e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Quick Hits — July 22, 2010

July 22nd, 2010

Special straight-outta-Netroots Nation edition, brought to you from Las Vegas — a land of sensory overload and curiously banal excess.

• How the Internet Organizes the Unemployed.
• Sarah Palin, Paper Grizzly. Who watched her video? People who don’t like her.
• Palin invents word ‘refudiate’ (on Twitter), compares herself to Shakespeare.
• The Twitter Primary: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney battle for social media supremacy.
• Oil Spill Capped, @BPGlobalPR Says: “Well, That Wasn’t So Hard.”
• Twitter mood maps reveal emotional states of America.
• How Breitbart edited video to get USDA employee fired. C.f. Shirley Sherrod Case: Soundbites Still Pack a Punch
• All Out: China Turns on the Charm — a huge public diplomacy effort. Meanwhile, the U.S. focuses on Digital Diplomacy.
• Skin-lightening meets social networking.
• Dems Release Voter Registration Widget.
• 91% of Political Advocacy Groups are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, via Nisha Chittal.
• How Non-Profits Can Maximize a Foursquare Account.
• How Mobile Technology is a Game Changer for Developing Africa.
• Wash Post online strategy: Grow audience, and engagement. C.f. Designing The Post’s “Top Secret America”.
• Search Top Secret America’s Database of Private Spooks.
• New White House email updates.
• As Diane Sawyer Interviews Mark Zuckerberg and the site passes 500 million users, Facebook Among Web’s Worst in Customer Satisfaction. They’re not alone: New Market Research: Social Media Sites as Annoying to U.S. Customers as Cable Providers, Airlines. Some context: As Facebook Prepares to Announce 500 Million Users, a Look Back at Its Traffic Growth.
• Twittering from the tractor: smartphones sprout on the farm, via Brian Gluckman.
• Mobile Access 2010 — how do Americans use their phones?
• K2 Skis Redirects Entire Company Website To Facebook. NOT recommended unless you don’t need to control your content and don’t care about search engines. C.f. Ford to Unveil 2011 Explorer on Facebook and FarmVille Cash Invades Supermarkets Nationwide.
• Finally, Facts Unsealed In Aristotle-NGP Court Cases.
• The Daily Gripe — crowdsourcing potholes and more.
• Russian spooks could claim web chat for themselves. ICQ? They seek you.
• Turning Google (Ads) on Geithner (over Elizabeth Warren).
• Google Spent $1.34 Million On Lobbying In Q2, Up 41 Percent From Last Year. C.f. Google search: political power.
• Hyperlocal News Site Fwix Debuts Local Trend Search.
• Digital storytelling: A tutorial in 10 easy steps, via Lorelei Harloe.
• Pollsters vs. cell phone users.
• Blagojevich ringtones!
• God Is Great. Inspire Is Not: Tips for al-Qaida’s lame new (PDF) magazine.
• Policing the Web’s Lurid Precincts. The horror…the horror….
• FEMA’s Helpful Mobile App for disaster reporting, plus Mapping Earthquake Recovery Projects in Haiti.
• Blognetnews.com – gone, at least for now, via Matt DeLuca.
• Why Developers Should Run for Congress.
• Foursquare in Talks with Major Search Engines.
• Google: Mobile Search and Ads Growing Rapidly in 2010.
• Can Facebook Best Google With Social Search?
• Real big Deal — Sexism charge roils Georgia’s GOP governor race. Note use of Facebook for response.
• 4 Lessons For Gov Via The @OldSpice Guy.
• Will Apple Communicate Better With Its Customers? Its First Twitter Account Suggests It Wants To.
• Virgin Plans New Magazine as IPad App if Advertisers Sign Up.
• Top Execs Dish About Social Media Strategies.
• Six Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking, and Six Social Media Mistakes Your Company Should Avoid.
• Convio Makes Integration of Advocacy Actions Through Social Media and Mobile Easier. Note: CapWiz doing something similar.
• Bringing government up to data.
• comScore: Hulu Video Ads Are Viewed More Than Twice As Much As YouTube Ads.
• Discovery and Facebook Show How a Pandemic Could Affect You. C.f. A Facebook Game With a Mission: Waste Management to Launch Oceanopolis.
• Amazon says Kindle books are outselling hardcovers.
• TubeMogul Makes InPlay, Its Google Analytics For Video, Free.
• Facebook Allows Advertising Accounts to Have Multiple Users.
• Inside look at the Old Spice video campaign, via the NMS blog.
• Playboy launches new work-safe website, via A Loyal Reader Who Prefers to Remain Nameless.
• And finally, your homework. An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion, via Slate.

– cpd