Never hurts to plan ahead!
Thanks to Libby Jacobson for posting this site on Facebook…my life will never be the same again, and neither will yours if you click on the painting.
– cpd
Add comment July 30th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Reports of indictments against two Republican big donors may be breaking news this morning, but details of their political contributions are nothing new online:
According to the Washington Post, “The SEC has charged Samuel Wyly and Charles Wyly — billionaire brothers in Texas who have been major political donors to conservative campaigns — with reaping more than $550 million through fraudulent practices.”
Contributors attached to Ranger Governance Ltd. gave 134 contributions totaling $178,600 for election cycles 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010. All 134 contributions associated with Ranger Governance Ltd. were made by members of the Wyly family. The Wyly brothers are also associated with Michael’s Stores, Sterling Software, Scottish Annuity & Life Holdings Ltd., Computer Associates, Maverick Capital, Frost Brothers and Green Mountain Capital.
To investigate political contributions associated with these companies and other members of the Ranger Governance Ltd. slate of directors, check out Maplight.org’s new contributions search tool. MAPLight.org’s contributions data is provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Twenty years ago, this information would have been hidden away in FEC records, available in practice only to political opposition research professionals and a handful of activists. Now, EVERYONE can see how far the tentacles spread, making us all potential political journalists. An idea for a political contributions database floated around in the early days of the original dot-com-era incarnation of Epolitics.com, and it’s great to see the promise fulfilled. Information may want to be free, but politics runs on money…and sites like MapLight give us a much clearer view of how that process works.
– cpd
Add comment July 30th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Does online advertising affect voters’ perception of a political candidate? When combined with television ads, it does — at least, according to research conducted by Google, Centro and Global Strategy Group, who tested the effects of political TV in a California statewide race with and without online support:
“Likely Democratic primary voters who were exposed to both television and online advertising viewed Chris Kelly more favorably than voters who were exposed to television advertising only.”
Details in the slideshow below, and thanks to Matt DeLuca for the tip.
– cpd
1 comment July 29th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
– cpd
Add comment July 29th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
The latest from E.pol contributor Henri Makembe. Check out more from Henri at LocalPoliTechs and Twitter, plus his previous contributions to Epolitics.com
Call it innovation, call it self-preservation, call it a traffic scheme, but the Baltimore Sun, one of the leading papers covering Maryland politics, has made the decision to offer a blog to every legally registered candidate running for office in the state of Maryland. The offer is bipartisan and covers both federal and state candidates. The paper’s site states the following:
The Baltimore Sun is offering free blogs to political candidates in key races this year. It is up to the candidate to decide whether to accept the blog invitation and to decide how often to post on the blog. The Baltimore Sun does not edit any candidate’s blog, and it is not responsible for any content posted by the candidate or the candidate’s representatives here.
3 comments July 28th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Hey kids! We’re back on the virtual airwaves tonight with Rick Morris and his FDH Lounge crew at 9 pm, so you be sure to listen on in at the appointed time. As always, Rick has a wildly mixed itinerary for the evening, and he and I should have plenty to talk about in our segment, from Netroots Nation and Wikileaks to the prospects for the Fall elections and the rest of the Obama presidency.
As always, it’ll be fascinating to see both where Rick and I disagree AND where a liberal iconoclast and a paleoconservative can find surprising accord. “See” you at 9, and as always I’ll post the link to the archived copy when it’s available.
– cpd
Add comment July 28th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Be sure to check out this excellent piece from Associated Press reporter Phillip Rawls, who looks at the gap between an online political video’s popularity and its effectiveness. I get a nice quote up toward the front about how videos too often turn out to be little more than a source of amusement for political junkies, but Rawls looks past the generalities to examine some specific examples that have swept the internet and yet yielded little in the way of political results. You won’t be surprised to find out that my favorite part of the article involves tool integration:
Davis said “Demon Sheep” did its job by challenging Campbell’s credibility, and it helped Fiorina come from behind in the polls to win last month’s Republican primary. Unlike James in Alabama, she had the biggest campaign chest of the GOP candidates and reinforced her ad with other campaign material.
Tracey said Internet videos are effective as one part of a much broader campaign strategy. But on their own, they do little more than grab attention.
“It’s like NASCAR races. You are watching to see who wrecks, not who wins,” he said.
True statements all around — gimmicky is fun, but politics is about victory, pure and simple, and a single web video will rarely make much of difference unless it’s part of an overall messaging campaign. Even that ever-popular cinematic powerhouse, the Demon Sheep.
– cpd
Add comment July 27th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
My favorite overheard comment at Netroots Nation, said in reference to Roxanne Conlin, a Democrat challenging Chuck Grassley…a senator with a habit of shooting his mouth off online. Taking on an incumbent is rarely easy, particularly when you’re likely to be out-spent five-to-one, but in this case at least there’s apparently a chance of a self-inflicted Macaca moment. Perhaps he’ll take the opportunity to invent a new word?
– cpd
2 comments July 27th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Special straight-outta-Netroots Nation edition, brought to you from Las Vegas — a land of sensory overload and curiously banal excess.
– cpd
Add comment July 22nd, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
– cpd
Add comment July 21st, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
It’s an excellent day down here in the e.politics bunker, and not just because of the exquisite combination of heat and humidity that makes DC so joyously wilt-inducing in the summer. Here’s the scoop: Politics Online and the World E-Democracy Forum came out with their list of nominees for the “Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of the Internet and Politics,” and your loyal editor made the list! Woo hoo! And what a list it is — it’s truly an honor to be in this company.
Here’s the best part — you get to vote on the finalists, so get on it right now. Vote early! Vote often! (Mom, you and Dad will need to use different computers). Winners get an invite to be an Honored Guest at the World E-Democracy Forum in Paris in October, which is a trip that would not suck, so PLEASE do your part and vote today. Boxless will have to stay home and mind the shop, but I’ll be sure to bring him back a tasty spinach quiche if I make it. Huzzahs all around!
– cpd
1 comment July 20th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
“Never reinforce failure” — an old military adage that’s equally applicable in the world of Facebook advertising. Why? Because Facebook wants it that way.
Here’s the deal: Facebook charges for advertising on a sliding scale, with the cost going down as ads perform better (i.e., higher click rate = cheaper ads). As an example, we’ve been running ads lately for an NMS client and keep finding that creativity actually hurts — the “clever” ads under-perform their more pedestrian colleagues, with real financial results. Two ads we tried recently had relatively low click rates, for instance, and Facebook penalized us by charging more per response, in the 50-60 cents-per-click range. By contrast, our more generic, more successful and longer-running ad cost only 13-14 cents over the same time period, meaning that we got FIVE TIMES as much value from the same expenditure.
The obvious implication is that Facebook advertisers need to watch the statistics and shift resources away from failing ads in favor of more successful alternatives. From our experience and from chats with a couple of folks in the field, the threshold seems to be a click rate of around .04%, and for reference our generic/successful ad for the campaign above has averaged around .12%.
Of course, this bias in the system doesn’t mean that you have to throw creativity completely out the window, since advertisers need to come up with a solid array of potential messages and targeting strategies to find the ones that resonate with the Facebook audience. But Facebook clearly skews its system in favor of ads that perform well, and smart advertisers will watch the numbers closely. At least, until the company changes its ad model.
– cpd
2 comments July 19th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Parts of the online communications community have been abuzz the last couple of days over reports that Ben & Jerry’s ice crean is dropping its email marketing program in favor of Facebook and Twitter. Turns out, the change only affects the company’s fans in the United Kingdom; U.S. ice cream addicts can still get their inbox sugar fix (for now, at least). But the announcement drew attention in part because it goes against the conventional wisdom that social media marketing and email marketing complement one another and in fact work better in concert.
Ben & Jerry’s claims to be dropping email because of cost and the preferences of its customers, but those rationales seem sketchy. If people aren’t happy with the emails, for instance, why drop the list entirely? The company could have put resources into finding out why the emails weren’t delivering value, then turn around and revamp their campaign in response. As it is, they’re effectively abandoning tens or hundreds of thousands of customers, many of whom AREN’T on Facebook or Twitter and will hence lose any online connection with the brand.
(more…)
Add comment July 16th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
Thought that headline might get your attention — and that’s no doubt what the House Democrats were hoping for when they put out the widget below (thanks to the legendary Alan Rosenblatt for sending over the link).
My only critique? The landing page is all messaging and no facts, despite the fact that the link says, “details.” Also, the page has a Facebook “share” button, but no other way to leverage visits to the site (no email sign up, no “Tweet-this” link, etc.). C’mon guys, if you’re going to go through the work of creating this thing, take the extra time to maximize the results. A few actual details and links to supporting information wouldn’t hurt, either — you’re missing a chance to educate, inform and connect.
[BTW, I said "jobs" in the headline b/c of both poetic license and the ripple effect of unemployment benefit cuts — small, local businesses suffer when people can't afford groceries. Unemployment checks are a particularly efficient economic stimulus because recipients spend the money immediately.]
– cpd
Add comment July 15th, 2010 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
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