For now, at least, the technology and media industries are looking at the brighter side. “Steve believes in old media companies and wants them to do well,” said a person who has seen the device and is familiar with Apple’s marketing plan for it, but who did not want to be named because talking about it might alienate him from the company. “He believes democracy is hinged on a free press and that depends on there being a professional press.”

Call me cynical, but I have a difficult time seeing Steve Jobs wax philosophical about democracy and the free press. This is, after all, a man who is famous for bullying and stonewalling the press. (Not that these attitudes are fundamentally incompatible, but they do look funny next to each other.) No, I think this sounds more like, I don’t know, maybe New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. You’ll remember him, he’s the one who appeared to let slip something he wasn’t supposed to let on that he knew about last year:

I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.

Yes, that “democracy” quote sounds a lot more like a particular someone I can think of who would not want to be named because talking about Apple’s new product because it might alienate him from the company.

But what interests me even more is the intellectual framework writer Jonathan Dee imposes on the proceedings. While there certainly appears to be a personal element involved for Johnson — one Dee apparently wasn’t quite able to crack — there is also the possibility that events occurred as they did because the Internet elevates the importance of links and the act of linking, opening the possibility for the forging of novel (and possibly false) relationships. On the Internet, the possibility of creating new contexts is limited only by any one person’s imagination. It’s impossible for me to say whether this is true in Johnson’s case, but Dee at least presents a persuasive case.

Key excerpts:

Whatever you think of him, Johnson is a smart man, a gifted synthesizer of information gathered by other people. But just as for anyone in his position, there is an inevitable limit to what he can learn about places, people, political organizations, etc., without actually encountering them. Instead of causes and effects, motivations and consequences, observation and behavior, his means of intellectual synthesis is, instead, the link: the indiscriminate connection established via search engine. …

Regardless of whether Johnson’s view of Vlaams Belang is correct, it is notable that the party is defined for him entirely by the trail it has left on the Internet. This isn’t necessarily unfair — a speech, say, given by Dewinter isn’t any more or less valuable as evidence of his political positions depending on whether you read it (or watch it) on a screen or listen to it in a crowd — but it does have a certain flattening effect in terms of time: that hypothetical speech exists on the Internet in exactly the same way whether it was delivered in 2007 or 1997.

Fans of Don DeLillo may recall the final pages of his 1997 novel “Underworld” (no relation to the graphic novels, film series nor English techno artists) where the characters Sister Edgar and J. Edgar Hoover are joined for eternity in cyberspace, “a single fluctuating impulse now, a piece of coded information. Everything is connected in the end.” Well, I did, anyway.

Meanwhile, Dee makes a secondary point that this blurring of context may contribute to a conflation of conflicting perceptions which one may find too often in online discourse:

Not only can the past never really be erased; it co-exists, in cyberspace, with the present, and an important type of context is destroyed. This is one reason that intellectual inflexibility has become such a hallmark of modern political discourse, and why, so often, no distinction is recognized between hypocrisy and changing your mind. …

The soundest conclusion seems to be that he has indeed changed his mind — less about issues (though there are a few, global warming chief among them, on which he will admit to having gradually reversed positions) than about the people with whom he is willing to share the stage, or, perhaps, about his willingness to share the stage at all. Not that changing your mind, even in today’s political environment, makes you into some kind of intellectual hero. People change their minds all the time, for all kinds of reasons.

I cannot say that is what is happening here — I’m certainly not about to be pulled into a discussion of Vlaams Belang. And while misreadings of intentions are not new to online discourse, I think there is a “flattening effect” or, to borrow a metaphor from television, “time-shifting” of opinion which can sometimes confuse more than enlighten. Such confusion may be innocent, but it is also open to exploitation. With no information online separated by more than a few clicks, anyone can choose their own context. And in the blogosphere, some choose contexts incompatible with others’ — even if only for the sake of argument.

The site quotes NGP chairman Nathaniel Pearlman saying:

Robin never robbed an honest tradesman. My identification with Robin Hood fit.

Hence the name (although one also must wonder if the site is also inspired by my former NMS colleague Not Larry Sabato, or my former Blog P.I. co-blogger Not Paul Begala). The website lists GOP Campaigns Receiving Money From Users of NGP’s Software and goes on to note:

NGP Software is being sued in U.S. District Court (Aristotle v. NGP, D.C. CA 05-1700) for allegedly making false and deceptive advertising claims about its exclusive devotion to “Democrats and their allies”, and trading on that supposed purity for commercial gain.

Who is Aristotle? It’s NGP’s chief competitor, but which provides its services to politicians of both major parties. One can easily imagine that NGP’s claim to being Democratic-only is a competitive advantage when trying to win the business of Democratic clients, although I have not looked closely at the dispute and make no judgment as to Aristotle’s claims.

But this got me wondering. Who exactly is behind NotRobinHood.com? So I plugged the domain into WHOIS and found this:

Registrant:
Aristotle International
205 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, District of Columbia 20003
United States

Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense.

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to check, except that it was mentioned on the latest episode of This Week in Tech (where they are under the naive impression that Obama himself actually posts to the account). Apparently the inactivity has resulted in the account’s removal from Twitterholic, which keeps track of the most-followed accounts. And yet Obama still has nearly twice as many followers as the next, Kevin Rose.

So what’s the deal here? Is everybody just too busy with Change.gov? Will YouTube be Obama’s sole method of communicating with Internet users? That certainly looks to be the case. Once elected, it was inevitable that Obama’s communications strategy would become more conventional, but abandoning this direct line to supporters is somewhat perplexing. Why leave 140,000 followers on the table, especially now that Twitter is finally going mainstream? My guess is that they will use it again, after Obama assumes the presidency and wants to mobilize his supporters toward a particular goal, say, health care reform.

That said, it would behoove someone in Obama’s Internet shop to keep the account current, even by recording announcements of cabinet appointments. Events of the past week have underscored Twitter’s usefulness as a news source. Obama’s team would be wise to recognize this.

Luckily, this past week, he did. Whereas many Wikipedia editors announce that they will be on leave and then continue to edit, this guy took his vacation seriously. And from what I hear, the Europeans do take some long vacations.

So if you’ve never seen this tool, I thought I’d take this day of much discussion about Sarah Palin and Wikipedia to compare two snapshots of Henrik’s tool for the main Sarah Palin article. First, the chart for May. Each bar represents one day, and the number with each counts raw page views. So how many views is that?

35,563 total. Not bad — in fact, that’s more than twice number of page loads at Tim Pawlenty’s article that month. I am not, however, suggesting we start using this like a futures market; the tool is highly sensitive to news articles that will send droves to Google with a particular keyword in mind, and then many of them to Wikipedia. So how many visited Palin’s article in August?

Notice how you can’t see those bars almost at all until the spike at the end of the month? Some of those slivers toward the end are 14,000+ views. The biggest day was somewhere around 2.5 million, for a total of 4,220,407 views for the month. Barack Obama’s page received a relatively meager 1,377,462 page views for the entire month (if only this tool had existed when Obama announced in Feb. 2007) and John McCain’s page received an even smaller 988,944. And both presidential nominees received a significant boost that day and for a few thereafter. How about Joe Biden? Better than the top of each ticket, but still about half of his rival undercard. This proves nothing except that Sarah Palin’s entry into the race drew a tremendous amount of attention, but we already knew that.

Now that the tool is back, I will plan to make use of these charts every once in awhile. Close readers will wonder if this is the Wikipedia feature I hinted at a few months ago, and others may wonder if I’ve given up on writing All the Rage for this month. The answer to both is no, so hang tight. As to whether this blog is now simply about Wikipedia… the answer is I don’t think so.

I might as well get this out of the way: I am not actually about to eat the viewer. It just looks that way.

Even at one day fewer (two if you don’t count #nn08’s low-key Sunday) the bipartisan-ish Personal Democracy Forum generated remarkably more Twitter noise than Netroots Nation, and apparently not much less in the rest of Internet news.

Netroots Nation had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivering a speech on the main stage, certain to be covered by political reporters on the beat, but PdF had Arianna Huffington, arguably more Internet-famous than anyone in congressional leadership. The partisan nature of Netroots Nation probably attracted many from the substantial New-Old-New Left netroots movement, more than Personal Democracy Forum’s awkward mix of Obama-emboldened NYC progressives and McCain-indifferent DC conservatives. This despite the minor Twitter scuffle over Huffington’s imperious remarks.

It’s worth noting that NN’s location — Austin, Texas — is the same as SXSW (#sxsw) and its Interactive Festival, the locus of Twitter’s first widespread adoption in March 2007. On the other hand, PdF took place in midtown Manhattan, which by virtue of population and proximity surely has more Twitterinos (also, Tweeps) close by enough to at least tweet about not making it up/down.

But I think the best explanation for PdF’s modest Twitter supremacy is that, like SXSW and unlike NN, the audience it attracts is younger and more reliably tech-oriented. After all, the surveys show that liberal blog readers are older and primarily motivated by politics than the average Valley startup founder. One was first about tech, the other politics.

Meanwhile, the ever more ubiquitous micro-blogging service’s strong showing at the political conference probably bodes well for its long-term mass acceptance.

Assuming Twitter isn’t down, of course.

Fortunately, perhaps, Google provides diagnostic tools for those curious about where the site has gone:

Alas, I don’t know enough about network security to make a diagnosis. (Dammit Jim, I’m a private eye, not a doctor.)

As of this morning, I can get the website to load in Safari but not in Firefox 3, albeit intermittently. The front page is accessible, but when I try to visit the blog, I get this instead:

In the past, Google has been accused of removing conservative-aligned content from YouTube and from Google News, but I see no evidence that this is what’s happened this time. I’m not even quite sure why Google is responsible for making this call or providing these diagnostics.

What’s most likely is the Spectator’s webmaster left a security hole unplugged and the site was taken advantage of by opportunistic spammers, which is something of a tautology.

I’ve put an e-mail in to a contact at the Spectator, and if I find out what happened, I’ll provide an update in this post.

Update: Looks like I called it. The site still isn’t working for me in Firefox, but via Safari, they offer this explanation:

We have received a number of inquiries regarding the fact that Spectator.org has been designated a “harmful site” by Google, because of outside entities attempting to use our site to distribute malicious software. We have been working with our Web hosting company to address the issue, and believe that it has been resolved and that our site is safe to visit, though there is a lag time before Google can remove the “harmful site” status. In the meantime, if you normally find us via Google, you can still visit us by typing Spectator.org directly into your browser, or by entering our site via Yahoo. Thank you for your understanding.

1. Article: WALL-E
   Why: Disney-Pixar’s latest movie hit theaters this weekend, and it’s unsurprisingly shaping up to be a hit, posting Pixar’s third-best opening ever.
   Detail: Wikipedia aims to be as impartial as possible, but what can you do when the subject is universally acclaimed? You fine-tune the language and cut back on verbatims, as one editor advises: “Well, as you say, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so it will be difficult to get the reception section sounding anything less than a puff piece. However, and speaking as the editor who added the current version of the reception section, I entirely agree that the reviews should be paraphrased better, with fewer direct quotes.”
2. Article: The Stolen Earth
   Why: The penultimate episode of the latest run of Doctor Who episodes on BBC One.
   Detail: Which means there’s a very good chance we’ll see the final episode appear in one of these slots next weekend. Of the numerous British articles included in this list over the past few weeks, Doctor Who has ranked the highest most consistently.
3. Article: 2008 NBA Draft
   Why: If you’ve ever wondered where all these new basketball players come from, perhaps you should learn about the NBA draft.
   Detail: The NBA still hasn’t caught back up with football in national prominence, but basketball fans still eagerly anticipate and closely follow draft night each year. With two televised rounds of thirty picks each and numerous trades, that’s a whole lot of updates on one night — and as Wikirage shows, most edits did occur all on one night.
4. Article: Night of Champions (2008)
   Why: It’s not the WWF, that’s the World Wildlife Federation. It’s WWE now — World Wrestling Entertainment.
   Detail: If the NBA draft is a bit less-attended than the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his TARDIS (yes, I’ve been skimming the Doctor Who pages) at least it is a little better-attended than this WWE event.

   This page was reverted and protected and reverted, but not necessarily due to vandalism. More the problem seems to be enthusiastic but inexperienced editors adding information in the wrong place and even trying to use the page as a forum. This happens often on some popular subjects, and it makes me wonder about members of the WikiProject Professional wrestling. No doubt the project counts among its members some dedicated and knowledgeable editors, but it seems that they find themselves having to undo a lot of the “help” they get. I doubt the same happens at WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology.

5. Article: Guitar Hero World Tour
   Why: Previously titled Guitar Hero IV, makers of the next installment of the popular video game series have continued to make new information available over the past few weeks, but was protected from unhelpful help (see above) until early June. Now the gates are wide open.
   Detail: Allowing people to add spurious rumors such as the planned inclusion of a Soulja Boy track with no guitar instrumentation (since removed). Interesting also that video games seem to show up in this list months ahead of release — the title won’t be out until late October — while movies typically don’t appear until the week of release.
6. Article: Deaths in 2008
   Why: Death and taxes may be inevitable, but only one ranks well in the list of most-edited Wikipedia articles.
   Detail: Passing this week: one of the most influential comedians in my life and the second half of the 20th century, George Carlin. And then some other people, including a 37-year-old American comic book artist of cancer, a 20-year-old Russian-Kazakh model who threw herself from her 9th story Manhattan appartment yesterday afternoon, and the 9-year-old University of Georgia mascot, Uga.
7. Article: District of Columbia v. Heller
   Why: In the session’s most closely-watched decision, the Court affirmed 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a firearm.
   Detail: Through the week I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the claim bandied about that the case was the first to rule on the Second Amendment, and here is an amusing smackdown of Slate’s lead legal correspondent, who apparently was among the banditos: “We are well aware of U.S. v. Miller, and know much more about it than the sensationalist writer Lithwick. The article does not say that D.C. v. Heller is the first case to pertain to the Second Amendment or that has incidental remarks that could be interpreted as pertaining to the question of individual-rights vs. collective-rights; it is not the first such case, nor is it the second. It is, however, the first case to definitively or directly or comprehensively address the question.”
8. Article: Battlefield: Bad Company
   Why: Not the English rock supergroup, but a new video game from Electronic Arts which “puts the player in a fictional war against Russia, where gamers will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and Mercenaries.”
   Detail: I can’t really tell where all the edits went, except that editors have removed some unnecesary sections, but I was a bit surprised to find out that this page has existed since August 2006, presumably when it was first announced.
9. Article: 2008 WWE Draft
   Why: Did you know the WWF WWE had a draft? Or maybe that should be “draft”? If it wasn’t for Wikipedia and this feature, I wouldn’t.
   Detail: Do you think Vince McMahon is mocking David Stern?
10. Article: Camp Rock
    Why: The Disney Channel sitcom all but ignored in last week’s edition because I was trying to pay attention at Personal Democracy Forum is back again, down to the tenth slot from the third.
    Detail: For I think the first time, Disney holds the first and last articles on this list.

Holdovers this week: Camp Rock

Falling off the list: Everything else.

Recurring themes: Top American film releases, Doctor Who episodes, the NBA, Disney.

Honorable mention: I would have thought Carlin would have been ranked higher. Instead, it looks as if his page was edited heavily on June 22 but not much thereafter. And while there was some coverage this past week of the young woman who was fired for editing Tim Russert’s article before his death was officially announced, less has been said about Carlin’s article though an edit war of sorts took place here. Several people tried to add the correct data, only to have other editors ask for more information, changing the article back until receiving confirmation.

Meanwhile, you still can’t say the seven dirty words on television, but as the headline implies, you most certainly can say them on Wikipedia. In the proper context, of course.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to note that I have made a few disclosed edits to a handful of Disney movie articles for distributor Buena Vista. However, I have not contributed to the Disney movies listed here — haven’t been asked and haven’t needed to do so.

Images courtesy andy castro, noamgalai and eyewash design on Flickr.

Evidence that Slatecard, bootstrapped project of Republican consultant David All (and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram), is “the Republican ActBlue” can be found throughout mainstream political coverage over the past six months. Here are just a few:

Campaigns and Elections:

Then why the development of small donor online vehicles, including the Democratic ActBlue and Republican Slatecard, that aim to raise small donations on the congressional level? Both tools are growing substantially, and several candidates for Congress are highlighted on those sites.

USA Today:

“Your average online donor is an impulse buyer,” said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site’s donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal [$]:

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account,” said the 28-year-old Mr. All. “They don’t understand what this is all about.”

Human Events:

Slatecard aims to raise money for Republican candidates in the same way that ActBlue has for Democrats. Slatecard lets users create profiles (“slatecards”) for candidates they support and then raise money by donating to that candidate and passing it on to friends, family members, co workers — anyone — through blogs, emails, and social networking groups.

Wired:

“If you read the statute, the result is not surprising,” said Don McGahn, an attorney who advises Slatecard, the Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. “However, when they passed the statute, there wasn’t even the internet … what it really shows is that the way to fix this is to pass legislation to update the Matching Payment Act .”

While Slatecard is more elegant, interactive and transparent than its counterparts, it seems that All’s sometimes controversial self-promotion has made the lion’s share of difference, especially as he has succeeded in persuading local congressional campaigns to use his site, sometimes making it their exclusive online fundraising platform.

But if you need further evidence that Slatecard is the take-all (no pun intended) winner of the online GOP fundraising tool primary, consider the image at right, taken from the sidebar of leading Republican activist site RedState. It’s a Slatecard widget encouraging contributions to the McCain camapign.

It’s noteworthy not just for being there but for what it replaces: Nearly a year ago, RedState announced it was backing one of the future also-rans, Big Red Tent:

Patrick Ruffini has said more than once that the right needs to stop building what the left already has and instead build the next big thing. As part of heading in that direction, please let me introduce you to the Big Red Tent. We didn’t build it, but we’re actively supporting it.

There is more irony here: Ruffini is chiefly responsible for the other runner-up, Rightroots, and RedState’s Erick Erickson was party to a minor internecine fight with All during the Republican primary season. To back All’s Slatecard over Big Red Tent may have been a difficult choice, but considering how the other two have languished, it may have been no choice at all.

Update: David writes to say that 48 candidates now have used Slatecard exclusively for online fundraising, though some have already lost their primary or special elections. That’s impressive, especially for a site not yet nine months old.