• Italy | "Internet is freedom": Lawrence Lessig at the Chamber of Deputies
  There were high expectations for Lawrence Lessig's lecture at the Chamber of Deputies yesterday afternoon during the event "Internet is freedom". Some days before, the organizers asked people to tweet about the theme of the conference: the chosen hashtag was #difenderelarete, a reference to some recent bills attempting to limitate freedom of expression on the web. There were thousands of tweets and even more during the speech, making the topic the most popular of the day in Italy.
  But, apparently, mainstream media still don't get it: the lecture was preceded by a speech of the President of the Chamber, praising the Internet as a force of peace and innovation, and that is the only part of the conference that has made it to the news so far.

• Spain | We can fix this only together...with or without you?
  In the past days the Spanish Chamber of Commerce launched an initiative to raise the confidence of citizens affected by the economic crisis. The campaign is called "Esto solo lo arreglamos entre todos" ("We can fix this only together") and it is willing to be "the biggest social therapy of the history", in the words of Susana Diaz, one of the consultant working on the project. The campaign consists of a website and several ads by both anonymous citizens and celebrities (the ad campaign costed 4 millions, according to Expansión).
  But so far it has not been well received by lots of citizens who felt betrayed by this sort of sharing responsibilities: on Facebook it is easy to find groups protesting against the campaign, with several hundreds of fans each. The protesters complain that the campaign is opportunist and demagogic, even creating a website called "We can fix this only *without them"*" to send "a message loud and clear to the organizers of the ad campaign and the state: we are not the problem.".
  (thanks to Anna Bellorbì)

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When gas prices skyrocketed last year, so too did Google searches for “hybrid car,” “solar panel,” and “cfl.”

As Wall Street crumbled, people clicked for information on “financial crisis,” “depression,” and “bailout.”

Were you a part of that discussion?

In the 2008 election cycle, the Obama campaign may have won the most accolades for its online campaign strategy -- but it was the team behind McCain’s campaign who out-Googled the competition from the start. (Though as Wired and others noted, it wasn’t long before other politicians caught on.)

Join us this Thursday, June 11th at the PdF Network, where internet strategist Eric Frenchman will share lessons learned from the McCain campaign's online ad program, for which he and his team won the American Association of Political Consultants’ award for Best Use of New Technology.

To join the call (and get the opportunity to pose your questions directly to Eric), you’ll need to join the PdF Network.