Today's posts to Election Blackout, my group blog covering the 2010 federal election campaign:

• Greens launch record advertising campaign http://post.ly/pZaw
• Why don't we say this sort of passion from Australian politicians? http://post.ly/pY2T
• Today's Must Reads http://post.ly/pXb7
• Election Blackout Gabfest http://post.ly/pX8N

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

• july has been by most prolific month on twitter ever http://bit.ly/beO4P2 http://post.ly/paSE
• the atlantic's clive crook has a thoughtful look at wikileaks ... "WikiLeak Ethics" http://j.mp/cTI2hZ
• why does hollywood think i'm a loser? ... "How not having a car became Hollywood shorthand for loser" http://j.mp/94eaGC
• i still haven't got this ... "Like Facebook, Twitter Starts Using Algorithms To Bulk Up Social Graph" http://j.mp/c9SZT8
• rule.fm looks good ... "Rule Your Work Productivity With RULE.fm" http://j.mp/9zcrZO
• twitter is going to be down for roughly five hours tomorrow ... how will i survive? http://j.mp/ahb246
• Mark Bahnisch says the "Nielsen poll shows Labor in Latham territory" http://bit.ly/9hijNp #ausvotes
• slate's dahlia lithwick asks "Will there be friction between John Roberts and Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court?" http://j.mp/b0R0ZF
• i think the answer is no ... "Does Sherrod Have a Case Against Breitbart?" http://j.mp/c0kEVU
• when and who? ... "When will Obama appoint a new SG? " http://j.mp/aI0Qn3
• some good advice for prospective law students ... "New Study: Forget the Rankings, Just Bring Home Straight A’s" http://j.mp/c6OxLt
• megan garber on "WikiLeaks and continuity: What if we had a news outlet exclusively focused on follow-up journalism?" http://j.mp/9QxVNH
• patrick goldstein asks "Is 2010 really the worst year for movies ever? Or is Joe Queenan just nuts? | The Big Picture" http://j.mp/bJoy0X
• to be decided on sunday ... "NPR vs. Fox News for White House Press Seat" http://j.mp/aGZtMz
• i'd love a live episode of 30 rock ... "TCA: Gaspin on 'The Office,' a Live '30 Rock,' Too Much Change 'Too Quickly'" http://j.mp/9POt9A
• i really can't see this working for cnn ... "Confirmed: Piers Morgan Tapped to Replace Larry King" http://j.mp/9E1pWP
• x factor could be coming to channel seven in the next few weeks ... "X Factor marks the spot" http://j.mp/aMAnj5
• George Megalogenis offers some campaign lessons in economic comedy ... "Liberals’ double counting staggers" http://bit.ly/dfE0nH #ausvotes
• good news for al gore ... "Al Gore won't face prosecution in sexual assault allegation" http://j.mp/cnLzy5
• My Top 3 Weekly #lastfm artists: Jens Lekman (13), James Blunt (8) and Augie March (6) http://bit.ly/dbQF7L

Follow me on Twitter @peterjblack.

My phone bills are shrinking. Not, unfortunately, in cost. I mean they’re getting shorter. I recently found an old bill from a decade ago; it was fully 15 pages long, because back then I was making a ton of calls—about 20 long-distance ones a day. Today my bills are a meager two or three pages, at most.

Odds are this has happened to you, too. According to Nielsen, the average number of mobile phone calls we make is dropping every year, after hitting a peak in 2007. And our calls are getting shorter: In 2005 they averaged three minutes in length; now they’re almost half that.

We’re moving, in other words, toward a fascinating cultural transition: the death of the telephone call. This shift is particularly stark among the young. Some college students I know go days without talking into their smartphones at all. I was recently hanging out with a twentysomething entrepreneur who fumbled around for 30 seconds trying to find the option that actually let him dial someone.

This generation doesn’t make phone calls, because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting, and social-network messaging. And we don’t just have more options than we used to. We have better ones: These new forms of communication have exposed the fact that the voice call is badly designed. It deserves to die.

via www.wired.com

danah boyd, one of the world's leading researchers of social media, has published with Eszter Hargittai, a fascinating article on how people approach Facebook's privacy settings.  This is the abstract:

"Facebook privacy settings: Who cares?"

With over 500 million users, the decisions that Facebook makes about its privacy settings have the potential to influence many people. While its changes in this domain have often prompted privacy advocates and news media to critique the company, Facebook has continued to attract more users to its service. This raises a question about whether or not Facebook's changes in privacy approaches matter and, if so, to whom. This paper examines the attitudes and practices of a cohort of 18- and 19-year-olds surveyed in 2009 and again in 2010 about Facebook's privacy settings. Our results challenge widespread assumptions that youth do not care about and are not engaged with navigating privacy. We find that, while not universal, modifications to privacy settings have increased during a year in which Facebook's approach to privacy was hotly contested. We also find that both frequency and type of Facebook use as well as Internet skill are correlated with making modifications to privacy settings. In contrast, we observe few gender differences in how young adults approach their Facebook privacy settings, which is notable given that gender differences exist in so many other domains online. We discuss the possible reasons for our findings and their implications.

Read the article here.

Even thought it was written for an American audience, I highly recommend Orin Kerr's short article, How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students, to all Australian law students as well.

You can download it here or here.

Is Google stuck in a rut? The search giant's stock is down 21 percent since January and efforts to diversify its revenues have been less than satisfying. In an exhaustive article, Fortunes' Michael Copeland and Seth Weintraub argue that Google's "search party is over." As people begin to rely on social networking to guide them through the Web, keyword searches no longer rule the roost, they argue. Can Google keep up in this brave new world? Technology observers discuss:

• Google Isn't Keeping Up, write Copeland and Weintraub:

Say you want to buy running shoes to train for a marathon. Five years ago you would have simply Googled it, looked at the list of results, weighed your options, and made the purchase, perhaps by clicking on one of the sponsored links that accompanied your search. Today you might still do that, but increasingly you might pose the question "What running shoes should I buy?" to your friends on Facebook, or maybe write "Who knows about training for marathons?" on Twitter. By the time shopping service Groupon sends you (and 25 of your friends) an offer for the perfect shoes and registration for a race, you'll probably just pounce on it.

• Google Doesn't Know How to Connect People, says Tom Coates in the Fortune article: "Google is very good at building these utility-type products -- search, e-mail, and messaging. They are sort of like the power company of the Internet. But what they lack is a sense of how people share and collaborate."

• The Social Networking Threat Is Overblown, writes Internet entrepreneur Patricia Handschiegel: "Let’s not forget how giant MySpace had been. The media seems to have forgotten how it fawned and toted over MySpace, certain it’d never die, but that doesn’t change that it did — and it could happen to Facebook just the same. Google’s not in that position, and won’t likely be. In fact, Google’s so far away from any company in the space in terms of truly capitalizing on what’s ahead, the media should be looking at that with concern. When all is said and done, you can be sure you should be."

• This Fortune Story Is Bogus, writes Patricio Robles at Econsultancy: "At the end of the day, the risk for Google is not that it won't develop the next big thing. Sure, it can't stop evolving and trying to innovate. But there's far more risk in Google losing sight of its core business and trying to become the next Facebook than there is in Google continuing to deliver the best possible search experience. That's why Google should ignore tech pundits, analysts and journalists who suggest that the company needs to fix something that isn't broken. Google is a search company, and anybody who says that the company's party is over when it's generating billions in profit every quarter clearly doesn't have good taste in parties."

via www.theatlanticwire.com

The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity. Consider the fate of empathy: in an analysis of 72 studies performed on nearly 14,000 college students between 1979 and 2009, researchers at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan found a drop in that trait, with the sharpest decline occurring since 2000. Social media may not have instigated that trend, but by encouraging self-promotion over self-awareness, they may well be accelerating it.

None of this makes me want to cancel my Twitter account. It’s too late for that anyway: I’m already hooked. Besides, I appreciate good writing whatever the form: some “tweeple” are as deft as haiku masters at their craft. I am experimenting with the art of the well-placed “hashtag” myself (the symbol that adds your post on a particular topic, like #ShirleySherrod, to a stream. You can also use them whimsically, as in, “I am pretending not to be afraid of the humongous spider on the bed. #lieswetellourchildren”).

At the same time, I am trying to gain some perspective on the perpetual performer’s self-consciousness. That involves trying to sort out the line between person and persona, the public and private self.

via www.nytimes.com

I love this song.  Alan Cumming sings Lance Horne's "American" from "The $trip", with visuals by Ned Stresen-Reuter:

Alan Cumming/Lance Horne/Ned Stresen-Reuter - American from on Vimeo.

via flowingdata.com

Over at the Election Blackout blog I have posted a new podcast, the second edition of the Election Blackout Gabfest (with apologies to the Political Gabfest team at Slate).  In this podcast I chat with Steve Hind and Nick Sowden, both regular contributors to this blog, about the election campaign so far. We discuss our general impressions of the second week of the campaign, Labor's leaks, Kevin Rudd, taxation, health and ICT policy, gay marriage and Cheryl Kernot, as well as looking forward to the the week ahead.

Listen to or download the podcast here.