Archive for December, 2006
So, this manatee walks into the Internet…
Burt Edwards, a man with his Finger on the Pulse, told me today about the whole Conan O’Brien/HornyManatee.com phenomenon, something that I’d completely missed — gotta start “spending” more time on Fark. Burt pointed out this Times article that lays it all out (and I do mean ALL out) and whose title I shamelessly ripped off for the first line of this article.
(more…)
December 12th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
My brief fling with Idealware has finally come to fruition — together, we have given birth to a brave new article about participatory media. What are we talking about? Tools like video sharing sites, blogs, social networking sites, social media and viral marketing — technologies that gain their value from the work of people acting with only minimal direction (or none at all) and often in large numbers. These bottom-up applications are generally lumped together under the “Web 2.0″ label, and to many of us they’re still wrapped in a bit of an air of voodoo even if we’ve used them before.
So, the Idealware folks and I put together a piece that looks at many of the basic participatory media tools, how you’re likely to use them in a nonprofit, advocacy or campaign environment, what resources they require and what you’re results you’re likely to get when you try them out. I provided the article’s basic structure, Idealware editor Laura Quinn filled in the gaps and untangled the most convoluted of my sentences, and outside editor Beth Kantor reviewed the whole thing and made some excellent additions. Check it out!
– cpd
December 12th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
- Adults Just Don’t Get the Instant Message. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes up a poll (not the first) that shows that younger folks are using IM as a replacement for email. Response #1: Whither email advocacy? Response #2: Damn kids, get off my lawn! Thanks to Burt Edwards for the tip.
- Tis The Season For E-Fundraising. The Agitator pulls together a bunch of good resources for getting the most out of your email fundraising.
- Blogs About Digital Politics. Alan Rosenblatt has made a list (and checked it twice) of his favorite blogs writing about online politics, including a couple that were new to me.
- Org2.0: What Every Smart Nonprofit Needs to Know [PDF]. According to marketing guru Seth Godin, “It’s a whole new Internet. Here are the six free things you can do right now to figure it out.” Not surprisingly, it features his own site, Squidoo, which I’ve been experimenting with and plan to write up soon. Via Getting Attention.
– cpd
December 11th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Sorry for the publishing hiatus — I’ve been finishing up an article for another website (yes, I’m cheating on you, but it’s with Idealware so it’s okay). Also, if you’re a subscriber to PoliticsOnline’s NetPulse newsletter (and you should be), you might have seen that the e.politics piece on the Macaca backstory got picked up for the December 6th edition’s Soundoff column. Woo hoo! We’re conquering the world, one website at a time — and just wait until that robot/kung fu army finishes training…
In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for non-imaginary potential world leaders, in this case the prospective 2008 Democratic presidential candidates. Todd Zeigler over at The Bivings Report has taken a look at what Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have done online so far, and he uses the results to extrapolate what we might expect from them over the next two years, presuming that they stay in the running. Who knew that Obama is a leading political podcaster, and that he’s not just recycling speeches? Todd will have more profiles next week, but this first installment is worth checking out.
– cpd
December 8th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
RootsCamp has stirred up quite a discussion on the web, with dozens of sites doing follow-up articles and many participants posting notes from individual discussion groups. Want to learn more? Go to the RootsCamp DC Notes wiki.
– cpd
.
December 6th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
As people realize their value as a communications tool, blogs are spreading to more and more places where they were initially resisted. At the rate things are going, the Western economy should shudder to a halt in, oh, about six months as we all stop doing anything but writing for blogs and reading what other people are saying about us — done in by our own reflexive narcissism.
Leading the way? Many corporate CEOs, according to an article by Michelle Quinn in the San Jose Mercury News. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was one of the first to become widely known for writing online, but others in the business world are following, including the head of Sun Microsystems and about 10% of his staff. Corporate bloggers are using their sites to provide backstory on products and business decisions as well as for damage control. They can also find out about customer problems via the sites’ comments. Quinn says:
(more…)
December 5th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
- Election 2006: People Powered Politics. MoveOn lets us know what you can do if you have 3.2 million motivatived volunteers. Turns out, a lot. Via Democracy in Action.
- In Personal Democracy Forum, Josh Levy has three reports from this past weekend’s Roots Camp, demonstrating excellent live-blogging technique (my competing note-taking kung fu style was all old-school pen and paper). You can read them here, here and here.
- If You’re Still Interested In The Blog Swarm…. In Beltway Blogroll, Danny Glover looks at the controversy stirred up by his reporting and commentary on the position of paid bloggers in this year’s campaigns. He links to a good cross-section of criticism, some of it quite reasoned and reasonable and some of it, well, not. Let’s all play nice now, ya hear? Don’t make me take your ball away.
– cpd
December 4th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Today’s Post has an interesting look at Gannett’s new emphasis on the web, with local newspapers attempting to drive traffic to their websites by focusing on very local stories. The article discusses a new style of reporter, the mobile journalist (or “mojo” — very clever), whose office is a car and who travels with a laptop and digital still and video cameras. Mobile journalists are encouraged to file stories constantly and on the fly, often covering events that would have been buried in a print paper or ignored entirely.
(more…)
December 4th, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Hey kids, this weekend’s Roots Camp was a terrific experience — not only did I get to meet Ha-Hoa Dang and several other regular readers face to face, but I was lucky enough to sit in on a bunch of really fascinating discussions. One of them looked at the benefits of working with local bloggers, a subject that we’ve touched on here a number of times. Some things that both electoral and issue advocacy campaigns can think about:
(more…)
December 3rd, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Hi folks, the CAP just posted the video of today’s presentation. I’ll be writing a summary/analysis later this weekend, but I encourage you to check out what the presenters had to say — it was an excellent event.
– cpd
December 1st, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
The George Allen “macaca” video has already become legend in the political world — a captured moment that spread spontaneously around the web and helped sink the campaign of a man who’d been touted as presidential contender.
Or at least that’s the simplified version that’s entered much of the public discussion about the 2006 campaign. But what really happened? At today’s New Organizing Institute/Center for American Progress event, Jim Webb campaign manager Jessica Vanden Berg told a much more nuanced story about how the campaign took their opponent’s mistake and ran with it as far as they could. Macaca didn’t just happen; the Webb people MADE it happen.
(more…)
December 1st, 2006
Trackback
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Next Posts
