For those of you who missed it, CNN’s election coverage incuded a report from a remote reporter who called in via hologram.

Star Wars references not withstanding, the elections are, like the Olympics, one of those places where a lot of money and technology comes to bear on a given idea or event.

MSNBC had many of their people reporting from a column-lined rotunda generated by computer over green screen. CNN had holograms. Everyone had super-cool touch screen monitors to zoom in and out of the country. MSNBC could flip between this election and the one four years ago. As a poli sci grad with a geek streak, you’d think I’d be on cloud nine. And I was, but for a different reason.

Twitter Election coverage!!! If you had a Twitter account and it was public, if you mentioned anything about the election (based on keywords and tags), Twitter showed it on a central page. Want to know who’s being talked about more? Here it is. Real-time. There were special tags for things like potential voter irregularities (see something weird? take a picture with your phone, tag it and send it to Twitter and it gets saved in a central spot.

For all the talk about the difference between “journalism” and “bloggers” it’s nice to see that there’s a middle-ground — citizen journalists collecting information (not opinion) in real time in case it is needed down the road. What would this collection of data done in 2000 in Florida? Pictures of ballots? Proof of who you voted for?

This is what the internet is all about: collecting data and ideas from every point on the globe at a moment’s notice. Adding to that knowledge where ever you are. Being yourself and adding to the chorus in your own way.

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