e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Do AOL’s New Video Ads have Political Potential?

AOL has come up with what seems like a more graceful way to advertise within online video clips than the usual show-a-short-ad-before-the-main-event. According to Wired, here’s how it will work:

If you’re watching a TV show, about 10 seconds into the video, a banner ad pops up at the bottom of the window. If you want to watch the full video advertisement — or it could be a Flash ad — you click on the banner. Assuming you don’t want to watch it, you ignore it, and after 15 seconds, it dissolves.

Political campaigns haven’t much boarded the online video advertising train yet (they’ll put their own videos up, but that’s different from what we’re talking about). As less-annoying online video ad alternatives continue to evolve, buying (interactive?) ads on the web versions of popular TV shows may become a useful political tool. Yet another development to keep an eye on.

– cpd

Add comment November 20th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Google’s OpenSocial and the Spread of Widgets

A quick thought about Google’s OpenSocial, which was unveiled a few weeks ago: while most of the attention focused on the use of OpenSocial Google Gadgets on social networking sites, Gadgets are actually web widgets that’ll run on most blogs and just about anywhere else. As campaigns and organizations develop little advocacy critters using OpenSocial, and as companies build theirs for commercial purposes, people may become more used to installing widgets on their own websites. OpenSocial may help spread widgets far beyond the walls of social networking sites — something to watch.

– cpd

Add comment November 20th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us