e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Has Facebook Jumped the Shark as a Political Tool?

Cross-posted on techPresident

I hate to risk alienating my new BFF Mark Zuckerberg, but has Facebook’s moment in the sun as a hot political tool passed? And if so, what does that tell us about the future of social networking sites for online political organizing, and even about the future of Facebook itself?

We’ve now seen more than a year of intense use of social networking sites by the U.S. presidential campaigns (and even longer use by issue-advocacy groups), which gives us a solid base of information and experience to judge just how effective Facebook is as a political tool — both for organized political campaigns and advocacy groups and for individual political activists. The verdict? Facebook has not lived up to a lot of its initial political hype, and for reasons that are perfectly natural considering what kind of a site it is. The crux:

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10 comments May 4th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Will Binding Contracts Make Advocacy More Effective? Help Find Out

My old friend Dean Karlan wants YOU to help improve online advocacy — he’s one of the folks behind a site called stickK.com that that aims to get people to follow through on their commitments by entering into a binding contract, and he’d like to look at how this model will affect online advocacy. Become a guinea pig and you’ll help advance the art and science of motivating supporters — and you might just reach some of your own immediate goals along the way. Details below:

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2 comments May 4th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us