Ari Herzog (@ariherzog) is an online media strategist to business and government. He writes about social media and online marketing at ariwriter.com.

The Obama White House has a new website design and a first blog, a continuing weekly YouTube channel, and an updated Facebook page. But what will happen on Twitter? How should it be used?

Communication, Transparency and Participation: Falling Short

In recent months, the Obama campaign team attracted over 100,000 people to follow their tweeted links to press releases pushed through @BarackObama, such as the following from last October:

The official tweets from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue via @TheWhiteHouse appeared in a similar fashion:

White House director of new media Macon Phillips blogged about the Obama Administration offering change in the form of communication, transparency, and participation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t [+]

ShareBrained Technology, makers of the wild and wooly Chronulator clock kit, have released a new version of their product. Chronulator is an electronics kit that lets you build arbitrarily weird electronic clocks, from TokyoFlash-style digital numbers to whacky analogue ones that use dials, wheels or other readouts to display the time. John Park from Make tested the kit by building this handsom little fella inside a Romeo and Julieta cigar box.

Chronulieta cigar box clock Previously:Chronulator clock kit - Boing Boing Chronulator: open kit-clock that uses gauges to display anything ...

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Here’s today’s episode of Friday Traffic Report Radio with Jack Humphrey and Jim Stroud!  Jim was upset that he only got through 1/2 what he had for today’s show, which means we talked too much about his iPhone again.  :)  Great topics today include offline advertising and buzz, how to monetize a new blog with low traffic levels, and much more!

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From what we can gather, even Apple purist Jeremy Mehrle doesn't own one of these ultra-rare set-top-boxes, and if you think you're the only Apple fanboy out there eying this one seriously, we fear you'll be sorely mistaken. This prototype Interactive Television Box was crafted in or around 1994 and was designed to deliver content to one's TV by connecting to a central server and downloading content. Thus, the unit itself doesn't boot into anything nor does it feature an internal hard drive. Still, DIYers and collectors alike will have a hard time passing up the opportunity of snagging this piece and turning it into a makeshift iTunes server, but given the remarkably low $249.99 buy-it-now price, we'd say that window of opportunity may not be open for long. Oh, and Apple TV -- [+]

What does VAT stand for? VAT = [V]ery [A]nnoying [T]ax. What else did you expect?Thanks to Matt Chatterley (@matchedit)Spent 25 min waiting for Atlanta business tax office to answer phone. Would be nice if their hold message said THEY'RE CLOSED ON FRIDAY!Poor Paul Mckibben (@paulmckibben)Have just learnt that the Russian government have cut the tax on vodka to help their citizens ease the pain of financial doom. So clever.(@justcookit.co.uk)I'm hoping my tax return allows me to get a new bikeThanks to Daniel Versola (@danielversola)I just did my first tax return! It was fun! :)(@ursalaura)This ouija board is clearly defective. Either that or lost receipts don't have souls. My accountant will not be happy...(@Badwisdom)OK - well I found them funny. Let me know if you find anything better!If you're on Twitter you can tell your followers about this by clicking [+]

Over the years, I have had to move around a lot. For the most part, the reason for moving has been work related. It always seems that once we get an office up and running good, it is time to go to the next one and start all over. Each and every time, it means that I have to take things down and pack them up. The biggest issues that I have seem to revolve around my computers and their internet Go to Source [+]

I was reading in the paper today about this dwarf that got pickpocketed. How could anyone stoop so low? Go to Source [+]

How much do you reveal about yourselves to the sites you visit? Without filling in a form there is a strong possibility that a site can get hold off:

Your Name Age Shipping Address Some basic Credit details.

They can almost certain make educated and pretty accurate guesses to:

If you are at work your income bracket Gender

They might even in a few users cases be able to tell you what you had for breakfast all in a few seconds. Scared?

We recent worked with a client who was looking to improve conversions on their alternative payment methods in this case primarily Google Checkout. They were disappointed by the take up on their Google Checkout option (with such low commission for the first year I suspect they were expecting significant savings) we were asked to develop a method to target existing Google Checkout users and present them [+]

It took a while to put together but it’s finally here for your referencing pleasure. There’s a grand total of 311 SEO Tools, Social Bookmarking Sites, Social News Sites, Social Networking Sites & Social Media Sites listed here that I’ve used in the past to help me do what I do best. I’m sharing this with you today because I’m always looking for lists like these and it’s not often that they’re stumbled upon. Each link is alive and kicking, sorted by pagerank. If you like the list let your friends know about it, I’m sure it will come in handy for them too.

Enjoy!

Category URL PR Answering Services http://answers.yahoo.com 8 Answering Services http://www.linkedin.com/answers/ 8 Answering Services http://wiki.answers.com 7 Answering Services http://www.answerbag.com 6 Answering Services http://yedda.com 6 Answering Services http://www.fluther.com 5 Answering Services http://www.wondir.com 5       Category URL PR Article Submission http://ezinearticles.com 6 Article Submission http://goarticles.com 6 Article Submission http://www.associatedcontent.com 6 Article Submission http://www.helium.com 6 Article Submission http://www.zimbio.com 6 Article Submission http://www.articlecity.com 5 Article Submission http://www.isnare.com 5       Category URL PR Blog Aggregator http://www.bloglines.com 9 Blog Aggregator http://www.technorati.com 8 Blog Aggregator http://blogstreet.com 6 Blog Aggregator http://tailrank.com 6 Blog Aggregator http://www.weblogalot.com 6 Blog Aggregator http://www.blogs.com 5 Blog Aggregator http://www.syndic8.com 5       Category URL PR Blogging http://www.blogger.com 8 Blogging http://www.livejournal.com 8 Blogging http://www.wordpress.com 8 Blogging http://www.typepad.com 8 Blogging http://www.movabletype.org 8 Blogging http://www.xanga.com 7 Blogging http://www.squarespace.com 6       Category URL PR Directory http://www.dmoz.org 8 Directory http://lii.org 8 Directory - Business http://www.insiderpages.com 8 Directory - Business http://www.dexknows.com 8 Directory - Business http://www.superpages.com 8 Directory - Industrial http://www.thomasnet.com 8 Directory - Business http://local.yahoo.com 7 Directory http://botw.org 6 Directory - Business http://www.local.com 6 Directory - FAQ http://www.querycat.com 6 Directory - [+]

For those of you that showed up to our live social media seminar or joined us live on Ustream: thank you!  We could not have done it without you.  There were some great questions and a wonderful turnout.

For those that didn’t make it: not to worry, you’re not on the bad list..I know you’re busy

For all: as promised, here is the Ustream recording -

Free video chat by Ustream

and the corresponding PowerPoint via SlideShare -

Social Media is Already Changing Your Business View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: social media)

Would love to hear your feedback.  The plan is to do a seminar like this every month…more to come!

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