The latest report from Pew Internet confirms what many of us have known for a while now – our friends and socialgraphs are slowly diminishing the influence of the once all-powerful newspaper editors. In the study, Pew found that 75% of Americans who consume news online discover their news through social networking sites or through forwarded e-mail, and 52% of them share news with others through these channels.

This study confirms suspicions we have had for some time – our Facebook news streams and Twitter feeds are becoming our “homepage” for news consumption. NYTimes.com or CNN.com are no longer our browser’s homepage; and if they are, they are not likely the central hub for where we consume our news. The same Pew study found that only 7% of those surveyed are receiving information and news from a single media platform. Our news sources are more diversified than ever, but what’s more important is how we are being driven to this news content.

Before mass online news consumption, we were forced to consume whatever newspaper editors and TV producers decided we should read and watch. In the early years of online news consumption, news aggregation was not a necessity, as our sources for quality online news were slim. In these days, we could set our browser’s homepage to NYTimes.com and be satisfied with the flow of information we were receiving from the newspaper’s site editors. Today, we have the ability to create our own personalized news aggregation services from the news sources we trust most – our ‘friends’ and socialgraphs.

Gone are the days when a single newspaper’s website was the hub for all of one person’s news consumption, linking to various stories within that single hub of news. Today’s news consumption follows a hub-n-spoke model in which social networks are the hub that direct us out to the spokes of various news sources linked to by our friends and trusted news aggregation ‘editors’.

As more Americans rely on social networks as their primary source of news consumption, it will be increasingly important for news organizations, political campaigns and brands to find creative ways to convince individuals to spread news on their behalf. Newspaper editors will continue to have nearly exclusive influence over what is printed by their publications, but their power over driving eyeballs to this content is now in the hands of the masses. Every one of our friends is now a news aggregation ‘editor’ with the power to drive us from our social news hub to the various spokes of trusted news content.

I'd like to welcome two new TechRepublican contributors who will be contributing as we enter the new year and the 2010 election cycle - Jordan Raynor and Wesley Donehue.

Jordan Raynor is an opinion leader, blogger and strategist at the intersection of politics, media and technology.  Fascinated by the democratization of information, Jordan is convinced that all of us have something in common - we are all journalists.

Jordan most recently served as the Executive Editor of Sayfie Media, an online news aggregation service, and an Associate of NetPower Strategy, a Republican online strategy firm. During his tenure at Sayfie Media, Jordan executed cutting edge strategies to increase traffic to SayfieReview.com by more than 25%. His work earned SayfieReview.com the title of Best Florida Political Blog by the Washington Post as well as ITFlorida’s first-ever Excellence in Web 2.0 Award. As an Associate of NetPower Strategy, Jordan planned and executed strategic online campaign plans for Republicans on the state and congressional level as well as a Fortune 500 company.

Wesley Donehue is an over-caffeinated, South Carolina based political operative. He owns two Republican web firms - Under The Power Lines and JUMP! New Media. He heads up political strategy for the SC Senate Republican Caucus and web activity for Senator Jim DeMint,
Congressman Joe Wilson, and the SC Republican Party.

Now more than ever, it's important that we can continue to highlight conservative online successes.

A big thanks to our TechRepublican contributor team:

David All, Ethan Demme, Ethan Eilon, Jeff Vreeland, Phillip Copley, Jordan Raynor and Wesley Donehue.

And now that DC is thawing out from #snOMG and gearing up for the upcoming holiday, here are some tech nuggets to tide you over -

Citizentube in London: Looking Ahead at the 2010 UK Elections

With the UK's elections coming up (most likely) in the spring of next year (Gordon Brown must call them by June 3rd), there's been a lot of talk in the UK over how the Internet will play a role in the campaign. The last general election was in May of 2005 - the same month that YouTube was invented - so this will be the first UK election in which video will play a role in the public debate. A few weeks ago, I was in the UK en route to Copenhagen for our COP-15 CNN/YouTube Debate, and met with several MP's and staffers from the British Parliament to discuss video and their strategy.

Tips and Tricks For Deploying Google Apps

Has your company, school or organization decided to "go Google" — but not yet fully "gone?" Perhaps you'd like more guidance on the technical, marketing or training details? Or maybe you could use some resources to help you deploy? Making the decision to go Google can be the easiest part, but we realize that it sometimes takes a little boost to finish the process, which is where we come in.

Privacy Groups Urge FTC to Investigate Facebook Privacy Policy

Privacy advocates filed a complaint Thursday to the Federal Trade Commission  about Facebook, saying a change in the popular social networking site's privacy policy violates consumer protection laws.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and nine other consumer protection groups called on the FTC to investigate the change in Facebook's privacy standards that took effect last week. They called for the agency, which oversees consumer protections, to force the Web firm to restore its previous policy.

7 Ways Posterous Improves Your Social Media Presence

Posterous is a social media platform where it’s very easy to post just about anything—photos, videos and words.  You can set up your account and publish content simply by sending an email. Yes it’s that simple!

Posterous is known as the most “social” networking place of social media. It’s also the ideal solution for sharing content that’s too long for a tweet and too short for a blog post.

There are many different reasons and motivations to create a free Posterous account. Let’s have a look at the 7 most common reasons for businesses to use Posterous.

Fun Fact of the Day:

Did you know, 20 of the top 21 most viewed @BarackObama YouTube videos were not TV ads? (Via @PatrickRuffini)

HOW TO: Manage Successful Social Media Promotions

With holiday shopping in full swing, social shopping is already making a big impact. Data from Hitwise shows that downstream traffic to the Retail 500 coming from both Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) increased 36% and 15% respectively on Thanksgiving from the previous day. Downstream traffic to retailers grew again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as many retailers promoted sales through fan pages and tweets.

This data is very encouraging for marketers, but a social media campaign must still be managed correctly for maximum ROI. Here are some tips on how brands can best engage their customers by offering what everyone now looks to social media for – a bargain.

Are you in the know?

The *first ever* FREE daily email of must-see Tweets from Capitol Hill is about to go out to those who signed up at TweetWatchReport.com (Via @DavidAll)

In Case You Missed It -

In case you missed it, Jordan Raynor followed up with TechRepublican's own David All to discuss Joe Wilson's impressive online fundraising game after writing this post:

How to Turn "You Lie" into $2 Million Online

Immediately following Congressman Joe Wilson's now famous "You lie" moment, Wilson turned to David All, President of the David All Group, to defend himself from attacks from the left online.  What transpired was a campaign which utilized YouTube video responses, Twitter and online advertising to raise more than $2 million online in less than 2 weeks.  On Tuesday, December 8 at 11:00 a.m. I will conduct a live twinterview with @DavidAll to ask just how his team pulled off this massive rapid-response campaign.  Find out what your campaign needs to implement online today to be prepared for your own 'You lie' moment.

You can catch the full-length Twinterview here.

Google Launches Real-Time Search

We knew it was inevitable, and now it’s here: Google has just launched real-time search integrated into search results pages.

GoogleGoogleGoogle real-time search updates as stuff is happening around the Web — for example, live tweets, Yahoo Answers, news articles and Web pages now stream in on the actual result pages for your query. It works on mobile too (at least iPhoneiPhoneiPhone and AndroidAndroidAndroid for now).

What Real-Time Means for Google's Competitors

With the announcement of Google real-time search, the world’s most popular search engine has thrown down the gauntlet in a battle it was already winning. Clearly recognizing the threat that the instantaneous nature of Facebook and Twitter represented, Google was smart to sign search deals with both companies, even if those deals aren’t exclusive.

What the Real-Time Web Can Deliver

Google launched its version of integrated real-time search, one of a number of impressive product demos given, at a press event this morning. It's much better than what Bing and Yahoo! have done, but it's still just the beginning of a full-scale engagement with the real-time web. To provide further context to this discussion, we're rerunning a post we wrote in seven months ago, titled "3 Models of Value in the Real-Time Web." We hope you find it useful and interesting.

Florida Elections Commission Kicks Google AdWords Case to Legislature

In August of this year, Florida became the center of controversy for political advertisements on Google, Facebook and other PPC models after a complaint was filed against St. Petersburg mayoral candidate, Scott Wagman. Since the Florida Elections Commission (FEC) ordered Wagman to remove his ads, candidates at the local and state level across Florida have put their online advertising on hold.

Have what it takes to be a contributor to TechRepublican? Email meghannolshefski AT gmail.com if you're interested.

David All is the founder of TechRepublican, a group blog focusing on the intersection of Republican politics + technology. He is the president of the David All Group and the co-founder of Slatecard. He lives is Washington, DC and has a French Bulldog named Jackson.

Meghann Olshefski is the Site Editor for TechRepublican and Director of the Leadership Institute’s Employment Placement Service. As a Director at the Institute, she works to connect talented conservatives with work in conservative public policy using online communication tools and the Leadership Institute's broad conservative network. In November 2007, Meghann worked to revamp the Leadership Institute's Internet Activist Schools, by recruiting top speakers to train hundreds of conservative activists across the country to get ahead online.

Phillip Copley is the Assistant Director of Information Technology for Pennsylvania Legislative Services, where he is in charge of new product development. In his spare time, Phil is a freelance web designer, Mac addict, and Twitter evangelist. In his previous life, he worked as a Victory Director for the Pennsylvania GOP during the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. Phil can be seen blogging at PCDC or tweeting at @pcopley.  

Ethan Demme is a speaker, blogger and modern media coach. He is a homeschool graduate and the marketing director for Math-U-See. 

Wesley Donehue is an over-caffeinated South Carolina based political operative. He owns two Republican web firms - Under The Power Lines and JUMP! New Media. He heads up political strategy for the SC Senate Republican Caucus and web activity for Senator Jim DeMint, Congressman Joe Wilson, and the SC Republican Party. Catch up with Wesley atwww.wesleydonehue.com or on twitter. 

Vincent Harris Vincent Harris is founder of Harris Media, LLC, an online communications shop specializing in e-politics. He is a frequent guest speaker on a variety of New Media issues and recently served as New Media Director on the Bob McDonnell's successful Virginia gubernatorial campaign. Previously, Vincent worked on the Presidential campaign of Governor Mike Huckabee, and spent two years working for Texas Senator John Cornyn, both in Texas and at the NRSC. In his spare time, he enjoys learning how to blend into his adopted state (which involves a lot of “y’alls”, hunting, barbecue, and Pat Green). 

Jordan Raynor is an opinion leader, blogger and strategist at the intersection of politics, media and technology.  Jordan most recently served as the Executive Editor of Sayfie Media, an online news aggregation service, and an Associate of NetPower Strategy, a Republican online strategy firm. During his tenure at Sayfie Media, Jordan executed cutting edge strategies to increase traffic to SayfieReview.com by more than 25%. His work earned SayfieReview.com the title of Best Florida Political Blog by the Washington Post as well as ITFlorida’s first-ever Excellence in Web 2.0 Award. As an Associate of NetPower Strategy, Jordan planned and executed strategic online campaign plans for Republicans on the state and congressional level as well as a Fortune 500 company.

In 2009, Jordan’s widely renowned piece on "online footprints" led him to launchWhatsMyOnlineFootprint.com. A respected opinion leader on the internet’s impact on politics and media, Jordan also regularly serves as a university guest lecturer.

You can follow Jordan on Twitter @JordanRaynor or find him at his blog, JordanRaynor.com. 

Jeff Vreeland is the President of VM Technologies, a web development and new media consulting company.  He is a father, husband, speaker, and small business owner. He blogs at SocialJeff and tweets at @JVreeland.