Obama's Ex-Campaign Manager Discusses Politics of the Future

President Barack Obama's former campaign manager and political strategist David Plouffe came to Richmond last night to share his vision for the future of politics in the new media age.

In short, it will be more mobile, super-fast and use technology to transform even traditional grass-roots door-knocking to a high-tech interactive digital experience.

"By 2016, certainly by 2020, people are going to be completely untethered," Plouffe told the audience at the Landmark Theater during a presentation at the Richmond Forum, which included a healthy contingent of Virginia's Democratic state lawmakers, party officials and prospective candidates.

Foursquare Exceeds 40 Million Check-Ins

Location-based social network Foursquare counted its 40 millionth check-in a “couple days ago”, according to a Tweet from one of its developers.

The number shows that Foursquare’s growth rate is accelerating: Five weeks ago, we clocked Foursquare’s total check-ins at 22 million. In short: Foursquare appears to have doubled its check-in rate in just over a month.

Hugo Chavez Hires 200 People to Manage His Twitter Account.....ummmm

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, who only recently signed up to Twitter, has rapidly risen up the rankings to become the top tweeter in the country, despite having previously described the service as a “tool of terror.” The leader has also hired hundreds of staff to reply to tweets.

7 Ways to Use Psychological Influence with Social Media Content

One of the hallmarks of social media is content:  creating it, sharing it and engaging with it.

The best content in social media inspires, informs, educates or entertains (and if you’re really lucky, it does all four!).  But how do you create content that goes viral?

What follows are seven strategies you can employ to help your content succeed.

The idea for this post came from Jay Baer’s excellent article on creating reusable social media content, which defined how companies can generate more value by repurposing existing content.

HOW TO: Add Facebook "Like" Buttons to your Wordpress Blog

Facebook officially unveiled its new Open Graph API and tools a few weeks ago, making it possible for developers and end users to easily hook their own sites into Facebook’s broader ecosystem.

In just the first week, Facebook’s social plugins were integrated into more than 50,000 websites. We expect that number will continue to increase at a rapid rate, especially as businesses and e-commerce sites figure out how to best harness the power of Open Graph.

Recently elected VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli redesigns his website. Check it out and let us know what you think.

A Must-See Video: Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) (The latest from Socialnomics guru, Erik Qualman)