Looks like Fec's gotten under a politico's skin. I don't know Perkins (or much about him) but if this is his typical reaction to being poked by someone who's obviously just having fun at his expense then I'd say he's probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

According to Garrett Graff the Obama campaigns decision to announce the VP choice by TXT is to enable them to capture thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) of cell numbers for their database, which will allow them to send get out the vote reminders on election day. Studies show that this will increase turnout by 4 percentage points at a cost of about $1.50 per vote vs. $20 or $30 per vote for print campaigns.

WIRED Executive Editor Kevin Kelly reveals an interesting stat in his TED Talk: the Web is only 5,000 days old. If you went back fourteen years and told someone what would arise in the next 5,000 days, most people would tell you that amount of growth was impossible. Wikipedia? Google? YouTube? Mental_Floss Blogs? Impossible! So Kelly asks: what’s going to happen in the next 5,000 days?

Found this post by Scoble on Rubel's post re. the thrill of discovery beating traditional PR in today's online market. What Scoble discovered was an online community for programmers that's in private beta right now, and people let him know how much they love it. Here's one comment he got via twitter: "Chris Benard: “@Scobleizer Here are a couple of screenshots I just took for you: http://is.gd/1nul and http://is.gd/1nuo ” and “@Scobleizer It’s an experts-exchange for programmers, without all the annoyances." This really grabbed me because I think that one valuable service that businesses can provide is a valuable community gathering area that protects the participants from the huddled masses. If I'm the creators I'd question ever making it totally open since one of the top value propositions is that it is exclusive for a core audience.

Steve Rubel ponders whether the "thrill of the chase" is making traditional PR obsolete. Put simply he sees that lots of people no longer want to be hand fed new product or service info, they want to find it themselves. So how do PR people adapt and help people find what they're selling yet making those same people feel like they've discovered it themselves?

What appear to be some legitimate questions about the anthrax investigation. Are the Feds using Bruce Ivins, the Ft. Detrick scientist and anthrax expert who killed himself, as a scape goat?

According to this post two years ago McClatchy valued its 49.5% stake in the Seattle Times newspaper at $102.2 million and now values it at $9.9 million. Ouch.

Links to tech companies featured in Wall Street Journal article. Companies provide services that allow small businesses to create their own video ads. My observation: just because companies have had access to desk top publishing software for, well forever, doesn't mean they should create their own print ads. Still, if you have some talent in your company then this is an inexpensive way to create your own video ads.

Local search a large opportunity, but some commenters ask "Where's the beef?" I agree it's a huge opportunity, but no one's figured out how to do it yet.