposedly told a Canadian official that, contrary to campaign rhetoric, the candidate didn’t want to revise NAFTA, reporters found the story credible. After all, nobody that thoughtful and sophisticated could really oppose free trade.

Unlike Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, the two glamorous presidents who shaped 20th-century American politics, Obama has left his political philosophy a mystery. His call for “a broad majority of Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill—who are re-engaged in the project of national renewal” is not a statement of principles. It’s an invitation to the audience to entertain their own fantasies of what national renewal would look like.

Lovely photograph on Flickr.

Thanks to Brian for spotting it.

Virgin Media PR Department has been working overtime to hoover up the ordure deposited by its new CEO in his RTS interview.

Virgin Media (VM) today moved to calm fears that it will start throttling web video from providers who refuse to hand over a levy to deliver their content.

A spokesman for the firm said it does not intend to hinder access to content providers who do not pay. Rather, VM could offer content providers deals to upgrade their provisioning if they want to ensure best access to to broadband subscribers…

Ho, ho!

Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

On the one hand:

Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.

“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).

It is designed, she said, even down to the playful logos that illustrate choices like, Volunteer or Register to Vote. She likened those touches to the elaborate, painstaking packaging Apple uses to woo its customers.

On the other hand,

Mrs. Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue, has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.

“Hillary’s is way more hectic, it’s got all these, what look like parody ads,” said Ms. Twemlow, who is not a citizen and cannot vote in the election.

Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette. “Hillary’s text is all caps, like shouting,” he said. There are “many messages vying for attention,” he said, adding, “Candidates are building a brand and it should be consistent.”