e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Quick Hits — May 13, 2008

• Update: MoveOn Targets McCain Aides.
• Obama: Smear emails “not just a random sort of viral thing”.
• Racist Secret Service E-Mails. Oof. I mean really, oof. Stupid enough to think, even more stupider to email.
• How to spot Photoshop chicanery.
• Why is this site password protected? Burt Edwards wants to know.
• Can Bob Barr Tap Into Ron Paul’s Movement? C.f. Libertarian Bob Barr Hopes to Scoop Up Ron Paul’s Internet-Driven Support and Ron Paul Supporters, What Are Your Plans?
• MoveOn picks winner of Obama ad contest.
• Does his ad buy prove his critics wrong? Obama is online this week in WV, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania….
• On the Dangers of Hacked Computer Networks and Inadvertant Nuclear War.
• Unjustifiable Carnage, Uneasy Alliances, and Lots of Self-Doubt: What Grand Theft Auto IV gets right about gangland and illegal economies.
• Obama Looks Ahead to Oregon Primary in E-mail Push.
• How the Web Contest Predicted the Real Thing.
• Top Four Essentials of eCampaigning. C.f. The Essentials of Online Advocacy Begin With Email (e.politics sez, you better f*cking believe it).
• Why I like the Google Video Player.
• Quantcast Helps The Media Planner. Improve your advertising plans with free site demographics.
• Clinton Going Down, While the Web Dreams of an Obama Win.
• Another political PowerPoint, this time Clinton’s. See Politico and Wired.
• New Google Service Makes Web Pages Social.
• How Defense Research Is Making Troops More Effective in Wartime.
• Air Force Colonel Wants to Build a Military Botnet. Or not.
• The indie-rock fall and rise of R.E.M..
• OMG! WARNING: Over the top, offensive humor! Note comment: “Godwin’s Law: As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
• Obama’s online organization.
• Volunteers asked to help find dead spacecraft on Mars via online photos. Check out the size of those pictures!
• Republican Slogan Borrowed From Antidepressant. The jokes are too obvious to bother making.
• Concharto: Wikipedia for history/geography nerds. via GeoDog.
• The peak oil culture wars.
• Space porn! Virtual telescope brings the cosmos to your desktop.

– cpd

Add comment May 13th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Newsweek: Election ‘08 will be “Swift Boat Times Five”

Newsweek’s current story on the Obama campaign’s internal dynamics contains this warning (via Mike Allen) for anyone who values civility and honesty in politics:

Another McCain adviser, who asked for anonymity discussing internal campaign strategy, bluntly warned: “It’s going to be Swift Boat times five on both sides — The candidates will both do their best publicly to mute it. But in a close race, I don’t see how to shut that down.”

For all of our sakes, let’s hope that some kind of rationality survives. No doubt much of the smearing will happen online, in websites, videos and the kind of behind-the-scenes emails that have already dogged “Manchurian Muslim” Obama. Bloggers will both help AND hurt, helping by researching and puncturing lies, hurting by spreading them. Ultimately, though, the onus is on mainstream journalists to try to separate truth from fiction. Print and online reporters have a far better record on this front so far this year; cable news has been a hellhole of unrepentant rumormongering and idle speculation. Don’t we deserve better?

– cpd

Add comment May 11th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — May 7, 2008

• Update: The Obama Camp Dials It Forward. Post-primary conference call plays it subtle, while all is well in ClintonLand.
• McCain Launches Spanish-Language Website. Wonder how the Minutemen (no, not THE Minutemen) will feel about THAT one?
• Bury bad news with online press releases. Somebody forward this to Hillary Clinton. C.f. Craigslist Ad Of The Day.
• The critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin. From gin to sitcoms to lolcats, via Henry Copeland.
• Bunches o’ Studies and Stats on Nonprofit Marketing.
• How-To: 10 Tips for Launching a Solid Podcast.
• Two new guides to presidential online advertising from Clickz, Online Presidential Display Ads Leading to the 2008 Primaries and All Primaries Are Local: 2008 Presidential Campaigns Buy Local Online.
• The Tale of the E-mail. Hillary and Barack’s constrasting post-Indiana/NC notes. C.f. She’s Still In, And She’s Still In To Win.
• Pew Study Confirms Cell Phones Rule.
• Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.
• Right now, I’m watching the President of the Utah State Senate on my desktop. Julie, you had me at “desktop.”
• Google Reader is becoming more of a social networking application.
• Twitter Post Rescues Jailed Journalist, but Egyptians ignore Facebook call.
• How the White House lost 5 million e-mails.
• Jailed Chinese Journalist Shi Tao’s Poem Follows Olympic Torch’s Route Online.
• Matt Stoller on how liberals rule the web, and The Baltimore Sun on how Matt and friends raised 400K for Donna Edwards. Via tPrez.
• Phantom Obama Vote Appears on NJ Voting Machine.
• Web Ads from Left and Right Advocacy Groups Signal More to Come.
• Media criticism in context: “Yes, it would be nice if the press spent less time on inanities and more time on how candidates planned to actually run the country. But this view of the media is just too simplistic.” Via Salon.
• North Carolina Radio Host Reports Anti-Obama Chain E-Mail Distortion As Fact. C.f. Pennebaker: Clip Doctored, about the Mickey Kantor video distortion. (also via tPrez).
• Union-organizing emails get employees of a social networking site fired! Sent around by Michael Whitney.
• Clinton’s and McCain’s Gasoline Tax Holiday Reimagined as a Phishing Scam.
• National Intelligence Agency Breaks Out RSS Feed.
• 6% are Natural Born Clickers.
• Twitter frenzy! Using Twitter for Your Organization, Use TwitterFone For Easy Voice-To-Text On Twitter, and Political Junkies Congregate and Comment on Election Results Through Twitter. Plus, 5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence and The Bivings Group Does Twitter.
• Yes, a Montana cattle ranch is using banner ads combined with search ads to sell their premium beef via the internet.
• 10 Valuable Tips for Shooting Web Video. Via Frogloop.
• Google, YouTube and the city of New Orleans try to host their own presidential forum. Via Mike Allen.
• Video: how primary-season attacks have been amplified in the general election.
• FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret ‘National Security Letter,’ Loses.
• Harold vs. Markos. Not everyone wants a unified Dem ticket.
• META Keywords are Legally Dead.
• Be very afraid: Engineers find ‘missing link’ of electronics. Robots take next step toward world domination.
• A minute and a half with Shana Glickfield…is enough to spark any man’s dreams.
• Clone-tool war on nipples continues. Complete with tragic casualty figures.

– cpd

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Quick Hits — April 24, 2008

• Espionage Against Pro-Tibet Groups, Others, Spurred Microsoft Patches.
• New Freedom, and Peril, in Online Criticism of China.
• In every measure, Obama clobbers Clinton online. Also, Barack Obama Takes Lion’s Share of Online Video Viewerships.
• Obama Uses YouTube To Lobby The Public After Losing Pennsylvania.
• Notes from the eCampaigning Forum 2008.
• Cuddle Parties: When Touchy Feely Goes Goofy.
• Why Democrats Rule the Web.
• Smug Alert in SF. Thanks, Slate
• Lost in the Smoke-Filled Room: Unexpected Talent. On the benefits of a primary process. C.f. The Primary ‘Bounce’.
• Government to Seek Terrorists in World of Warcraft: The Full Proposal.
• Welcome to the high-tech age of consumer jihadists. Suggested by Burt Edwards.
• Look Ma, I’m on CIA.gov.
• Anti-war site lets you spend $3 trillion your way.
• Obama’s GOP Shadow.
• Laughing Baby vs. the YouTube Commenters. C.f. The vile state of Internet discourse knows no borders.
• Colbert Snags Clinton, EdWORDS and Obama in One Cast.
• Fight, prefrosh, for social justice — via e-mail.
• Newspaper Ads Drive Online Research, In-Store Purchases.
• Online Advocacy — Using Petitions for List Building.
• Obama Talks About (Internet) Rumors.
• MTV News Still on the Edge of Political News. Kurt Loder rides to the rescue one last time.
• Twitter Away Your Life With Social Networking. And, Is Twittering Sustainable?
• The Twittering Class and the Primaries.
• Tips for success in a Web 2.0 world.
• Do Progressive Techies Have a Google Blind Spot?
• Drive additional web traffic with email.
• Facebook Chat — distraction or benefit?.
• Sick Profits Video Contest. User-generated content goes to the doctor.
• Despite Negative Press, Facebook Is a Powerful Agent for Social Change. But wait: 51% of Donors ‘Not At All Interested’ in Social Networks.
• The New Guards: The Players. A look at potential Republican MoveOn equivalents. C.f. MoveOn.org Asks McCain To Drop Pastor Who Blamed Victims For Katrina.
• EEN’s Avatars Campaign Brings Online Marketing to Life. Online/offline connection.
• Huckabee to follow in Robertson’s footsteps? Yet another independent audience?
• Radiohead Launches Social Network.
• Nerd alert or sublime beauty? Full Earthrise and Earthset in Hi-Def, from the Japanese Kaguya lunar orbiter. I can see my house from here! Via Space.com.

– cpd

Add comment April 24th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Homework Assignment: Google “Barack Obama Muslim”

While you’re waiting for the verdict of the good people of Pennsylvania today, why not check out the beneficial effects of a Googlebomb for a candidate? Go ahead, type “Barack Obama Muslim” or “Obama religion Muslim” into your favorite search engine and see what you get. As former Edwards staffer Tracy Russo mentioned at last week’s Internet Advocacy Roundtable, the first sites you’ll see in the search results debunk the claim that Obama is a secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate. A couple of links claiming the opposite do show up, but they’re well down from skeptical articles from the likes of Snopes, CNN and the Obama campaign itself.

Tracy didn’t go into too much detail about it, but she definitely implied that this distribution of search results was the result of a Googlebomb, which was at least partially encouraged by the Obama campaign behind the scenes. Googlebombing is the deliberate attempt to influence search results through encouraging people across the web to link to certain sites to make them appear authoritative, and it’s been used commercially as well as in the 2006 elections. Lo and behold, here’s a Daily Kos diary piece from March encouraging that very tactic, and note that it mentions that several “yes-he-is-a-Muslim” pieces then appeared much higher in the rankings than they seem to now (not bad results for a month’s work). Andrew Sullivan also reports on various right-wing attempts to bomb Obama over communism and the flag lapel pin, but those seem pretty lame by comparison.

Whether the Obama campaign encouraged or influenced this apparent effort in any way is unclear from the public record, but I would be shocked if their blogger relations people hadn’t been involved in it at some level. It’s another measure of the subtlety of the ways campaigns can interact with the public via the ‘net.

– cpd

3 comments April 22nd, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

E.politics Got Hacked!

Ouch, we got nailed — the version of Wordpress used on e.politics was out of date and apparently left the joint vulnerable to a nasty hack that inserted invisible links to spam sites in some articles, apparently to gain the evildoers up some search engine cred. I’ve fixed the bug and am in the process of repairing the few dozen articles that got hit, so if you see anything that looks squirrelly, pass it on. Thanks to reader Chris Muenzer for tipping me off to the problem and how to fix it — if you’re using Wordpress, better upgrade. Weirdly enough, besides the spam links, the hack seems to delete the HTML paragraph tags in the posts — don’t ask me why.

– cpd

Add comment April 16th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — April 9, 2008

• Update: Bloggers, DIY Filmmakers Capture S.F. Olympic Protest.
• F.B.I.: Lieberman 2006 Crashed Its Own Site. “Cyber-attack” was friendly fire episode.
• Queen Rania of Jordan opens communication with the West via Youtube.
• The Invisible Negative Campaign. Conference calls pour bitter acid in reporters’ ears.
• Truckers are Organizing Online: Is a Nationwide Shutdown Coming? 10-4.
• Charlton Heston Dies; Wikipedia Beats the Major News Sites to the Story. Via Micropersuasion.
• RNC Out-Twittering DNC. DNC too busy raising money.
• P.O.W. to Power Broker, A Chapter Most Telling. A fascinating look at a critical period in John McCain’s life.
• Five-Step Strategy to Market Your Nonprofit Online.
• The Fall of the Report of Drudge.
• Google AdWords for Nonprofits: 10 Tips About Keywords.
• Al Gore’s $300 million. Some of it’s going for blogads.
• What’s ahead for social advertising?
• Presidential Yahoo Buzz: Nationwide, PA, NC.
• Leno apologizes for ‘gayest’ gaffe. Was pursued by an outraged squirrel, plus a lot of online activists.
• Lost in McCainSpace.
• Write like a blogger. Only don’t die in the process.
• Stoners in the Mist. Flash presentation is modern-day successor to 50s anti-everything “educational” films, also has user-generated content angle. Via Wonkette.
• House Staffers Livid Over Web Site. LegiStorm founder defends himself on NPR.
• Jake Tapper’s smoke detector goes off at ABC News. “That fact simply highlights a growing narcissistic disease within the campaign press corps in which members increasingly see themselves as central players in the unfolding political production. Specifically, with regard to the Democratic primary, the press clearly views itself as the third candidate on the stage.”
• Lefty bloggers get free trip to Israel.
• Mapping Content to Better Tell a Story: Refugee Camps on Google Earth.
• Scientists Unveil High-Res Map of the US Carbon Footprint. Google Maps version would kick ass.
• Hillary Tries Grassroots Budgeting. Clinton’s choose-your-adventure fundraising tactic.
• New Clinton Radio Spot Goes After Obama on Energy Policy. Dig the tag cloud.
• Zombie Computers Decried As Imminent National Threat. Zombies now teaming up teaming up with their natural allies; genocidal robot/zombie war against humankind looms.
• How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse. We gotcha covered.
• Citizen journalism and capacity building.
• ‘Congress Has Given Up On The Actual World.’ Daily Show takes on the Second Life Congress.
• U.S. Webcasters Have It Easy (Compared To China).
• Creepy… I’m Sorry, But it’s Just Creepy. McCain girls finally break Alan Rosenblatt’s will to live.

– cpd

Add comment April 9th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

The Growing Political Role of Reader Comments on Newspaper Blogs

Plenty of people have tried to start nonpartisan political discussion sites over the years, but most have dried up and blown away for reasons covered on e.politics before. But this election cycle has seen something new — now that many news organization websites have blogs that allow comments, they’re becoming a true public forum for the exchange of ideas and (often) insults.

The Ron Paul army was particularly active on The Caucus and The Trail before the wind finally went out of their sails, for instance, and these sites have also seen heated discussion among supporters and opponents of Obama, Clinton and McCain. At the Politics Online Conference last week, Patrick Hynes also mentioned some of their less positive uses, for instance as a medium for the distribution of rumors and innuendo. And, tons of folks are also taking advantage of news story discussion boards for blatant self-promotion, dropping links to their own articles into their comments. Yet another example of the internet as a disintermediator: political activists use the comments sections as a way to reach the news organizations’ readers directly, generally bypassing the editorial approval process as long as they don’t use dirty words or otherwise get rude.

– cpd

Add comment March 12th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — February 5, 2008

Yay, Super Tuesday, the most wonderful time of the year. The following Hits will be updated throughout the day. See also yesterday’s list.

• Update: Just got a Drudge Siren email alert, and apparently Obama is “large” in the exit polls. It’s gonna be an interesting night; I’m off to the parties.
• Update: The Inside Story of Obama’s Online Music Video.
• Update: In an Internet First, Americans Abroad Cast E-Votes in Democratic Primary.
• Update: Barack Obama’s Web Site Overwhelmed During (Last Night’s) Clinton Appearance.
• Update: US Voters Using Google to Find Polling Places.
• Update: The Rationality Gap: Campaigns Way Behind the Online Advertising Curve. Alan Rosenblatt: “For 10% of their ad budgets they could dominate the web.”
• A brief distraction: Venn diagram of the British Islands. Thanks to Chris Cosart for a helpful find.
• Update: A Clinton campaign conference call is a study in spin. Check out the ending — a Fox debate?
• Update: I Hope It’s a Hoax. The (politically) provocative e-mail that “Chelsea Clinton” is sending around.
• Update: Obama Leads in Online Buzz, Favorite Sites by Visitors’ Party Affiliation Issued. Which candidates are dominating the online discussion?
• Update: Does web traffic tell us that Obama and Huckabee will win big today? Josh is skeptical, and for good reason. More from the tPrez Daily Digest, including lots of nonrepresentative online polls and a look at Barack Obama’s hockey stick.
• Update: AZ Robocall Hits Obama On Social Security.
• Update: Primary Jam. Excellent WSJ interactive guide to this year’s primary election pile-up, and a good demonstration of how to present information with technology.
• Update: The E-War: Dems: All Hillary Wire, All the Time. Hillary’s election-day email blitz. More on the expectations battle from Slate.
• Update: McCain Tops the Democrats in Media Coverage.
• The Early Word: Super Fat Tuesday. Good overview of what’s ahead.
• The Opposite of Interactivity. Zephyr Teachout’s not so impressed with Hillary’s online/offline national town hall, but PoliticsTV’s Dan Manatt likes it better. C.f. Checking in With the Politically-Active Social Networking Generation and Clinton On Message, and On Television. Update: Also, Creating Those Hallmark Moments.
• Romney Internet-Only Ad Ties McCain to Clinton. See also McCain, Romney Unveil New Attack Ads.
• New HRC Mailer Hits Obama On Economy. Direct mail = probably the oldest form of database-driven politics.
• Push Polling, Robo Calls and Other Telephonic Shenanigans.
• Obama’s $28M Online. Patrick Ruffini on the death of offline fundraising. Update: That $32 million total for January turns out to be more than twice that of the Clinton campaign.
• Students On How Social Networking Is Transforming Politics.
• Web Graphics and Social Media Bring A Bird’s Eye View of Celebrity Presidential Endorsements.
• The Web and the Race For the White House. Overview of online support.
• Ron Paul’s candidacy shows the potential (and limits) of online politics. A short email interview with the candidate.
• In Election of Change, TV Gives Voice to Insiders. No insurgency on the airwaves.
• On The Road Again, And Again, And Again. Life of an embedded political journalist.
• Shifting Loyalties: Obama Winning Big Edwards Backers.
• Bill Clinton on Hillary Clinton’s Web 2.0 presidency.
• Facebook Used to Mobilize Against FARC. “In Colombia, a Facebook page dedicated to protesting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, that country’s largest rebel group, is helping organize thousands of people in cities around the world for demonstrations.”
• Lots of Super Tuesday cell phone sounds at RingTones08.
• Super Tuesday Gladiators. “Billy, do you like movies about gladiators and Hillary Clinton?”

– cpd

1 comment February 5th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — February 4, 2008

Mega pre-Super Tuesday edition. Are any Giants-sized upsets coming our way in the political world?

• Update: Concise, insightful Super Tuesday video slideshow overview from CQ, including some great photos and clever graphics. Via PoliticalWire.
• Update: Anti-Illegal Immigration Forces Rally Against McCain. Anti-McCain email goes out to 1.5 million people.
• Update: Drudge takes on both John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
• Update: The Super Tuesday Strategy Review. Using Google Maps to track the candidates and decypher their plans.
• Update: More news on the Obama surge from the Cafe Press primary: “After being nearly tied two weeks ago in weekly candidates sales (Obama at 28%, Hillary at 26%), now as of last week, Obama has surged to account for 48%, while Hillary is down to 19% of weekly candidate sales.” More here, and thanks to John Hlinko for the tip.
• Update: Why Google only tells you what you already know. Do online searchers look to reinforce or challenge their views?
• Update: Is Barack Obama “Dean on steroids”? (Via tPrez)
• Update: Tracking superdelegates via wiki. (Via tPrez)
• Campaigns Experimenting Online to See What Works. Excellent overview article from Jose Antonio Vargas.
• Senate candidates learn the pitfalls of online politics
• Super Bowl Super Tuesday Spots. Note Obama’s geo-targeting, prominent cell phone signup and site URL.
• Does money translate into votes?
• The Smart Mobbing of Super Tuesday
• Hillary Clinton’s Online/Offline Town Hall. She’ll take questions via email, text and video, with Bill and Chelsea (among others) hosting satellite town halls around the country.
• The New Rules of Politics. Karl Rove weighs in.
• MTV/MySpace Postmortem: Change vs. Experience vs. Ron Paul.
• US campaigns go networking on the net.
• Bush asks for $6 billion to fight the terrorists online
• Huckabee Endorses Fire-And-Brimstone YouTube Competitor ‘GodTube’
• Another Ethical Scandal Plagues Novick Campaign. A vicious Wikipedia defacing.
• Obama’s $32 Million Haul. More here and here.
• Republican Presidential Candidates Unleash YouTube Ad War. C.f. Romney’s Latest Ad; McCain’s on the Web.
• Republicans make Fox News sick. “To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O’Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that’s a week to remember!”
• The Day After. The end of the Edwards campaign, through the eyes of his blogger outreach staffer.
• Move Over YouTube, Here Comes YouBama. “An Obama video becomes an automatic hit on YouTube when it’s uploaded.”
• Genuinely inspired, the Facebook generation is turning out to vote in record numbers. Will they make a difference?
• Moveon Endorses Obama.
• On-The-Ground Organizing. The ‘net can’t do everything.
• Track the ‘08 Money Chase
• San Francisco Mayor, A Clinton Backer, Says They’re Going To Go After MoveOn Members
• 3D Electoral College
• Political Attack Ads Easy to Find Online. Getting nasty in North Carolina.
• Check Out Politics Schmolitics. Political humor from Daily Motion.
• Online Boors Ill-Equipped To Assess Political Hotties
• Chicago Tribune suspends comments on political section of website. “But some comment boards seem to attract and enable the vitriolic and brutish; they represent the very worst form of online communication.”
• Democrats Flood States With Ads as Tuesday Nears
• MTV’s Choose Or Lose Taps Local Reporters To Cover Presidential Election. Via tPrez.
• Steve Garfield’s Super Tuesday Coverage Plans With The UpTake. More technology than I can take.
• Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo, and Microsoft fights back.
• Why did the Fred Thompson Blog Work?
• Library of Congress on Flickr
• How to Herd Organic Search Traffic to Your Blog.
• FTC Commissioner Explores Facebook, Makes Friends.
• White House Under Seige? Don’t piss off Google.
• Australia wild party child turns party pro. My teenaged near-namesake uses MySpace to promote a party, 500 “friends” show up and do $20,000 worth of damage. Delanys everywhere are extremely proud. Via my friend Doug McCammon.

– cpd

Add comment February 4th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — January 22, 2008

• Update: Clinton-Obama Mudslinging During South Carolina Debate Plays Out Online
• Update: White House Has No Comprehensive E-Mail Archive
• McCain’s Web Ad Responds to Swiftboat-like attack. Watch the video, and see also McCain, Huckabee Trade Friendly Fire.
• Clinton and Obama Open Silicon Valley Offices. “The new office openings coincided with a cleverly-timed campaign advertisement, which ran this past Sunday during Clinton’s television interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s weekly political talk show Meet The Press. The ad prominently featured Obama’s California headquarters web site address.”
• How this year’s race makes a mockery of voting for the most “electable” candidate.
• Tracking and analyzing robocall push-polling in South Carolina.
• “Virtual candidates” and web politics in Scandinavia.
• Why campaign coverage sucks. “The current generation of political reporters has based its bid for election-year authority on its horse race and handicapping skills. But reporters actually have no such skills.” Sound familiar?
• Cloverfied viral marketing frenzy. Via AdRants.
• ACLU’s anti-Guantanamo blog ad strategy.
• Lawrence Lessig’s latest book is free online. Via DIA.
• Richard Viguerie Goes Online for Paul. The conservative leader launches what amounts to an alternate campaign site for Ron Paul — sincere support, or a cynical attempt at list-building?
• How Facebook Is Like Ikea. Some assembly required.
• Presidentials Turn to National Cable Advertising. Another way to aggregate demand trans-locally using niche targeting. Or, of finding people where they live. See also coverage in The Caucus.
• Election results come to roadside electronic billboards
• Political consultants addicted to making online election predictions.
• Dems allow overseas citizens to vote online in primaries. Via tPrez.
• Paul Campaign Riding High After Nevada. The latest money-bomb lands. Update: take a look at the comment stream on the YouTube version of the fundraiser kickoff video — a thrill-ride from start to finish.
• Reporter twittering. American journalism: shortening attention spans like never before. Via tPrez.
• Foreigners Keep Out! High Tech Mapping Starts to Redefine International Borders. There are few things more fundamentally political than the drawing of lines. Also note the demise of the cannon shot rule.
• PoliticalBase.com: Is it Web 2.0 genius or a first boom mini-echo?
• RIAA Website Back Online Following Weekend Hacker Attack. Next time, use a bigger bomb.
• All Web politics is local, particularly in a Chattanooga City Council race.
• About that Google party. Damn, it’s good to be pretty.
• Israel launches radar spy satellite. The stuff of science fiction not long ago.

– cpd

Add comment January 22nd, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Obama on His Secret Muslim Plot to Take Over America and Other Internet Rumors

From the Nevada debate: “In the internet age, there are going to be lies that are spread all over the place. I have been victimized by these lies. Fortunately, the American people are, I think, smarter than folks give them credit for.”

More on dirty politicking and internet rumors on Wednesday.

– cpd

Add comment January 16th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — January 14, 2008

• Obama Gets Mobile Right. Hooray for technology!
• Or maybe not. Backlash over anti-Obama email in New Hampshire
• Someone’s keeping the faith: Email details Huckabee’s Michigan evangelical turnout operation.
• Clinton’s Fund-raising Takes Off Online Post New Hampshire. Edwards not the only one raising money in a hurry.
• The Chuck and Huck online fundraising spectacle: “Just another barbecue/political fund-raiser/rock concert/ninja demonstration.”
• Bloggers for Fred Thompson. ‘Bout all he’s got left these days.
• Hillary Clinton Joins Paid Search Advertising Game. Putting those $$ to work.
• On the list-building benefits of Kerry’s Obama endorsement.
• Barack Obama’s Blue Period. Campaign site redesign as artistic statement.
• Kos pushes Romney in Michigan, sparking a voter fraud claim. Others are pushing a vote for “uncommitted.” More on Kos messing with the Midwest, as other bloggers bestow blessings on their chosen candidates.
• Attack on Huckabee Moves From YouTube to Boob Tube. C.f. Huckabee Campaign Responds to Victims Voice Video.
• Comedian Starts a Wiki To Track Attacks on Obama.
• Kenyan website uses Google Earth, SMS to track post-election violence
• CIA would like to read your emails.
• Blogging That Makes Me Wanna Cry. New finding: mainstream media are not the only ones who suck.
• Moveon.org To Launch New Group of Web 2.0 Tools To Unleash Your Inner Activist. C.f. Power Tools.
• Surprise: Congressional Websites are Still Awful
• Campaigns & Elections magazine threw a redesign party and didn’t invite us. Update: we’re invited to the next C&E party, and drinks are on them.
• Inside Googleplex DC. A pre-unveiling-party glimpse at the new digs (note: we get to go to this one).
• The ongoing tragedy: Right-Wing Babe of the Day

– cpd

Add comment January 14th, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Have Romney Robo-Call Your Friends

Slate’s Trailhead column picked up a very fun feature on Mitt Romney’s site on Wednesday afternoon — enter your name and a friend’s name, and this interesting Flash application will record a phone message for him or her. The site lets you pick issues — hmmmm, American Values or Radical Jihad? So hard to decide! — and you can choose to have the message sent as an actual phone call or via email. Though unfortunately it wouldn’t let me call myself after 9 pm, so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to test that “feature.” Of course, the system’s also limited to names that Mitt has pre-recorded, so “Colin” was off-limits, and when I tried to use “Pat” for a message to my father, it came out as “Patricia” (sorry about that sex change, Dad). You can also have Mitt record your outgoing voicemail message, which is sure to be a big hit among those willing to part with $25 for the privilege.

Yep, we’re taking robo-calling to a whole new level — I can’t wait until the message from Mitt finally arrives in my inbox. And just think of the various ways in which this tool (the technology, not the candidate) could be used to amuse your friends or torment your enemies. Let’s hope it’s not a violation of the extensive Terms of Use that users have to agree to for me to post the audio file here….

Update: After three hours, the message still hasn’t arrived, filling me with great sadness and a profound sense of loss. Fortunately there are dirty tricks to read about, including the nasty use of REAL robo-calls to mislead voters or maybe just “educate” them about certain candidates.

– cpd

4 comments January 3rd, 2008 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Big Bill Backs Barack!

Is the former President Clinton supporting Obama instead of Hillary? Time to sleep on the couch again! Or so an online trickster would have us believe — the owners of the domain names presidentbillclinton.com and williamclinton.com have redirected them to the official Obama website and also sent around an email to promote their actions. I got the message overnight but frankly found it somewhat opaque and had filed it to look at later, but I’ll reprint it here for your enlightenment instead. For more details, see Chadwick Matlin’s piece in Slate’s Trailhead column.

– cpd

Add comment December 24th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Quick Hits — December 11, 2007

Time for a little of The Good, The Bad and the Downright Ugly of Online Politics

• Let’s start with the Ugly: The travesty of political robo-calls, in which Slate’s William Saletan takes on a campaign tool that needs to die.
• Next, the Bad: Obama, Under the Clinton Microscope. Hillary staffer Bob Nash tries a little opposition research via email, forgetting that messages might just get forwarded.
• On to the Good, beginning with a pop culture/political culture mashup of epic proportions: Six Degrees of John Edwards.
• Next, in a move to outflank Edwards’s Kevin Bacon connection, Craig endorses Obama! Alas, not Larry Craig, but Craig Newmark of Craigslist, who’ll no doubt be able to provide the campaign with plenty of cheap furniture and even cheaper dates.
• Enough with the endorsements, let’s talk about the cash: Blog P.I. digs into the three main Republican online donations sites and finds Slatecard the winnah. Josh is right; give this one a close read.
• More on the fundraising front, as Bloggers Take On FEC Over Edwards’s Internet Cash.
• And we just can’t get enough of Edwards today: check out this excellent Wash Post feature that takes the words that voters use to describe the candidate to pollsters and displays them as a tag cloud. Sounds nerdy, but the results are an impressively easy and intuitive way to see what people are thinking.
• From the Good to the Sublime: Time has collected the Top 10 campaign gaffes of the year (are we allowed to hope for more before New Year’s?), complete with video (via Political Wire).

– cpd

1 comment December 11th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Email Dirty Tricks Fallout: Ron Paul Spammer Fingered, Clinton Staffer Fired

A couple of interesting scandal-related stories today: first off, as Wired and others are reporting, some excellent research by an expert with the company SecureWorks has found the spammer behind the recent barrage of unsolicited Ron Paul emails. Still unknown: who hired him.

Stewart’s detective work identified the botnet as part of a criminal operation in Eastern Europe called Reactor Mailer that offers spammers a convenient web interface to manage their illegal campaigns. The Ron Paul spam was managed by a spammer-for-hire who goes by the handle “nenastnyj.”

The political messaging was a departure for nenastnyj, and for the Reactor Mailer network, which is normally hired out by scammers offering fake watches, work at home opportunity and male enlargement products.

Was an over-eager supporter footing the bill? Or was someone managing a convoluted scheme to discredit Paul? Next, on to the Democratic side of the race, where a Hillary Clinton county chair in Iowa has lost her volunteer job for forwarding around an email accusing Obama of being a Muslim manchurian candidate bent on fomenting an Islamic revolt in the U.S. Thanks to Salon for the tip.

– cpd

Add comment December 6th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us