Voter turnout

There’s all this stuff on TV now about how the media overhyped voter turnout and actual turnout ended up being comparable to the 2004 Election.

I think one thing pundits are missing – it’s not about overall turnout, its about turnout of YOUR supporters. And clearly Obama did a better job of that. Theoretically you could have 50% turnout in both 2004 and 2008 without a single person voting in both elections.

So what? Basically, the media wasn’t totally wrong in saying turnout would be high this cycle. Turnout was probably measurably higher among key traditional and new Democratic demos (eg 18-24, Prius drivers, most minorities) but overall turnout was depressed because the other side lost its enthusiasm to showup. 

A non-vote is just as powerful as a vote. Because you can’t win unless you get your supporters to the polls. So its not necessarily a sign that our country has the same level of political apathy, but merely that theres been some redistribution.

Three public commitments to Obama

Got the idea from reading Michael Hyatt’s blog, From Where I Sit, so credit here goes to him.

While Michael was a bit more high-level, I’m gonna get a bit more specific:

1) Will commit at least 2 hours/wk volunteering my time to government service at the local level (precise manner TBD)

2) Closely and consistently follow the economic and social issues that I care about most (ranging from immigration to renewable energy to managed free trade) so I can discuss them in detail and engage with my representatives and fellow citizens

3) Re-watch West Wing so I can get excited about politics and policy once again

Excited for the next 4 years.

Genweb will now focus on politics

And my blog over at knollege.wordpress.com will become my outlet for all things tech and startup related.

Just read this lead post-election night: “Black man given nation’s worst job“

And the Onion does it again. Link here.

Moving to a new blog…

…over at knollege.wordpress.com – it’ll cover broadly similar topics but with a overarching focus on college/university markets. Hopefully I’ll update that blog more consistently than I’ve maintained this one.

Thanks for reading!

Really interesting niche idea

I’m a big fan of cool startups that are smart, interesting ideas targetting niches where others generally don’t play or haven’t figured out yet. Check out Spotcrime – http://www.spotcrime.com.

It layers up-to-the-hour crime incident data on top of Google Maps – originally started in Baltimore and now in NYC (with national rollout in the works, I’m sure). Cartoony icons depict where the crime occurred, and mouse-over reveals details about the actual crime (e.g., customer arrested for throwing sandwich at store clerk).

Revenue from Adsense ads up top – high CPC payout, but hard to imagine good clickthru rate. Most of the ads I’m seeing are aimed at the “bad guys” – clearing their records, hiring attorneys, etc. I can’t imagine many of them being early adopters in the high-tech crowd (what with being on the run and all)…I also can’t imagine their being a very large audience of these people in need of the Adsense-provided services. Other revenue streams are to come, I’m sure…or much better targeting (e.g., ads to join the police force/fire academy, sponsorship deals with local media/tv, etc)

Liability would be another issue…don’t even know where/how they’d start to manage that one.