BusinessWeek says the 2008 contest for the White House should go down in history as "the first social media election," because sites like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace played an "unprecedented role" in determining the outcome, especially compared to 2004, when most social networks "were just getting off the blocks." YouTube, for example, wasn't even founded until the following year, while MySpace and Facebook only had a fraction of the traffic they have now in 2004. Many voters used these social networks to celebrate the voting process. For example, Facebook users took pictures of themselves voting using their camera phones …

Following the dissolution of Yahoo's search partnership with Google, BoomTown writer Kara Swisher, who is not one to mince her words, proclaims that Yahoo is now "in the midst of a very serious resetting of its business that might or might not go well, after years of mismanagement and damaging external forces over which it sometimes had control and sometimes not." She very seriously questions whether the company's current leadership is up to the task of reviving the flagging Web giant, but concedes that this is irrelevant since CEO Jerry Yang will not be stepping down. Investor activist Carl Icahn …

"In hindsight, we are all geniuses and simpletons," says Om Malik at GigaOm, it's just a matter of how history passes judgment on us, he says, adding that it doesn't look like history will be all that kind to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Yang may have inherited "the unenviable job of rescuing the company he co-founded," but in the year-and-a-half since reclaiming the role as CEO, he hasn't exactly steered the sinking ship back on course. Refusing to accept Microsoft's $33 per share offer earlier this year ranks highest on the list of Yang's high-profile blunders. Since then, the …

Time Warner on Wednesday beat Wall Street estimates with stronger than expected third quarter profits, but the news at its AOL Web portal wasn't quite so rosy. The media giant reported overall net income of $1.07 billion, or 30 cents a share, which was roughly in line with the $1.09 billion, or 29 cents per share, it recorded during the same period last year. However, advertising revenue at AOL fell for the first time since the unit's 2004 conversion to a free, ad-supported Web portal. Revenues fell 6% after going flat for the first half of the year. The …

Cnet asks how a Barack Obama presidency will affect technology policy, and the answers are both good and bad. On the plus side for independent Web publishers, Obama has a record of supporting network neutrality, which prohibits Internet service providers from charging Web publishers for guaranteeing faster traffic delivery. He is also planning on appointing a sort of "chief technology officer" for the government, and has a long list of promising backers from big tech companies, including Google executives Eric Schmidt and Vint Cerf. On the controversial issue of copyright, Obama has said, "we need to update and reform …

Few would dispute that Barack Obama ran a brilliant campaign to become the 44th President of the United States. A huge part of that strategy revolved around galvanizing his supporter base through the Internet. As Wired's writer Sarah Lai Stirland says, "Obama's online success dwarfed his opponent's, and proved key to his winning the presidency." By the end of his campaign, Obama raised a record-breaking $600 million from more than 3 million people. Many donated through the Web. A social networking site called myBarackObama.com, which allowed people to create groups around social and geographical affinities, registered some 1.5 million …

In an attempt to prevent further corporate fraud, Congress implemented the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 after accounting irregularities proved to be the undoing of Enron, WorldCom and other big firms. However, some say these changes have not been for the better, contributing to what has been a decidedly soft market for initial public offering in the six years since SarbOx was introduced. In an op-ed appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and David W. Kralik say that Congress should now take the opportunity to repeal the law, especially since the economy is fast moving toward …

Google and Yahoo announced this morning that they are abandoning attempts to overcome the objections of antitrust regulators and customers who believed the search alliance would give Google too much power over online commerce. It's another setback for Yahoo, which had been counting on the deal to boost its annual revenue by $800 million and placate shareholders still incensed by management's decision to reject a $47.5 billion takeover bid from Microsoft Corp. nearly six months ago. Without Google's help, Yahoo now may feel more pressure to renew talks with Microsoft and ultimately sell for a price well below the $33 …