e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Archive for August 29th, 2007

Quick Hits — August 29, 2007

Email attack: White House resists FOIA requests, and who can blame them after reading FEMA’s Katrina-related messages (Highlight: Juxtaposing “I Am a Fashion God” with “I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants”). C.f. The Wrong In-Box for This Feud.
Fun with Political Widgets
YouTube fans rant, threaten to leave over new ads
In Europe, a Push by Phone Companies Into TV. TV via IP?
Japan’s Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future. Ironically (and seriously), they’re reaping the benefits of having their infrastructure blown to bits in 1945.
Fact-Checking the Candidates: PolitiFact. New site unveils Truth-o-Meter. Truthiness = new hurdle for campaigns to jump.
New service lets you buy ads on radio station audio streams. Combine with in-media-player visuals for extra super mega happy bonus points
Grantmakers Dive Into Web 2.0. Speaking of, Social-networking-for-good site Razoo.com will pay you to change the world. The sugar on the line: ten grand.
Helvetica Isn’t Just a Font; It’s a Font Worthy of Awe. On the transcendental nature of typography.
How NOT to pitch a blog.
Rudy’s Florida “Firewall”? A Giuliani Powerpoint presentation grows legs.
Thompson to Announce On Video. Should have done it in June…
Most Popular Dem YouTube Videos.
Online Advertising Sucks Because the Ads Suck. Very little argument here.
MTV to Encourage Online Citizen Journalism. Yo! MTV Writes.
The birth of internet dating? 1968 — an excellent vintage.
The Tech Industry Wants You To Support The Fight For Fair Use.
Social Networks and the 2008 Elections.
Mistakes still being made on the modern campaign trail. (See numerous items above).
Verging on the Sublime: Soviet Propaganda Poster of the Day (via Bruce Sterling).
One hit too many: Robots are stealing our strippers!

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Dueling Social Media Campaigns: Mitt Romney vs. the DSCC

Well, they’re not actually competing directly for anything other than our attention, but both Mitt Romney and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have launched campaigns lately to leverage the creative power of their supporters. Romney’s is the most recent — reader Jake Davison just passed along a message from the campaign touting a new create-a-video-ad contest using Yahoo’s Jumpcut service. Romney’s folks provide stills and clips a la the Chevy Tahoe campaign for director-wannabes to use in their own creations, and future ad geniuses can also create their own audio/video clips as long as they don’t break copyright. The chosen ad will be used on the television machine. The choice of Yahoo’s platform is particularly interesting considering that the RNC has recently snagged the former director of that company’s election strategy. My submission will involve lots of robots — the only way to do this particular candidate justice. [Note: also picked up by Jose Antonio Vargas and tPrez today.]

A few days ago, the DSCC also joined the social media wars with a create-a-bumper-sticker contest called “Bump Up Our Majority” (get it?). Voting ends tonight, so you kids better jump right on that. Looking at the four initial examples they provide, let’s hope some better suggestions come in from the unwashed masses. Actually, these contests do provide an excellent example of a good reason to turn to your supporters for creative content — they may not always do better than the professionals, but it’s hard for ALL of them to do worse.

– cpd

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