election2012

In certain corners of America, there is a mood of relief and joy. In others, rampant despair.

This partly stems from the rather limited number of candidates at the voters' disposal.

Unless, that is, you choose your own. In that searing home of live-and-let-live that is Georgia, almost 4,000 people knew exactly who was the right man to lead its state into the future.… Read more

Besides President Obama, the big winner on Election Day was big data.

Big data's patron saint -- FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver -- won the battle to predict the outcome of the contest between Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Where breathless pundits brandishing equivocating polls shouted from the rooftops over the last few weeks that the race for the White House was a "toss-up," or "too close to call," Silver and other poll aggregators sat back and calmly told anyone who would listen that the math told another story: Obama's re-election was never … Read more

It's well known that before any big game, the T-shirts and hats that laud a victory are prepared by both sides.

Yet a curious thing happened after Barack Obama was re-elected on Tuesday night: Mitt Romney's victory Web site went live.

Perhaps it was someone's idea of humor -- or even anger. Yet it was immediately spotted by Political Wire, which cheerily took screenshots for public edification.

Those who enjoy schadenfreude will offer their snorts and smirks. For them, this is a Rom-Com.

Yet we seek deeper significances here.

What was odd about this election was that … Read more

You might have spent election night rooting for Obama or Romney.

I occasionally squinted at the spectacle -- mesmerized at times by Karl Rove, his Mac and his pain -- but, at heart, I waited for news of Santiaga.

No, she is not a Hispanic singer who was bravely standing in Arizona. She is Colleen Lachowicz, the brave World of Warcraft enthusiast who was standing for the state Senate in Maine.

You might remember that I had enjoyed an earlier commitment to Santiaga.

The Maine GOP decided that her moonlighting as an Orc Assassination Rogue made her unfit for office. … Read more

Instagram users showed off their voting activities on Election Day, uploading more than 250,000 election-related photos and immediately posting a slew of photos after hearing of the president's victory, the photo-sharing network posted today.

In the U.S., users tagged more than 100,000 photos with #IVoted and 150,000 photos with #election2012, Instagram reported, with the largest surge of photos coming in right after news outlets projected President Barack Obama's win. At that moment, the number of Instagram photos uploaded each second was at 2.1 times the normal rate.

Clearly, these Americans are not shy … Read more

While there's no telling how much impact Facebook had on U.S voters, the social network says its users talked a lot, creating more election buzz than ever.

There were 71.7 million election-related mentions in posts and comments in the U.S. yesterday, and 88.7 million globally, Facebook said today.

The company's data team used its "Talk Meter" to measure the chatter -- posts and comments -- around the election and, ranking them on a scale of 1 to 10, Facebook said. Election 2012 buzz came in at a 9.27. That compares to … Read more

Elections are all about winners and losers, who is up and who is down. Here's a CNET look at the winners and losers in the 2012 election in which President Obama bested former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, from a tech perspective.

WINNERS

Nate Silver: The FiveThirtyEight forecaster's algorithms correctly calculated that on election day President Obama had a nearly 92-percent chance of winning, and accurately projected the voting outcome in 49 states (Florida has not yet been called).

Read: Obama's win a big vindication for Nate Silver, king of the quants

Big data: Many, especially … Read more

Twitter came out with a bunch of stats for Election Day 2012 and boasted that amid a steady and fast stream of tweets, the service managed to keep going strong.

All told, people sent more than 31 million election-related Tweets, according to a blog post by VP of Infrastructure Mazen Rawashdeh called "Bolstering our infrastructure." He said Twitter tracked the surge in election-related tweets at 327,452 tweets per minute (TPM).

"These numbers reflect the largest election-related Twitter conversation during our 6 years of existence," he wrote, "though they don't capture the total volume … Read more

Shortly after President Obama won re-election last night, a simple photo of the president embracing his wife was posted on his Facebook page. Just a few hours later, and with apologies to Gangnam Style, Justin Bieber, and adorable kittens worldwide, that shot became the most "liked" photo ever on Facebook.

At the moment, it's been liked over 3.1 million times, and the number is still climbing.

The same photo was also posted to the president's Twitter account last night, and quickly smashed Twitter records for the most retweets. At the moment it's been retweeted … Read more