Chuck DeVore, candidate for the US Senate seat in California currently held by Babara Boxer, released his iPhone App yesterday.
It's the first iPhone app released by a candidate for the US Senate -
and of course I downloaded it immediately after seeing Justin Hart's tweet.

The app is very well setup and allows you (once you create your
account) to learn all about the campaign through news, events, photos,
videos, and chuck's twitter feed, as well as engage with the campaign
(via a volunteer survey and filling in your meta data). 

The Twitter integration allows you to perform certain searches on
popular conservative hashtags (#tcot, #catcot, #rs, #gop, #sgp,
etc...). It's very well done in the typical smooth iPhone menu design. 

The only piece that it is missing (which according to Justin Hart is being
developed) is a donation link. I think once that final piece is put
into place the iPhone app will be complete. 

Obama Web-Tracking Plan Stirs Privacy Fears

The Obama administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with "cookies" and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups...

...Supporters of a change say social networking and similar services, which often take advantage of the tracking technologies, have transformed how people communicate over the Internet, and Obama's aides say those services can make government more transparent and increase public involvement. 

FACEBOOK LITE: The Early Details and Screenshots

We just broke the news earlier tonight that Facebookfacebookfacebook is launching a newer, simplified version of the Facebook platform, called Facebook Lite. This news comes only a day after Facebook made its blockbuster acquisition of FriendFeed and rolled out its Realtime Facebook Search. You may be asking yourself “what the heck is Facebook Lite?” or maybe “why would Facebook launch a stripped-down version of its website?” We’re here to answer those questions, and we have screenshots of the new Facebook Lite to help us out.

How Do iPhone Users Find New Apps?

AdMob just released some data about how iPhone users discover new apps in the App Store and how they use them once they have downloaded them. According to AdMob, most users download apps from the App Store directly from their phones. Only 7% go through iTunes to download apps. To find new apps, 62% of all respondents searched for a specific app and 60% looked through the lists of top selling apps in the store. AdMob also found that the majority of users (62%) install between 1 and 6 new apps per month and 22% of all iPhone users download more than 11 apps per month.

A Rifle in One Hand, a Laptop in the Other

A RIFLE IN ONE HAND, A LAPTOP IN THE OTHER: The Christian Science Monitor interviews some gunbloggers [at the NRA Convention]. Money quote:

But here’s the real news: In the press box, bloggers outnumbered national reporters by a good margin. And officially, nearly 50 bloggers — compared to 100 mainstream print journalists — were accredited by the NRA press office to attend the 138th annual convention.

5 of the Best iPhone Apps for Political Junkies

Are you a political junkie? Did you follow the US elections with trepidation and excitement? Or perhaps you’re following international politics?

Whatever your political persuasion or level of engagement, there are now plenty of great iPhone apps that put politics in your pocket.

According to Twitter, Prop 8 Was Overturned Before it Existed

There’s an interesting trending topic on Twitter right now: Prop 8. Thousands of people are retweeting that the California ballot measure which restricted same-sex marriage has been overturned. The only problem? It hasn’t been.

What’s happening is that everyone is retweeting the message with a link to an article in the LA Times saying that the gay marriage ban has been overturned. But those people aren’t looking at the date of the article. It was published a year ago, on May 16, 2008. Prop 8 passed in November 2008, so unless we’re in some kind of Lost-style time warp, nothing has changed.