Rob Cottingham's blog | Social Signal

He's the most wired, with-it presidential candidate ever. My friends, join me in congratulating the social media president-elect: Barack Obama. 

And what would history be without a little cartooning in the margins?

Wow, it's hard to believe it's already been a year since we launched Green Gifts – the free virtual-gift-giving Facebook application we created for BC Hydro. That's a lot of water under the bridge (through the turbine? over the dam?) - this time last year, Hillary Clinton had a lock on the Democratic nomination, real estate was the can't-lose investment and the theme to Hockey Night in Canada was still the theme to Hockey Night in Canada.

There are a lot of smiles here at Social Signal's sprawling corporate headquarters. Two of our clients, BC Hydro and the happyfrog.ca Vancouver sustainability hub, just tied for second place in the Georgia Straight's annual "Best of Vancouver" awards.

The Canadian national election campaign is just under a week old, with five more weeks to go.

Just a quick note about our friends at Vancity: this summer, they launched a new wiki about microfinance. It's a terrific resource on the subject, and if you've been looking for a solid introduction to it - or if you have some expertise to contribute - be sure to drop by.

Regular readers will recall how excited I am that Noise to Signal is now running at ReadWriteWeb (a great source for news and insight about the business and technology of social media) and that RWW is now ranked number 9 in the whole freakin' blogospheriverse.

The CBC reports that Quebec's chief electoral officer is studying new rules on "cybercampaigning":

As the internet plays an increasingly important role in political campaigns and elections, rules and laws need to evolve in order to keep the playing field level, said Quebec elections director Marcel Blanchet.

You may well deal with user interface issues all the time - but have you ever handled one that had geopolitical implications?

Consider Google Analytics, the free web analysis tool that gives you an in-depth look at the people coming to your site and what they're doing there.

A little horn-tooting here, because I'm really excited about this: Noise to Signal, my cartoon about social media, has been picked up by the fine folks at ReadWriteWeb. Here's editor Richard MacManus' announcement: