With the 2012 campaign expected to cost candidates well over a billion dollars, it’s no surprise that companies that count on advertising are angling to get a slice of that huge pie. Twitter is one of them, and plans to market its advertising services to the campaigns thanks to a key hire of a former political marketing executive from Google.

Twitter told Politico that it plans to sell ads through features such as promoted tweets and trends. At least five campaigns have already signed on to the new offering, including Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign. Twitter declined to specify the other participants.

One thing it will not do is insert ads within user’s timeline, a new advertising option that it has been experimenting with over the past few months. It also plans to differentiate a political ad from a standard one: the ad will carry a small purple checkmark.

You won’t see the standard “I approve this message” tag on tweets. Twitter won’t display them directly with the tweet, however hovering over the tweet would show who purchased the advertising if the campaign decides to disclose it. (It should be obvious anyway, since the ads would direct to a URL or Twitter account where the identity would be disclosed, I’d guess).

I wonder if like TV and radio, Twitter will become a sea of political ads in the days before an election, with the candidates sniping at each other continuously. Let’s hope not.

The app pushes just about every possible stereotype possible: images of a rickety truck packed with people speeding across the desert countryside. Better watch out: drive too recklessly and people may be ejected from the truck bed –maybe even a newborn baby.

You’ll get a Green Card for completing your mission and getting people across the border safely, although the game gives the “Smuggler’s Run” award for the most reckless driving that still gets a minimum of one individual across. The Boston-based Owlchemy Labs describes the game as “hilarious physics-based driving gameplay while trying to transport your cargo over the border.” Is the company serious?

While developer Alex Schwartz argues the app was built out of frustration with the US immigration system through his friend’s own experiences,  I question how appropriate it is to create a game making fun of  a serious subject in this country right now. As the New York Immigration Coalition points out, 170 people died crossing the border illegally last year.

The NYIC and others have criticized Owlchemy for creating what they find as a racist and tasteless app. Some commenters to the developers Facebook page are a little more blunt. “Apparently the cre(h)ators of smuggle truck think entire families and babies being wiped out makes for ‘entertainment’ and is worthy of being satirized,” Milo Alvarez wrote.

The ball is now in the court of the app store gatekeepers like Apple. Will they allow this one through too, just as they left the equally digusting “Baby Shaker” app through, and several others over the past few years? I guess we’ll find out. I do think the line needs to be drawn on what is satire and what is in bad taste–and Smuggle Truck is just a step too far.

In Egypt, the Mubarak regime shut down the Internet in the country in an effort to curtail the organization efforts of anti-government protesters. That hasn’t worked too well, and Internet connections were restored in the country this morning. The effort seems to have shone new light on “kill switch” efforts here.

Senators behind the bill–Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman, Maine’s Susan Collins, and Delaware’s Tom Carper–aren’t too happy with the Egypt comparisons. “We would never sign on to legislation that authorized the President, or anyone else, to shut down the Internet,” they said in a joint statement. ”Emergency or no, the exercise of such broad authority would be an affront to our Constitution.”

The president already has the authority to shut down radio communications providers, but the laws are vague. The senators argue more specificity is need to prevent abuses of this power. Second, they point out that the president could only authorize such actions in the most extreme of circumstances — while still being mindful the action is not violating free speech rights.

Either way, Mubarak’s actions have put the three Senator’s efforts in a bad light. While the bill may have good intentions, I don’t see the necessity for such action. Plus if worse comes to worse, the government is going to do what it needs to do, law or not.

What are your feelings on giving the government such power? Is it a wise idea to have some type of way to shut things down in an attack, or is a case of government overreach? I’d be interested in hearing from you, and I’m sure there is going to be diversity of opinion on this one.

In the Senate, the correlation appears even more strong: in the 34 races in which a winner had been declared, 28 of them also won the Facebook friends rate. Such evidence may point to the increasing power of social networking when it comes to voter outreach, and more importantly “GOTV” (Get Out The Vote) efforts.

While I used Facebook in my own run for local office — it was such a tiny sample that I can’t really speak from experience that it actually worked to help me win. What I can say is that I certainly believe my online presence — even for a hyperlocal political office like borough councilman — certainly helped me to get the word out.

Either way, in an age where political campaigns are becoming ever more expensive, and probably even more so in the wake of the Citizens United decision, GOTV efforts through social networking become a quick and inexpensive way of getting the word out.

The United Arab Emirates were the first to ban the devices, saying it would shut down service in October. The ban would not extend to other devices, since their digital communications pass over the open Internet. Saudi Arabia was next, who is threatening to shut off service this Friday.

Since then the list of countries with similar concerns has grown to include Kuwait, India, Indonesia, and today extended to Lebanon. While none of the countries are yet moving to ban the BlackBerry, all are asking RIM to open up.

Some have regional concerns — such as displeasure at the fact that all BlackBerry traffic is routed back to its main datacenter in Canada — but it comes back to security. The spat also puts RIM in a bad position: does it acquiesce to government demands in the name of staying in business in these countries, or stand firm on keeping its customers communications secret?

For now, the company is fighting back. It’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis slammed countries that were pressuring it, claiming everything on the Internet was encrypted. “If they can’t deal with the Internet, they should shut it off.”

Certainly sounds to me like they have no intention of complying. While I tend to agree that RIM shouldn’t be an open book for anyone, these governments have a point. All of these countries have a similar problem, and that’s either extremist or terrorist activity. If these folks know that they’ll be protected by RIM’s security measures, where do you think they will communicate?

Now, ground rules would need to be set of course. But sooner or later its going to come to a point where the pressure is going to be too great for RIM to ignore it. Might as well open up now, under your own terms.

In addition to listing the pages of these members, the page’s wall is filled with stories on how members are using Facebook, as well as highlighting technology legislation that is passing through Congress.

So you may ask, who are the most popular members of Congress? Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota leads the House with 29,000 fans, while in the Senate Democrats Mark Udall of Colorado and Claire McCaskill of Missouri lead with about 4,000 fans apiece.

You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter.  And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — (laughter) — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.  So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.

Class of 2010, this is a period of breathtaking change, like few others in our history.  We can’t stop these changes, but we can channel them, we can shape them, we can adapt to them.

I get the the part about the 24/7 media environment and being bombarded with information. But what’s this about information as “a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment?” Mr. President, that’s been true of much of what claims to be information for as long as there’s been mass media. (Random example: The New York Graphic in the 1920s.)

Lumping the iPod, the iPad, the Xbox, and the PlayStation together doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The Xbox and PlayStation aren’t about information-as-entertainment–they’re about entertainment, period. The iPod is mostly music, just like everything from the Walkman to the Victrola. Unless you’re referring to the iPod Touch, in which case you’re essentially talking about a tinier iPad.

And the iPad reference is the one that really threw me. Like a book or a magazine, an iPad is a receptacle for content–content that can be informative, distracting, diverting, entertaining, right or wrong. And at the moment, at least, virtually no content is iPod-specific–it’s the same stuff we’re consuming on PCs–and, oftentimes, in books, magazines, and newspapers. In what sense does it put new pressure on graduating seniors, the country, or the democracy?

As an information device, the iPad isn’t much more than the Internet in a convenient portable form. The Internet isn’t perfect, but some of us think it’s been a boon to the nation, and the best tool yet for informed citizens.

Reading too much into one commencement address is a mistake–especially given the odds that the words were written by an uncredited speechwriter. But when elected officials (of any political persuasion) carp about the media (of any sort) it leaves me unsettled. And though it’s unlikely that the president will grant an interview to Technologizer anytime soon, I’d love to see somebody ask him to clarify his thoughts.

If this is the case, we should be quite concerned that this court just doesn’t have the knowleddge to accurately rule on what is likely to become an ever-increasingly tech-heavy caseload as high-tech works even further into the fabric of our lives.

Here’s just some of the surprisingly basic questions asked by justices, according to DC Dicta:

Chief Justice John Roberts, who has written out his opinions with pen and paper: “What is the difference between e-mail and a pager?”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, failing to understand the basic concept of a text message: “[If messages are sent simultaneously], does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?’”

Justice Antonin Scalia, asking about those sexts: “Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?”

If our highest court cannot grasp the most basic concepts of technology, I highly question how they could provide fair judgments on any matter involving tech. This makes me very nervous.

We cannot completely blame the Court for its failings. Most of the justices are over the age of 70. However, at the same time, you need to stay current when you’re in a position to make decisions that affect the entire country.

President Obama is going to have to select a new justice very soon. Let’s hope the one he picks at least knows what e-mail is.