Archive for November, 2008
Purges are never pretty, but I just conducted one — and the results were a surprise.
When I signed up for Twitter last Spring, I figured I’d go ahead and reciprocally subscribe to updates from just about anyone who subscribed to mine. It’s neighborly, right? And that way I’d also get a broader initial exposure to the Twitter community than if I only connected with people I already knew. Pretty quickly, it seemed that twitterers were using the site in three primary ways — as a micro-blogging tool (“Just got to work — Mondays suck”), as an online community (“@bobdobbs great idea! I’ll bring the beer”) and as a broadcast tool/rss replacement (“new article up — http://www.tinyurl.com/blah”). I also found that I was using it mainly to push out article teasers and to follow other author/aggregators, and only somewhat as a community (very rarely as a micro-blog).
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November 24th, 2008
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Okay, that was interesting — after a catastrophic hardware failure at our ISP and a couple of days of problems with the site, epolitics.com is back up and running at full steam. Thursday morning, I suddenly stopped getting any messages sent to an epolitics.com email address — things got awful quiet for a while. Then I noticed that the site was unavailable. Turns out that the server had cratered:
In this case the irony is that the device that failed was a (rather expensive) RAID controller, so the problem was caused by a device specifically designed to prevent what happened. We’re working with the vendor to figure out why this happened — I think we’re going to wind up retiring all of the servers of that model as a precaution.
That from Heller Information Services head Paul Heller, who clearly had a couple of bad days there. By that afternoon, email was being routed properly, and the site came back up in crippled form on Friday. Restoring the WordPress database from a backup (the db got corrupted in the crash) took until Saturday, but now we’re back in action. And Heller’s giving everyone affected two weeks’ free hosting, which helps make up for the unexpected vacation. Ah, technology — you are both friend and frustration.
Update: Oops, spoke too soon — the comments disappeared again. Should be back shortly Are back up now.
– cpd
November 23rd, 2008
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Speaking about social media at Tuesday’s Media Future Now lunch, Melanie Phung made a great point about blogger relations: she described it as effective but not efficient. That’s an excellent summing-up, since a link in the right blog can be tremendously effective at driving traffic to a story or at driving the public debate, but getting that link can be extremely time-consuming. As we’ve discussed before in more detail, effective blogger outreach usually takes plenty of research and plenty of relationship-building, while the odds of any given pitch message or call yielding a hit are relatively low. The cost of social media marketing is often measured in hours rather than dollars, unless you’re dealing with a vendor (cha-ching!).
– cpd
November 19th, 2008
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One thing that’s been fascinating to watch over past few months has been the flare-up of brief discussions among both friends and strangers related to particular pieces of information posted on Facebook — usually a status update, but sometimes an event or profile wall comment. Are these just transient events, or are we watching the creation of new and potentially enduring social spaces?
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November 17th, 2008
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- Obama Delivers First Democratic Video Address, with reviews (Rating Obama’s First Weekly YouTube Address) and previews: The YouTube Presidency and Obama Turns To YouTube For Weekly Broadcast. Plus, commentary/criticisms On Putting a President’s Democratic Address on Youtube, since Snazzy new technology isn’t enough to bring transparency to the White House and YouTube Fireside Chats Need to Be Interactive. The big question: Is Obama Ready To Be A Two-Way President?
- A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence. The guy behind that “Palin thinks Africa is a country?” He’s a made-up internet person. See also The Latest in Political News Fakery.
- Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way. Predicting an electronic White House — hmmmm, some ideas sound familiar. We’re not the only ones seeing the future: see Web Video & the Obama Presidency: 10 Ways Team Obama Should Use MultiMedia for a little something about weekly radio addresses and video.
- The Future of myBO and the Future of Advocacy.
- Obama Forced to Give Up Email. Tough move for a Blackberry addict, but at least he can eat for free now at Ben’s Chili Bowl Meanwhile, Obama to Pay Bonuses to Campaign Staff — hit ‘em up for a drink now, while that cash is hot in their pockets.
- The Value of a Political Lawn Sign — Too Much to Ignore.
- Australian web filter to block 10,000 internet sites, while a German Politician Blocks Local Wikipedia.
- How technology shaped the US election — report from an online politics forum at MIT that included the RNC’s Cyrus Krohn. More post-election wrap-up: Chatting about the Internet and the 2008 Elections and The Web: 2008′s winning ticket
- For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All. Embarrassing emails and blog posts come back to haunt would-be Obamans via background checks. E.politics — too scandalous for a post-Lewinsky Clinton White House — is happy to serve as patron saint of sinful job-seekers. C.f. Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been, Embarrassed Online?
- GOP Files Suit to End Ban on Unlimited Campaign Donations.
- Gay-Rights Activists Use Web to Organize Global Rally. C.f. The Growing Alliance of Dumbledore’s Army and Fifty Bucks Worth of Facebook Ads Help Turn College Junior into County Treasurer.
- Interactive Map: Electoral Explorer. Tons o’ juicy data on the elections, presented in handy visual form.
- In Israel, a Click Away From ‘Yes We Can.’ Netanyahu’s site mimic’s Obama’s down to tiny details.
- Sales of Inaugural Tickets Banned on eBay.
- Obama Team Taps Venture Capitalist And Tech Company Execs To Organize Transition, while Net Neutrality Advocates are In Charge Of Obama Team Review of FCC.
- Palin ‘Hacker’ Trial Pushed Back to May.
- Senate Democrats Warn Bush Admin Not To Destroy Records. Take your hands off that hard drive!
- U.S. Elections — It Takes a Village to monitor the vote.
- My.BarackObama.com — 2008 Game of the Year.
- Cracking the Boys Club in Web 2.0: Ten Women Pioneers of Web 2.0.
- Want To Make A Difference In The Rightosphere?
- Social Networks for Social Change.
- Over Long Campaign, Obama Videos Drew Nearly a Billion Views. At the other end of the spectrum, YouTube on a Shoestring (for Nonprofits).
- Motrin’s Pain: Viral Video Disaster C.f. 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice, via Jordan Viator.
- Online Ad Growth Grinds To A Halt.
- How Google helps track flu trends.
- Take the pain out of WYSIWYG editing.
- Campaigns and Elections to co-sponsor the next Politics Online Conference.
- Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know.
- PETA’s new online game — pleasantly grotesque.
- Can Storytelling and Good Online Writing Mix?
- Change.gov’s Blog Shows Signs of Feedback Loop. That howl over the PA system? An unruly mob.
- “People Are People/So Why Should It Be?” Partying the Night Away in Baghdad. Awesome, just awesome.
– cpd
November 17th, 2008
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The media attention’s on Barack Obama’s potential choices for jobs in HIS Cabinet, but what about OURS? E.politics has selflessly taken on the task of assembling a core group of crack online political operatives to help Bring Our Nation into the 21st Century — they can get started as soon as they’re finished bringing our nation’s political system into the 20th. Let’s take it from the top:
- President: Julie Germany
A bipartisan figure for a new political age! Julie’s been herding cats and performing thankless tasks in the online politics world for years — floating above the fray with Obama-like calm, she’s a perfect pick to be our new Dear Leader. This time, the chick wins.
- Vice President: Michael Bassik
With a playboy’s easy style and Kennedy-esque charm, he’s just right for the VP’s real role: going to diplomatic events and schmoozing. If he can keep from getting impeached over a sex scandal, he’s also a candidate for the future: he’s a shoe-in for 2016, if all his ex-girlfriends vote.
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November 14th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
As reported on TPM Cafe yesterday, the Obama transition team has named its first online communications staff: Macon Phillips, formerly of Blue State Digital and the Obama campaign, will head new media, and Jesse Lee will handle “online communications,” meaning outreach. A couple of observations: first, note how early these guys are being hired — the election was only a week ago, and the new media team is already being put into place. Think the Obama folks might understand how critical online communications is in a modern political environment?
Second, note that while Phillips comes from the technology/strategy side, Lee deals with people on the web — he’s been a blogger himself and has great relations with the lefty political blogs (MyDD is pleased, while Aravosis just about blows a gasket over the guy), plus he has the sharp political experience of working with the DCCC in a very successful 2006 election cycle. Another hire: friend-of-e.politics Cammie Croft, who’ll also be working on “online communications.”
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November 13th, 2008
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Guest article! The second in the past couple of weeks, too — a welcome development. In this piece, longtime friend-of-e.politics Joe Flood looks in detail at the kind of obstacles that currently frustrate federal government agencies when they try to use the social web. With Obama in office, is generational change ahead? Or will bureaucratic obstructionism win the day? This article originally appeared on JoeFlood.com, where a solid discussion has already built up around it. – cpd
Will Obama Empower Government 2.0?
There’s a really interesting article in the New York Times on how Obama tapped the power of social networks to fuel his run for the presidency. Here’s the nut graph:
Like a lot of Web innovators, the Obama campaign did not invent anything completely new. Instead, by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans.
Obama’s use of Facebook, Twitter, Meetup and other tools is well-known. By successfully using these tools, he’s created an online mass movement and a personal brand. The challenge he faces now is to implement his ideas across a federal government frequently mired in outdated policies and procedures. While both the McCain and Obama campaigns used every online tool available to them, the federal government is filled with restrictions on Web 2.0 technology, due to privacy regulations, Congressional intervention and IT security concerns. For example:
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November 12th, 2008
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Well, David Almacy and I may only have managed to get on the air for a couple of minutes on election night, plus a few more live on the web (REAL news kept happening and bumping us out of the queue), but we WERE a part of Fox 5′s crack Election Coverage Team on a historic November 4th. And we have the photographic evidence to prove it: that’s me on the right, David on the left and WTTG Fox 5 News reporter Will Thomas in the middle.
Note the distorting effect of the iPhone lens — shot from below, we get a nice Mt. Rushmore effect, but in the real world I don’t really have a Hellboy-style massive left arm (in the uncropped version, my hand is about the size of my head) and David and Will are actually much closer to the same height. All around, it was a fascinating evening: besides the election itself, we got to watch from within as a local news station put together live coverage of a big event on the fly. Made up for a lot of missed parties.
– cpd
November 12th, 2008
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Ninety years ago today, my father’s father was an American infantryman in France, and I wonder if he actually heard the sound: for four years, the artillery of both sides had belched shells non-stop, battering away at the siege lines dug into the mud of Europe. They and the machine guns had been the teeth of a meat-grinder that had consumed much of a generation of men from West, East and around the world. But at 11 a.m. on the 11th of November of 1918, the last salvos of the First World War blasted across No Man’s Land in Belgium and France. In synchrony, the guns stopped — and he and millions of other surviving soldiers realized that they might just see home again.
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November 11th, 2008
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Back from post-election mental vacation, if not exactly willingly.
- Big-picture pieces: How Obama won and How He Did It, both via PoliticalWire.
- Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic. What a difference five years makes, if you use it right — Before He Was President, Mistaken for a Waiter: a 2003 Obama Meeting.
- ‘Netroots’ Candidate Concedes Wash. State Race, but Virgil Goode is gone. A quiet win for civility (and civilization) on November 4th.
- The National Mall Takeover: organizing online to conquer the Inauguration. Also, aiming to get One Million Volunteers by Inauguration.
- Obama Malware Hits Inboxes as Spammers Seize On Obama’s Moment and Obama and McCain Campaign Systems Were Hacked.
- Will Obama Do For Web What FDR Did For Radio?
- Breaking Down The Election Season, Minute-By-Minute. Cool idea: using audio fingerprinting to track which online video clips actually mattered in the campaign. C.f. Post-Election Google Searches.
- Old-School Social Media: The Art of the Yardsign.
- John and Cindy’s ‘Thank You’ Email.
- Obama’s election-night Flickr photos, via Micropersuasion. An example of Privacy in Public: Social Media.
- The Future of Campaign Technology: The Ground Game. You better believe it. Also, What’s Next for My.BarackObama.com?
- Change.Gov is Up — Obama Shares Vision, Plans & Hopes, Wants to Hear Yours. But first, Obama Transition Web Site Hits a Glitch and some alternatives: On the Web, Change You Can Change Into. And, Change.gov and the Contradiction of the Postmodern Left Netroots.
- Obama Takes his Internet Strategy into The White House, via TechRepublican, and The Oval Office Facebook Group, via K Street Cafe.
- The Internet Should Kill 2012 Talk. The internet effect shatters all political crystal balls. C.f. 2008 Election Recount Part 1 — The Palin Effect. Hint: it involves online fundraising.
- Did Anyone Use the Obama iPhone Application?
- Obama’s Online Ad Spend Approached $8 Million.
- The Most Powerful List in American Politics.
- Eyes Right After Election. The fleeting nature of political victory. C.f. Republicans enter the wilderness.
- The Klan Chimes In on Obama. In this case, the chimes sound have the sound of heads exploding — cognitive matter has met its antimatter antithesis.
- Live-Blogging the Obama News Conference.
- Via email, Willie will save us all (a fact Texans know from birth). Bonus video — a Willie/Snoop Dogg duet.
- The Viral Preferences of Twitter Users.
- How Your Prospect’s Facebook Network is Stealing Real Estate Business.
- Measuring ROI in the Blogosphere: Harnessing an Unregulated Space, via K Street Cafe.
- Does (your web development) Platform Matter?
- Obama Caught Palling Around With Google CEO Schmidt, but what’s that sound in the distance? Bezos Buzzzzzz.
– cpd
November 10th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
Barack Obama elected president in 2008? Inconceivable without the internet — and that’s not just a web-guy’s brag. Sarah Lai Stirland has already wrapped up online technology’s critical role in the mechanics of Obama’s campaign in admirable fashion, but that leaves us free to focus instead on the timing. I’d argue that at four points in the campaign, online politics really MATTERED — it effectively saved the Obama campaign. At those moments, without the internet the presidential race could easily have turned down a very different road, one that WOULDN’T lead to an Obama White House. To begin, let’s look at the earliest days of campaign ’08.
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November 5th, 2008
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