Democrats Lost the Propaganda War. The intra-Democratic argument over what should be done following their loss in 2024 goes on. Bernie Sanders is arguing for working-class populism. Matt Yglesias has been flogging a “Common Sense Manifesto” arguing for Bill Clinton–style triangulation. (more)

Cory Doctorow: A Democratic media strategy to save journalism and the nation. As unbearably cringe as the hunt for a "leftist Joe Rogan" is, it is (to use a shopworn phrase), "directionally correct." Democrats suck at getting their message out, and that exacts a high electoral cost. (more)

Michel Bauwens: MyBO details about Barack Obama campaign's network strategy. Larry Lessig warns that if Obama wins but doesn’t govern according to principles of openness and change, as promised, supporters may not be so interested in serving as MyBO foot soldiers in 2012. (more)

David Talbot: How Barack Obama Really Did It. Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign manager and Internet impresario, describes Super Tuesday II–the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island–as the moment Barack Obama used social tecnology to decisive effect. The day’s largest hoard of dele­gates would be contested in Texas. Hillary Clinton’s camp had about 20,000 volunteers at work in Texas. But in an e-mail, Trippi learned that 104,000 Texans had joined Obama’s social-­networking site, www.my.barackobama.com. In Texas, MyBO also gave the Obama team the instant capacity to wage fully networked campaign warfare. After seeing the volunteer numbers, Trippi says, “I remember saying, ‘Game, match–it’s over.’” (more)

Kate Albright-Hanna: How The Cool Kids Killed Obama’s Grassroots Movement. Eight years ago, I was trapped inside the Barack Obama Presidential Transition office in Washington, D.C., watching the life and soul drain out of the thing we had birthed and nurtured in Chicago for almost two years. (more)

Peter Overby: The Fate Of Obama's Net Roots Network. Just two weeks after the historic election, Barack Obama campaign officials sent an e-mail to roughly 10 million "Obamamaniacs" and volunteers who had registered with the campaign online, asking them what the president-elect should tackle in the months ahead.... from campaign manager David Plouffe. (more)

Trump’s mixed messaging leaves Dems struggling to find a way forward. Unlike the first time Donald Trump won the presidency, Democrats are not expecting major protests. Instead, Democrats across all levels of government are plotting more cautiously open approaches to Trump. (more)

Robert Reich: How to root out Trumpism. In the fall of 2015, I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina while doing research on the changing nature of work in America. (more)

Dylan Matthews says Chris Hughes wants another chance. Hughes — worth around $400 million, according to Forbes — is aware of his role in building this culture. He also knows that he’s hardly the first rich business leader to turn apostate and critique the capitalist processes that enriched him. But he’s unique in an important sense: He’s the first founder of a major tech firm to call for that firm’s dismantling (Facebook). (more)

Some Presidential Election stuff: (more)

Global Tel Link (GTL), formerly known as Global Telcoin, Inc. and Global TelLink Corporation, is a Reston, Virginia–based telecommunications company, founded in 1989, that provides Inmate Calling Service (ICS) through "integrated information technology solutions" for correctional facilities (prison)[1][2] which includes inmates payment and deposit, facility management, and "visitation solutions".[2] The company's CEO is Deb Alderson. In 2020, GTL delivered 4.1 billion call minutes to incarcerated individuals and their families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Tel_Link (more)

Cory Doctorow: Prison-tech company bribed jails to ban in-person visits (02 Apr 2024). When prison-tech companies started offering "free" tablets to America's vast army of prisoners, it set off alarm-bells for prison reform advocates. (more)

Prison-tech company. Owned by Private Equity firm Platinum Equity (founder/CEO Tom Gores (who also owns the Detroit Pistons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Equity In 2017, Platinum Equity acquired prison communication firm Securus Technologies. The firm came under pressure from criminal justice activists for its alleged excessive pricing for prison calls, borne primarily by poor and minority prisoners.[35] In 2019, Platinum Equity announced plans to reorganize the company as a more diverse technology company, and created Aventiv Technologies as Securus's new corporate parent. (more)

aka War on Drugs

DocVerse, a company founded by two former Microsoft employees Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui, let Microsoft Office users share and edit their documents online. Acquired by Google in 2010 to drive GoogleDocs and GoogleSheets.

see MsOffice

Quickoffice, Inc.[3] is a discontinued freeware proprietary productivity suite for mobile devices which allows viewing, creating and editing documents, presentations and spreadsheets. It consists of Quickword (a word processor), Quicksheet (a spreadsheet), QuickPoint (a presentation program) and QuickPDF (a pdf viewer). The programs are compatible with Microsoft Office file formats, but not the OpenDocument file format.[4] Quickoffice was commonly used on smartphones and tablets. It was the main office editing suite on Symbian OS where it first appeared in 2005 and last updated in 2011, and came pre-loaded on all devices.[5] It was released for Android in 2010... Quickoffice, Inc., a company in Plano, Texas, was founded as Cutting Edge Software Inc. by Jeff Musa in 1997,[8] offering Microsoft Office and Excel compatibility for mobile devices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quickoffice

What Google Spreadsheet was renamed to. (more)

Word Processor part of GoogleApps. Google Docs originated from Writely, a web-based word processor created by the software company Upstartle and launched in August 2005.[6][7] It began as an experiment by programmers Sam Schillace, Steve Newman, and Claudia Carpenter, trying out the then-new Ajax technology and the "contentEditable" HTML feature.[7] On March 9, 2006, Google announced that it had acquired Upstartle.[8][9] In July 2009, Google dropped the beta testing status from Google Docs.[10] In March 2010, Google acquired DocVerse, an online document collaboration company. DocVerse allowed multiple users to collaborate online on Microsoft Word documents, like other Microsoft Office formats, such as Excel and PowerPoint.[11] Improvements based on DocVerse were announced and deployed in April 2010.[12] In June 2012, Google acquired Quickoffice, a freeware proprietary productivity suite for mobile devices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs#History

co-creator of Google Sheets, then SVP at Slack.com, now CTO of Notion since Dec'2013. https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuzzy-k-a58abb170/