Update: mass media now confirming. Signing off for the weekend — heading to a wedding.
Does Wikipedia know something we don’t? Check out the first few lines of the online encyclopedia’s entry on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:
Sarah Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska, and a member of the Republican Party. She is the first female governor of Alaska, its youngest, and is the first governor born after Alaska achieved statehood. Brought to statewide attention because of her whistleblowing on ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders,[1] she won election in 2006 by first defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary, then a former Democratic Alaskan governor in the general election.
She is the Republican vice presidential candidate for the November 2008 election. [emphasis added]
Hmmm, is somebody over there trying to tell us something? Or just testing text and accidentally letting it out in public? Thanks to NPR for the tip. BTW, nothing similar on Mitt Romney’s Wikipedia page, for what it’s worth.
– cpd
August 29th, 2008
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Ah, the ripple effect of online communications — during Mark Warner’s speech Tuesday night, I popped the following message out to Twitter, properly tagged #DNC08 so that the content aggregators could put it into the stream with all the other messages about the convention:
Diggin’ me some Mark Warner. Science! (poetry in motion)
Yes, Twitter is definitely a medium for serious reflections on the matters of the day, I tell you what — I mean, if you can’t say it in 140 characters, why say it at all? And Sarah Lia Stirland over at Wired News picked up on my post and several others and collected them as evidence of a strong response to Warner’s comments about science. Nice! Just doing my part to make the world just a little safer for geeks, nerds and other reason-lovers. While keeping the flame of Thomas Dolby alive for one more day….
– cpd
August 28th, 2008
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This piece was written early in July for inclusion in the E-Voter Institute’s 7th Annual Survey of Political and Advocacy Communications Leaders and 3rd Annual Survey of Voter Expectations. Incorporated into Harnessing the Power of Social Networks: Campaign 2008 Taps into the Virtual Grid, one of three reports tied to the survey results, it’s reprinted here by permission of the Institute. More about the reports. Cross-posted on techPresident.
Online Social Networks in Politics: Promise, Frustration and…
July 6, 2008
Is 2008 the MySpace/Facebook election? You might think so from the political attention and resources invested in online social networks in the past year or so. The top presidential campaigns all amassed much-chronicled lists of hundreds of thousands of “friends” on MySpace and Facebook, and the Obama and McCain campaigns also invested in custom social networks for supporters early on (MyBarackObama has built to hundreds of thousands of members, while McCain’s equivalent never hit critical mass and died when his overall campaign first imploded in the middle of 2007).
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August 27th, 2008
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In which we look through the results of a couple of weeks’ worth of email discussions, Google Alerts and suggestions from friends and readers, plus some random browsing.
- Update: Blogger + NokiaN95 + Qik = New, Critical Journalism? Or, More of the Same?
- Update: Online dirty tricks may mar U.S. elections, via Shaun Dakin.
- Update: Is the Devonian Chattanooga Shale Really a Volcanic Ash-Fall Deposit? Dissecting and demolishing a piece of creation “science,” via a loyal reader (thanks Dad!).
- Update: Political Coverage That’s All a-Twitter.
- New DNC Ads for Obama Turn Up in Red Light District Online. Nice! See the actual banners at Ad of the Day.
- Rednecks for Obama? My people! And now we know who those Obama ads are trolling for…
- Democratic Convention: Twitterers Gush Over Michelle Obama. C.f. Watch Me! Watch Me! at the DNC.
- Weak Web Promotion Surrounding Dem and GOP Conventions. Note quotes from The Good Doktor Rosenblatt and tPrez’s Micah Sifry.
- Put the conventions in context with a little essential reading (don’t miss Mencken).
- Who’s the Biggest Hypocrite on the 527 Block? Apparently, MoveOn.org.
- Obama’s Text: Message Received, With a Few Garbles. C.f. The Obama Txt: Lessons for Campaigners and Subtext, in which Chris Beam maybe reads a little too much into the timing.
- From YouTube to Text Messaging, Candidate’s Team Connects to Voters. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check Jose Antonio Vargas’s look at Obama’s web staff.
- 82 Days and Counting. Why campaigns feel like they never have enough time.
- GOP Video Site Targets Obama, Using Democrats’ Words.
- CNN Producer Pitched ‘Video Strategy’ to Obama Campaign, Got Job. Newsbusters sees librul media conspiracy.
- Nonprofit Distributes File Sharing Propaganda to 50,000 U.S. Students. Now in handy graphic novel form!
- Social Media and the Newton Election. Local is where it’s at, baby. C.f. Local sheriff takes on bloggers, finds himself outgunned, loses election.
- Online the Party is Over (if you’re Welsh). C.f. How tech-savvy is your MP?
- The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics.
- How I Almost Lost my Domain. Via Ha-Hoa Hamano. C.f. Who owns that domain? and United Airlines pilots attack United CEO Glenn Tilton with his own domain name.
- How “Janet” Fooled the Twittersphere [into thinking] She’s the Voice of Exxon Mobil.
- Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks in Georgia. Via Mark Stephenson.
- Re-Inventing the Letter to the Editor.
- 4 websites that failed.
- Email’s hidden superpower. C.f. Peter Horan on email’s role in the future of advertising.
- Quote of the week: “My normal working practice if something doesn’t work is to add more Lego stormtroopers.” Lego Tableaus Re-Create Classic Photos.
- Great moments in advertising. Hey kids, engineering is better than sex! Really! Via Brad Terrell.
- Wishing you a belated Happy 2nd Macaca Day!!!!.
- Weird globalization moment of the week: Czech Bluegrass.
- “Cool project, what CMS did you guys use?”
- Beyond YouTube, Video Puts Users at the Center of the Campaign.
- Political Landscape 2008 — nice use of Flash to present layered information.
- Teen texts way to a spot in national championship. Via Danielle Kriz.
- Barackbook.com reviewed.
- Polihood: New political community site. Via Selena Shilad.
- Oh, Go On. A #dontgo reference, get it?
- Google Tests Ads Across YouTube Mobile.
- DSCC Road to Victory. Via Riché Zamor.
- 7 ways SEO consultants rip off their clients.
- Ten Commandments of Twitter. Via Deborah Elizabeth Finn.
- Online game Second Life hasn’t gotten a first one during this presidential campaign. C.f. One-Hour Abortion Clinic Opens In Second Life Mall. Oh dear.
- Protesters Evade Censors in Blogging Olympics Dark Side.
- Use of technology in the 2008 Obama-McCain contest.
- “Blogwars” at the Internet Advocacy Roundtable.
- Egocentric vs. Object Centric Networks: I Think I Know the Problem With Ning. Via Holly Ross.
- The X Factor: The sex factor. Sure it’s a marketing column, but check out the conjunction of the author photo and the title.
- Contribute something to the One Web Day time capsule.
- McCain “invented the Federal do not call registry”?
- How Google Dominates Online Politics, Part 2. The great equalizer.
- 6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy. Via Kevin Gottesman.
- ChangeBlogging: Let the Meme Begin.
- Is Something Rotten at Apple?
- A summation of the current state of political news on cable television.
- And remember kids, it’s all fun and games until we go a joke too far: HSUS has created a MySpace page for a baby harp seal — wanna see if he’s up for going clubbing later?
– cpd
August 26th, 2008
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Are you stuck in DC, feeling just a little Left Behind by The Rapture in Denver? Too many of your friends partying, protesting, working or just hanging around at the Democratic National Convention? Fear not! Everyone else in town may have been invited into Heaven, but those of us Left Behind can enjoy the world and its pleasures right here at hand, while still viewing the Second Coming of the Democratic Party via razor-sharp television technology. It’s time for a:
“Left Behind” Happy Hour
- Where: The Reef, main floor or roofdeck (your choice)
- When: This Thursday, starting at 6 pm
- What: Happy Hour, plus we can watch the Convention on the big tv on the main floor when it starts
- What to Bring: Yourself + any others Left Behind
- What to Expect: Excellent beers + happy hour prices, yummy sustainable/free-range/organic menu, live nude fish (on the main floor)
Hard to beat a spontaneous happy hour, folks. See y’all there! [Note: For the Facebook inclined, a Very Special link.]
– cpd
August 26th, 2008
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Read Scott Martin has already picked up on the first Obama/Biden online display ad, which started running on Time.com at 5 Eastern this morning — only two hours after the veep announcement went out over text. Read cheekily describes it as “toothy,” but hey, these guys are going into a week in which they’re likely to have a lot to smile about. Get ready for lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures like the ones below.
– cpd
August 23rd, 2008
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Want to see how rapid response works in a modern political setting? Take a look at this front-page article in today’s Post, because the Obama campaign’s reply to John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he owns is a masterful example. Step 1: like the Boy Scouts, Be Prepared:
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August 22nd, 2008
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Q: How do you get two million people to donate to your campaign? A: Start with 1,999,999…. (Related joke: what’s the easiest way to get a small fortune? Start with a big one.). Seriously, last week the Obama campaign employed a classic fundraising strategy by picking a close and achievable goal and then pushing supporters to reach it. In this case, the campaign knew they would hit the two million donor mark very soon, and they used that big round number as a prod to get even more people both to donate and to match others’ contributions.
Using milestones to pry donations out of people is a tactic as old as dirt, but that takes nothing away from its effectiveness. Supporters will receive near-instant reinforcement in the form of a message announcing that the goal has been met and we’re all winners, etc. etc. Sure, it’s transparently manipulative in a salesman sort-of-way, but it works! Yet another reminder that very few online tactics are truly new.
– cpd
August 22nd, 2008
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Yep, he wants me to know so much that he finally broke down my resistance and forced me to give him my cell number. Dammit! I hate falling for an obvious list-building ploy. Yes, the idea of alerting supporters at the same time as the media fits the “yes we can” message, and indeed it’s a great example of technology disintermediating the political system (who needs reporters when we can get the message directly from the campaign?). But it’s also a clever way to add names to an already impressive database, and one that has yielded a ton of “earned” (i.e., free) media coverage. For the umpteenth time this election cycle: nice work, Obamans.
– cpd
August 21st, 2008
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Summer slow-time, where did you go — this August has been BUSY. The latest project? Assist Paula Brantner at Workplace Fairness as she rebrands and relaunches the organization’s blog, which she’s overseen in one way or another since 2003(!). Paula’s been working with Turner Strategies on the organization’s overall online strategy, and I got the call-in to design the blog based on Turner sketches, and then build out the new version in Wordpress and optimize it for effective marketing. The result is below, and though we barely made the deadline, it survived a potential shredding at Tuesday’s NetSquared “Pimp My Nonprofit” session without harm.
Some observations: doing a custom Wordpress template is NOTHING like building one out in Joomla — by comparison, Wordpress is an intuitive joy. Yes, Joomla lets you do a lot more, but it’ll also drive you to drink and/or violence. If Wordpress had a “frontpage” module and a more robust way to handle static pages, you could easily use it produce sites that have a blog but aren’t *just* a blog. In that case, it’d really give Joomla, Drupal, et al, a run for their money for smaller sites.
– cpd
August 21st, 2008
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Here’s an interesting approach to contacting voters by email, via Charles Lenchner of DemocracyInAction, who thought of it while doing volunteer work for a city council candidate in NYC. Several companies will take a database of voter names and physical addresses (which candidates can get from the state parties) and do an “email append” to add email addresses for as many people on the list as possible. The emails come from consumer databases and they’re typically available for 15-20% of names on a given list.
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August 16th, 2008
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Below are resources for the Craigslist Foundation 2008 Nonprofit Boot Camp in NYC. The topic? Online Communications On A Shoestring. The presenters? E.politics (hey kids!) and Laura S. Quinn of Idealware. Questions? Drop me a line. Update: here’s the PowerPoint.
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August 15th, 2008
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It’s been a little crazy here in the e.politics bunker the past couple of days, with heavy incoming fire (i.e., clients) requiring the sternest of all possible responses (i.e., large invoices), but we can’t possibly let Wednesday’s IPDI book discussion get away without notice. What a terrific group! And a good mix, too — a couple of professors, some grad students, several nonprofit advocacy types, some communications consultants, at least one political advertising dude and even a random intern or two.
The questions were terrific, the back-and-forth kicked ass, and overall we turned it into a real discussion, ranging from why political ads suck to the demographics of nonprofit advocacy groups to the enduring power of cute kittens on the internet. Not bad for lazy August afternoon! I think we raised the bar for future IPDI book discussions — Julie, consider the gauntlet thrown down most decisively.
– cpd
August 15th, 2008
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Hey kids, don’t forget tomorrow’s lunchtime discussion of Online Politics 101 at IPDI — the room is apparently full-up, but a couple of folks usually flake at the last minute, so contact Julie Germany if you’re not on The List already. If you’re coming, bring your A game — this is going to be a real conversation, and I’ll be armed with questions for YOU. And maybe a sixpack, depending on my mood in the morning….
– cpd
August 12th, 2008
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Watch the two clips below and see if you agree: when the professional ad makers take on the distributed, collective intelligence of the internet, the ad guys risk losing. Here’s what I mean: McCain’s video folks are clearly very talented, in that they can craft an effective ad in a very short time. They have to — turnaround for a political spot in a fierce battle is less than a day if you want to answer your opponent in time to catch the media wave. But what they produce is still just a standard political ad, with the usual imagery, the usual music and the usual “I’m great and my opponent sucks” messaging.
But combine the ‘net with cheap cameras and easy video-editing software, and millions of people can produce video clips, most of which will of course stink. But with so many monkeys banging away on keyboards, something good is likely to emerge — and many of those monkeys are also video professionals with experience and skills in the medium. So let’s look at this week’s evidence and draw some conclusions:
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August 8th, 2008
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So, yesterday I did my first live TV appearance, on Sky News (big in the UK and Commonwealth, apparently). By now I’ve done several radio appearances and plenty of web video, but never live TV, and I was nervous as a cat at the prospect.
One thing that took me by surprise — SkyNews is owned by Rupert Murdoch and shares space with Fox News, so when I showed up a little before the interview, I suddenly ended up in the realm of the Fair and Balanced. Was a little freaky. Thank god I had my “computer bag” with me, an ammunition bag with a big red star on it — a (play) rebel’s gotta REPRESENT!
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August 7th, 2008
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