Daily Twitter Links for Monday 19 November 2012

Here are today's must-reads:

1. When the Nerds Go Marching In: 

The campaign had turned out more volunteers and gotten more donors than in 2008. Sure, the field organization was more entrenched and experienced, but the difference stemmed in large part from better technology. The tech team's key products -- Dashboard, the Call Tool, the Facebook Blaster, the PeopleMatcher, and Narwhal -- made it simpler and easier for anyone to engage with the President's reelection effort.

But it wasn't easy. Reed's team came in as outsiders to the campaign and by most accounts, remained that way. The divisions among the tech, digital, and analytics team never quite got resolved, even if the end product has salved the sore spots that developed over the stressful months. At their worst, in early 2012, the cultural differences between tech and everybody else threatened to derail the whole grand experiment.

By the end, the campaign produced exactly what it should have: a hybrid of the desires of everyone on Obama's team. They raised hundreds of millions of dollars online, made unprecedented progress in voter targeting, and built everything atop the most stable technical infrastructure of any presidential campaign. To go a step further, I'd even say that this clash of cultures was a good thing: The nerds shook up an ossifying Democratic tech structure and the politicos taught the nerds a thing or two about stress, small-p politics, and the significance of elections.

2. Here's Why Twitter Is Starting To Look A Lot Like Instagram: 

CNET's Daniel Terdiman says Twitter is starting to look more and more like Instagram, Facebook's mobile photo-sharing app.

It's true.

In recent days, Twitter added Instagram-style filtering to its photos and made it so that on some mobile apps, photos appear right in the stream without an extra click or tap.

3. Let Academics Get Back To Work: 

Before we start tinkering with the system or arguing about how to distribute research grants, let’s ask the big questions: for what policy goal does the ARC’s competitive grants program exist? Do we really need the government micromanaging Australia’s researchers? And wouldn’t the world be a smarter place if researchers did more researching and less paper shuffling?

These are some of the other things I've been tweeting about today:

• from the @nytimes: "As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living" http://pjblack.me/XV6ocp
• "How a toothbrush explains the power of Swedish design and one of Stockholm’s hottest startups" http://pjblack.me/SG7ty5
• "7 Technologies That Changed The Way We Think About Sex" http://pjblack.me/U5uhJs
• "Japan's digital content struggles: the country of the future remains stuck in the past" http://pjblack.me/Wn4u3U
• "The Useless Web: a collection of the world's most pointless websites" http://pjblack.me/Wn40e5
• the dream team of engineers that built the software that drove obama's reelection: "When the Nerds Go Marching In" http://pjblack.me/XS0qsE
• "Gillard needs an Obama moment on marriage equality" http://pjblack.me/XSbo1q
• not smart: "Man asks judge if he can smoke one more joint" http://pjblack.me/UN3Cj8
• "The university coalface gets 28 cents in the dollar!" http://pjblack.me/Wntt72 #highered
• "Law school sues ANU over naming rights" http://pjblack.me/WntkjY #highered
• "YouTube Refuses to Yank Israeli Kill Video as Hamas Attacks Jerusalem" http://pjblack.me/XRH6fb
• "In Gaza, new arsenals include weaponized social media" http://pjblack.me/UMWbIG
• webcam proctoring the future for assessing online courses?: "In Online Exams, Big Brother Will Be Watching" http://pjblack.me/UMVxuJ #highered
• the 2012 presidential election and "Social and Anti-Social Media" http://pjblack.me/XRFT7B
• "Let Academics Get Back To Work" http://pjblack.me/WniRVP #highered
• "Australia wants $29M in back taxes from Apple" http://pjblack.me/WnanOv
• "Why We Can't Solve Big Problems" http://pjblack.me/XRFKkD
• "Can Mobile Video Become the Future of Broadcast News?" http://pjblack.me/UMMgmC
• "How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world" http://pjblack.me/UMLMg6
• "Media companies: Embrace Project Glass, it’s going to change everything" http://pjblack.me/UMLlm4
• "Here's Why Twitter Is Starting To Look A Lot Like Instagram" http://pjblack.me/XRTQlT
• "In Gillard v French, I support the PM" says uq professor jim allan http://pjblack.me/UNffGN

Follow me on Twitter @peterjblack.

And you can get my latest links anytime on my Rebelmouse social media front page.