Wake up - it's the last day!

Due to the venue change for Obama's speech this evening, this morning looks a lot like day 1 and day 2. Without throngs of people coming in from across the state, region and country, Charlotte will surely be a little more quiet than expected.
Keep an eye on Twitter today. Even without the thousands of people flocking to Charlotte with community credentials, it's bound to be a busy and exciting final day of the DNC.

Daily Show pokes fun at Charlotte, Democrats

The Daily Show is taping its show in Charlotte during the DNC. Needless to say, Jon Stewart and his correspondents have been having some fun with the Queen City.

 Here are the episodes from the last couple of nights. What do you think of the jokes about Charlotte?

There are a lot of people having some fun with the convention. Here is some of the best humor from Twitter from Wednesday.

Miss last night's speeches? YouTube can help

YouTube's politics channel is streaming and saving the speeches from the Democratic National Convention. Here are Tuesday night's speeches by San Antonio mayor Julian Castro and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Google-owned streaming website also has speeches from last week's Republican National Convention and other political videos at youtube.com/politics.

#DNC2012 reaches 3 million tweets in first night

More than 3 million tweets have already used the hashtag #DNC2012, Twitter announced Tuesday night.

With the Democratic National Convention gearing to start Day 2, the hashtag is primed to surpass the 4 million total #GOP2012 tweets from last week's Republican National Convention.

Twitter also announced that First Lady Michelle Obama's speech drew 28,003 tweets per minute at its peak, toward the end of her remarks. That's nearly double Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's peak of 14,289 tweets per minute during his acceptance speech in Tampa, Fla., Thursday. The State of the Union (#SOTU) peaked at14,131 tweets per minutes when adjusted for Twitter user growth, the company said.

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the DNC's keynote speaker Tuesday, peaked at 11,503 tweets per minutes. Twitter says that's more than every #GOP2012 speaker not named Mitt Romney.

Equal pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter had the highest peak of any speaker at either convention not in the 10 p.m. hour, when the major networks carry the speeches.

For more Twitter political analytics, visit Twitter's blog or follow @Gov.

We'll continue to comb through the thousand of #DNC2012 tweets, so follow us at @dnc2012clt.

Google opens its DNC home base. A Charlotte company is behind the design

Google's home for the Democratic Convention is located at the corner of Tryon and Third streets in uptown Charlotte. Photos by Sergio Tovar

By Sergio Tovar and Corey Inscoe

There was a lot of speculation when shipping crates started to go up on the parking lot on the corner of Third and Tryon streets in uptown Charlotte last week. Because of the familiar color scheme, Google was quickly speculated to be behind the structure.

Google ended the mystery Monday, when it opened the doors to its home during the Democratic National Convention. The facility offers free wifi to the public as well as plenty of sofas and chairs to sit and relax. The air-conditioned tent offers much-needed relief from Charlotte's heat and humidity. Google Bytes, a refreshment bar at the site, features soft drinks, iced coffee and other beverages.

A local company was behind the structure. Boxman Studios, started in Charlotte in 2008 by David Campbell, specializes in recycling shipping containers for hospitality, housing, mobile classrooms and other uses.

Boxman Studios built a structure for Google at the TED Conference in Long Beach, Calif., this spring. Campbell said he started talking with Google about creating a structure for the Democratic National Convention soon after.

Conversations continued through the summer and Boxman Studios finally got the green light to build the structure about a month before the DNC.

"It was a great opportunity for us to partner with them again," said Campbell. "They chose us to help them create the environment they were looking for."

Boxman Studios worked with production company MKG to design the structure, which Campbell said was one of the largest the company has done. The structure was then fabricated Boxman Studios' Charlotte warehouse.

"We always try to push ourselves and try to do something unique," he said.

Campbell said the company had to keep the project a secret for the last month and was happy to reveal it to the public Monday.

"With a partner like Google, you just hope that we can help make this week special for Charlotte and Google," said Campbell. "I think it's going to be an iconic place for people to gather." 

There were also several interactive displays at Google's tent as well as televisions showing coverage of the convention and a studio.

Google set up charging stations, but only for Android phones. Sorry, iPhone fans.

And you can also get a chance to see one of Google's self-driving cars outside the tent.

Google's uptown home will be open Monday until 6 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Google Bytes operates from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. It will open Thursday at 10 a.m.

After the convention, Boxman Studios will break down the structure and take it back to its warehouse in Charlotte to be repurposed for future projects.

Pundits discuss North Carolina

Gary Nielson talked to political analysts Charlie Cook and David Gergen Monday after a panel discussing the release of the Elon Poll.

Cook runs the The Cook Political Report and is an analyst for the National Journal and NBC. Gergen, the director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of public service at Harvard's Kennedy School, is an editor-at-large for U.S. News and World Report as well as a CNN analyst.

Media party takes over social media

With the official start of the Democratic National Convention only a few days away, local and national media were welcomed to Charlotte Saturday night at a party held at the N.C. Music Factory.

The media dominated the #DNC2012 hashtag and even created one of their own - #cltnerdprom - during the event.

Tweets beckon Democrats to Charlotte

Charlotte staged a hijacking of sorts on Twitter yesterday, one organizers hope will help convince the Democratic National Convention to come to the Queen City in 2012. The idea came from Desiree Kane, director of community over at CLTBlog. With the city suffering from teacher layoffs and bank cutbacks, she figured the convention's multi-million economic impact would be just what Charlotte needs.

She came up with the idea for a Twitter “hashtag party,” where Charlotte Twitterers would, from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday, effectively hijack the hashtags Democratic National Committee members use in their Tweets. (For non-Twitterers, a hashtag is a keyword attached to the end of a Tweet, preceeded by the “#” symbol).

Members of the DNC, which is holding its summer meeting in St. Louis today, often use #DNC and #DNC10, so she and her collaborators urged local Twitterers to send out tweets including those hashtags and saying good things about Charlotte. They also added their own local hashtag, #CLT2012, so Charlotte folks could track the local tweets. Some 500 people got involved, Kane said last night. Search for #CLT2012 on Twitter, and you'll find, amid official-sounding DNC tweets about delegate selection rules and regional caucus meetings, a bunch of cheeky posts about the awesomeness of Charlotte. Among the reasons tweeted: salted caramel brownies 24 hours a day, great barbecue and 20 Chik-Fil-A restaurants.

The DNC won’t pick its city until later this year – Charlotte is vying against St. Louis, Minneapolis and Cleveland – but Kane feels good about the effort. “All I did was provide the vehicle, and the Charlotte Twitter community took hold of it,” she said. “It was an unbelievably positive outpouring of affection for Charlotte.”

For more info on Charlotte's bid, go to http://cltblog.com/series/clt2012 or the official site driving Charlotte's bid, http://charlottein2012.com.