Morning Links for July 8th, 2008

Good morning, all!  I had a great July 4th weekend, with my parents and my brother coming into town to visit me and Jess.  We had an excellent time going to the National Portrait Gallery, checking out the fireworks, and visiting the National Zoo.  Tai Shan the panda is all grown up now…still cute, but not quite as cute as, say, a baby panda. I’ll get a Flickr stream up soon!

With the weekend gone, I’m putting the focus back on work and, of course, the Internet.  I also picked up a copy of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, and it looks like a promising read.  I’ll have a review up soon, as well as some content that I’ve written up over the course of the weekend.

Here are a few articles that have gained my interest since I’ve gotten back on the grid:

1. New York Times: The Facebooker Who Friended Obama: An excellent article about a segment of Obama’s new media strategy. The takeaway quote: “You can have the best technology in the world but if you don’t have a community who wants to use it and who are excited about it, then it has no purpose.”

2. NBC: Olympics a new-media ‘research lab’: A fairly basic new report that’s interesting, but lacks some details. I’d love to know what exactly is being tested, no? New media might do the Olympics some good — but don’t they get tons of media attention already?  Is “new” media the key to success?

3. YouTube: Neil Young in Dublin Encore A Day in the Life: Neil Young does an amazing cover of The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” that’s really worth checking out. Both are two of my favorites.