Archive for April, 2009
Crazy week! Designs due Monday, a chunk of another client site due Tuesday, a webinar yesterday and a conference presentation today, plus Mom’s coming to town tomorrow for the weekend — time to clean the ol’ bunker, also to put away anything illegal, immoral, embarrassing or downright dangerous. In the meantime, here are some articles that expand on points in yesterday and today’s discussions (reruns — if you haven’t read ‘em, they’re new to you).
– cpd
April 30th, 2009
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This quote jumped out at me as I blearily scanned The Post this morning:
Reihan Salam, co-author of “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save America,” said this week that the danger for Republicans is to think that they now represent a vast, silent majority that is waiting to reassert itself. “When you believe yourself to be a silent majority, you don’t feel the need to reach out,” he said. “Rather, you think that getting louder and more aggressive is the solution.”
Will GOP Sleep Through Wake-Up Call? (Dan Balz)
Is this why so many of the leading Republicans’ actions of late have seemed to me to be out of touch (at best) and counter-productive (at worst)? In their minds, there must be a whole mass of Middle America poised to wake up and storm the battlements with them. Oops — they’re pining for Nixon in the era of Obama.
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April 29th, 2009
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Like a grenade tossed into quiet waters, last week’s Twitter article definitely fired up a couple of folks up over on techPresident, Jon Pincus in particular. Check out the full thread at tPrez (thanks to Micah for jumping in while I was looking the other way!); the comment I left is below…
Sorry to miss the fun!
Hey guys, I’ve been off earning a living the last few days and dropped off the grid (had designs due this morning, which I’m fixin’ to pack off to the client). Jon, when someone doesn’t reply, they’re not always slapping you in the face — sometimes they’re just off taking care of their own business.
To the basic point — neither you nor I was in Moldova. I don’t know what happened there. You don’t know what happened there. All we know is what people tell us — and we don’t really know who they are and what their motives are (unless you have a web of known, close and trusted Moldovan sources that you haven’t told us about).
I don’t always agree with Ann Applebaum’s columns, but she IS an experienced journalist with contacts all through Eastern Europe, and I’m inclined to give some credence to her reporting. If she’s wrong, then I’m off base on the specifics of this case. Oh well; won’t be the first time — if I got worried every time I was wrong about something, I’d be cowering under the bed all day. As for the broader point about political actors on the internet stage not always being whom they appear to be, can that possibly NOT be true? Just think Wal-Mart and the trouble THEY got into for sock-puppetry.
And as for the title, guess what — writers pick titles that sing or that sell, and in this case it did both. I’m sorry if it offended anyone (though so far no one other than you seems to actually be offended, and I think it’s mighty kind of you pick up that cross for the Moldovan rebels), but if I were worried every time somebody got offended by something I said, I’d be right back under that bed. Last time I checked, the role of the writer (or the artist) WAS to upset the applecart…
– cpd
April 27th, 2009
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Cross-posted on techPresident
Remember the “Twitter Revolution” in Moldova? Even as it was unfolding, the Twitter angle was being downgraded in the face of evidence that the Moldvovan protesters seemed to be using just about EVERY online tool available — from Facebook to text messages to blogs and email newsletters — to organize and spread the word (of course, it didn’t help when it turned out that very few people in Moldova are even ON Twitter). Now, according to The Post and Slate’s Anne Applebaum, the very “revolution” itself is being called into question, and online social media may have been used by the state security apparatus to misinform both locals and outside observers about what was going on.
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April 23rd, 2009
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Okay, today’s just getting weird — first I’m going on sports talk radio, now the site’s seeing a huge new cohort of visitors presumed to be conservative (a five-fold traffic boost over baseline, plus a few dozen RSS signups). How come? I just checked stats and found out that yesterday we got linked-to by The National Review’s top-level Righty blog, The Corner. Thanks for the Google Juice! And new readers, welcome — your space in the e.politics robot/zombie army has been reserved….
– cpd
April 22nd, 2009
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Check it out — tune in to SportsTalkRadio (online) tonight to catch me chatting with Rick Morris & The FDH Dignitaries (that’s FDH as in “FantasyDraftHelp.com”) about, well, let’s hope it’s about online politics. Should I warn ‘em that I know zip about sports other than pro football (like my man Dick Nixon)? Nah, let’s just let this one play out on its own…
The deets: the segment should begin around 7:25, and you can read a preview of their whole three-hour show (I’ll be on for maybe 15-20 minutes). Listen live here, or look through the archives if you’re coming late to the party. Hmmm, from the show’s URL, somehow Cleveland is involved? Hello Cleveland! “See” y’all tonight.
– cpd
April 22nd, 2009
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Today’s POLC panel about Online Politics at the State Level aimed to be practical and specific, which is why we packed it with people who’ve actually run for office. One takeaway: targeting Facebook users via advertising is easier than I expected, even for local candidates. Republican Patrick Mara, who defeated a 16-year incumbent in a DC city council primary last year (he lost in the general), got excellent results from aiming ads at Facebook users based on information they specified in their profiles.
For instance, Patrick was in favor of allowing gay marriage, so he pushed information about his stance out to DC Facebook users who’d listed their sexual orientation as gay. If Facebookers had kids, he targeted them with ads about the school system, and if they were Republicans, he hit them with information about taxes, school vouchers and similar conservative favorites. Very clever! And apparently quite cheap for the results — Patrick found Facebook advertising to be a great way to recruit volunteers. Future local campaigns, take notice.
– cpd
April 21st, 2009
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One highlight from Politics Online today: in a discussion with former Obama New Media Director Joe Rospars, McCain’s 2008 eCampaign Director Michael Palmer was listing various items in the online campaigner’s online toolkit, including email, fundraising, virtual phonebanking and more. Twitter? Here’s how he offhandedly described it: “Twitter is the little deformed screw that’s rattling around in the bottom” of the online toolbox.
Ouch! Of course he was being flippant, but Palmer’s comment does capture something valid, that Twitter doesn’t really fit neatly into a technological category. Part microblogging tool, part phone-to-web publishing tool, part social network, Twitter’s an odd duck all around — perhaps that explains some of the fascination about it.
– cpd
April 21st, 2009
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Time for the Politics Online Conference! If you’re walking the halls of the Reagan building today and we haven’t met, pull me aside and say howdy. Plus, this afternoon I’ll be on the the Advocacy 3.0 panel with Alan Rosenblatt, and tomorrow I’m moderating Online Politics at the State Level. And, congrats to this year’s Golden Dot winners, though I can’t seem to find the list online!
– cpd
April 20th, 2009
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Today I’m giving a webinar for a corporate client on using social media for public relations and advocacy, with a focus on practical applications day-to-day. You can check out a PDF of the presentation PDF here; related articles are below.
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April 17th, 2009
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It must be a week to highlight integrated online campaigns, because here’s another, this time from the Good Doktor (Alan) Rosenblatt, now at the Center for American Progress. CAP is hosting a big series of online and offline events over the next few days to support a clean-energy smart grid, including an ongoing Tweet-Up (#grid), a blogging series and (this afternoon) a session of the Internet Advocacy Roundtable. If you can’t make it in person (and I can’t — swamped with actual “work”), you can still catch the IAR discussion live online. Also note the little badge to the right; downloads never hurt.
– cpd
April 16th, 2009
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The online tax rebellion tea party may be going full steam on a rainy Tax Day afternoon, but the ‘baggers aren’t the only ones nipping at the heels of the news cycle this week. The Humane Society of the United States has also managed to feed a media obsession, in their case the press’s fixation on the new First Dog, with a Scooby Snack of their own — in the form of a pre-packaged online news story on shelter dogs and euthanasia. And they seem to have gotten a good amount of media pickup as a result, including a mention of the HSUS site itself in the LA Times.
The HSUS online package didn’t include anything crazy or flashy, just solid and quotable text plus video related to an in-the-news topic that has the timeless advantage of being matched with cute imagery. Nothing crazy, that is, until you start clicking on links…
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April 15th, 2009
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Here’s a fun way to spend your April 15th: first person to spot an online advocacy campaign using tax day as a hook gets a free…oh wait, I win! Okay, I cheated — lots of groups have been working online to organize and recruit the tax-disgruntled over the past few days, culminating in a national protest effort to launch as soon as everyone’s back from the post office. Even e.politics has gotten in on the act, at least via the Google Ads — the one shown ran on Monday, and it linked through to the nicely designed landing page below:
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April 15th, 2009
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Online politics a progressive monopoly? Not in California, at least judging from the battle waged over the internet to pass Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in that state:
The ProtectMarriage.com coalition used the Web to fuel fundraising, volunteerism, and voter persuasion, and two tactics in particular may have given them an edge: online ads targeted using voter file data, and a last-minute get-out-the-vote ad blitz.
The “Yes on 8″ campaign got attention, not only for taking a forward-thinking and integrated approach to using the Internet, but for demonstrating that having a younger, more liberal base doesn’t necessitate Web prowess. Schubert-Flint Public Affairs, the firm that ran the overall campaign, along with its Internet ad and e-mail strategy partner Connell Donatelli, recently won multiple awards from the Association of Political and Public Affairs Professionals for its digital “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign.
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April 14th, 2009
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