Late night internet traffic in the UK skyrockets on election night

election-iplayer.png

Statistics just published by ISP Plusnet reveal that online TV viewing on the night of the American presidential election hit more than treble its usual levels. It’s the first US election to have been available to millions using the BBC’s iPlayer software.

Between 2 and 3am, Plusnet says that the viewing figures were double what they normally are, but by 5 to 6am, they were more than triple. There were also rises in the amount of TV streaming between 8am and 11am the following day, presumably as people watched back the victory and concession speeches.

Plusnet

Related posts: O’Malley’s Mashup: Prepare for election night! | 5 ways Obama used technology to win the White House

If the world could vote in the American election, who would they pick?

if-the-world-could-vote.jpg

Given that the American presidency is the closest thing we’ve got to a “President of the World”, people around the globe care dearly about who gets elected to the White House. If you’re stuck in another country without a vote, you can only pray that the independent voters of America choose to endorse the same candidate that you like.

To give you some sense of participation, however, a website’s sprung up to try and find out who would win the election if the entire world could vote. It’s called, appropriately, “If the world could vote!”…

Zunes for Democrats and Republicans

democrat-zunes.png

Just to rub it in your face that you can’t get a Zune in the UK yet, and following the Joy Division Zune, the team at Microsoft behind the world’s third favourite MP3 player have launched some special-edition Zunes for “Green Delegates” at the USA’s Democratic national convention. These are delegations who “demonstrate the highest level of commitment to offsetting their carbon footprint from attending the convention”…