Posts filed under 'Social Networking'
An unusual email drifted over the transom today:
Please help me and my sister grow our site, My name is Madison and my sister is Morgan we are all star cheerleaders and we asked are dad to start us a web site like Myspace but for cheerleaders and dancers. The site is called Wegatta.com we are hoping that we can make this the biggest web site for cheerleaders and dancers, we started the web site in December and it is doing ok so far, we have about 1689 members mostly cheerleaders.
Can you please help us get the word out about are site? And anyone can join. Wegatta.com is very cool and fun my dad put over 750 games on Wegatta.com for everyone to play and it’s all free.
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May 15th, 2008
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Resistance is futile: e.politics has surrendered to the Twitter Borg. Now you’ll be able to find out what our staff (i.e., the cat and the turtle) have for breakfast every single day! Farewell, productive time…
Seriously, I’m experimenting with Twitter to get general impressions and a better feel for it as a communications channel. At the moment, I’ll mostly be sending out notifications of new e.pol articles via Twitterfeed, but let’s see what the future brings.
– cpd
May 12th, 2008
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Yesterday’s Facebook article generated some fantastic comments both here and on the techPresident version, with plenty of things to chew on for a while, and you guys are crazy if you miss out on them. So, let’s gather ‘em up in one easy bundle and take ‘em on home.
First, Mark Rovner from Sea Change Strategies weighed in here on e.politics in typically vivid style:
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May 5th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
I hate to risk alienating my new BFF Mark Zuckerberg, but has Facebook’s moment in the sun as a hot political tool passed? And if so, what does that tell us about the future of social networking sites for online political organizing, and even about the future of Facebook itself?
We’ve now seen more than a year of intense use of social networking sites by the U.S. presidential campaigns (and even longer use by issue-advocacy groups), which gives us a solid base of information and experience to judge just how effective Facebook is as a political tool — both for organized political campaigns and advocacy groups and for individual political activists. The verdict? Facebook has not lived up to a lot of its initial political hype, and for reasons that are perfectly natural considering what kind of a site it is. The crux:
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May 4th, 2008
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- Adding Video to Turn Dead-End ‘Thank You’ Pages Into Viral Marketing Campaigns. The Obama campaign finds yet another sweet spot for online recruiting.
- The Post Is Having A Rough Day. Spam attack!
- Reluctantly, a Daily Stops Its Presses, Living Online.
- Rev. Wright Baits the Soundbiters.
- The Internet Goes Green. The growth of the envirosphere, via Micropersuasion.
- Space war would leave destructive legacy.
- McCain: It’s “clear who Hamas wants to be the next president.” Fruits of a blogger conference call.
- Google Earth Outreach Aides U.N. Track Refugees and Save Lives.
- Beyond Bittergate, Barack Yields Success to His Supporters.
- Obama’s Database Will Make Him the Power Broker. Another persistent political following! “Like Mussolini/ And Kennedy…”
- The chummy relationship of campaign professionals and journalists in Washington. Or, getting scolded for making fun of McCain on Facebook.
- Schism Grows Between Obama and Liberal Bloggers.
- Were Mesopotamians the first brand addicts?
- Subject Line, ‘From’ Address Crucial to Email Marketing.
- Who Stole the Plans for iRobot’s Battle Bots?
- YouTube vid inspires Obamacrombie t-shirts.
- Facebook as Weekly Evil.
- McCain on FriendFeed: “Considering the McCain campaign’s sometimes uneven online strategy, this is a step in the right direction.”
- Social Applications Dominate the Web.
- Gays, Lesbians More Receptive to Blog Ads than Heterosexuals.
- An overview of web mining in societal benefit areas.
- Top 10 Wireless Marketing Mistakes.
- 3 Top Tips to Improve Your Online Writing.
- Henry Copeland of Blogads: “As the social media winter looms, the winners will be the folks with strong relationships, low overheads, a strong commitment on innovation rather than coat-tail riding, and, most of all, a indelible passion for the business. We’re looking forward to seeing you after the bust.”
- Sorry Disney, But You’re Kind of a Skank Factory.
- DNC’s national cable ad buy. The RNC’s not so hot about it.
- Web Site Blames Sen. McConnell for Quorum-less FEC.
- The Twitter Disconnect. An introduction and how-to. Also, glimpse a hardcore Twitter-using life.
- Things Really Were Different Before Clinton-Obama. Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin…into the future.
- Which Government Agency Should Be Your Computer’s Firewall? HAL 9000 or black squirrels?
– cpd
April 28th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
As the Democratic primary process grinds on, the candidates’ supporters are using just about every electronic tool available to swing the race their way. Two cases in point from the Obama side: super.del.egates.us is a wiki-based contact list for voters to use to reach the precious unpledged delegates to the Democratic Convention, while Yrmomma4obama aims to help young voters (and those too young to vote themselves) to use text messages to persuade their friends and family to jump on the Obama bandwagon.
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April 27th, 2008
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- 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
April 24th, 2008
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In her presentation this morning, Morra Aarons-Mele made an excellent observation: internet staffers for political campaigns are expected to do everything and to know everything. The same is true in the advocacy world: when I was at the former National Environmental Trust, at various times I was a graphic designer, an HTML coder, an online communications strategist, an email advocacy guy, a database manager, a blog outreacher, a site statistics analyst, a social networking pro, an online advertiser and a trainer of interns — sometimes all in the same day. About the only things I didn’t do were to blog for the organization and to raise money online, and that was only because NET didn’t do those things.
Web staffers are expected to have a broader range of skills than any other part of a campaign or organization (example: do you expect your press relations folks to be fundraising experts?), and yet they’re still often underpaid and kept out of critical communications decisions until late in the process. Bizarre. Oh, and BTW, I can’t fix your computer — it amazed me how often people confused my job with that of our actual (and excellent) IT guy.
I can only assume that this situation exists because the ‘net seems like voodoo to traditional political staff, who often seem to have little idea what actually goes into online communications. As the ‘net insinuates itself more and more into politics at all levels, a change had better come — as Zack Exley put it, you won’t hire an internet person and put him or her in a box, you’ll hire communications staff who actually understand how to use the internet.
– cpd
April 24th, 2008
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Along with Dennis Johnson, Karen Jagoda and Morra Aarons-Mele, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation this morning on congressional and local online campaigns for the assembled journalists at the Knight Digital Media Center’s symposium, Election ’08: Unleashing the Cyber-watchdogs (i.e., after a week of luxuriating in the California sun, it was time to sing for my supper and justify the trip). My notes are below; if they’re too cryptic, drop me a note for details.
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April 24th, 2008
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Hi y’all, I gave a social media marketing training in New York on Monday, and I developed something for it that you might be able to use. The training was for the web staff of the local chapters of a large national nonprofit, and we covered the basics of using tools like blogs, online video, social networking sites and email lists and discussion groups to promote their activities and help with membership and fundraising. As a takeaway (a trick I learned from Michael Bassik — if you can, leave a little something behind for the crowd), I created a cheap sheet that looks at the basic social media marketing tools, their pros and cons, and the essential considerations involved in a social media campaign. Here’s a link to the PDF; details are below.
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April 4th, 2008
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Greetings from New Orleans and the Nonprofit Technology Conference, where e.politics is bearing up nobly under the strain of going to fantastic cities and hanging out with bright and interesting people. Rough life, I know
As a takeaway for the participants in our online advocacy panel on Friday, below are a ton of articles on various aspects of the question of spreading a message and working to change politics and policy online.
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March 20th, 2008
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Post-Politics Online/pre-SXSW Quick Hits extravaganza.
- Does Good Design Matter? Todd Zeigler’s excellent follow-on to our Politics Online panel. C.f. lots of POLC coverage at Capitol Valley and Tech Daily Dose.
- Trusting Politics 2.0 Can be Difficult in Local Elections.
- Getting Duped: How the Media Messes with Your Mind.
- Online Video Audience to Hit Critical Mass in ‘08. “Nearly 80 percent of US internet users will watch online video at least once a month in 2008.”
- News and Media US Website Visits Up Sharply. Lindsey Lohan softcore locked in deathmatch with political coverage. C.f. Obama: Bigger than Britney.
- How-To: 6 Tips on Writing an Actionable Press Release. Basic but useful.
- Historically, Most Online Communities Haven’t Stuck. Facebook and MySpace: do not forget the lesson of Ozymandias.
- Crowd Enabling, the Obama way. A mighty bold claim: “Even if Obama fails to achieve his goal of becoming President of the United States, I predict he will have a deeper and more powerful understanding of the American people than anyone in the history of politics.”
- Did the Clinton Campaign Doctor Obama Footage to Make Him ‘Blacker’?
- Spying Fight about Emails, Not Phone Calls, DOJ Reveals.
- McCain’s Unfiltered Blog. Straight conversation.
- Hillary’s pop culture problem vs. Did SNL Save Clinton’s Campaign?
- Is the Obama Campaign Really Different?. Or is he the new New Coke?
- ObamaCycle: A Craigslist for Obama Campaigners.
- Hillary’s Classy Tweets to Ohio and Rhode Island. Not sure “Tweet” and “Classy” belong in the same sentence.
- Air Force Launches Recruitment Campaign Touting Cyber Command. Check out the gee-whiz landing page, and also the fact that the Air Force has blocked access to many (most?) blogs.
- Obama Reaches 1 Million Donor Mark. Check out the comments on Micah Sifry’s article about it.
- Obama does not read blogs. No wonder he has time to run for president.
- Quote of the week: “‘It’s a love tap compared to the Wu-Tang fist of fury that’s coming at this guy in the fall,’ said Rick Wilson, a Republican media consultant.”
- Heather Havriskey interview with George Carlin. A must-read for anyone interested in writing or the creative process.
- Facebook Launches Band Pages. “MySpace also might start to get worried — I’m sure I’m not the only one who uses that site solely for auditioning bands.”
- New Source for News Vetted by Scientists. A peer-reviewed take on social news.
- The Charms of Wikipedia.
- Are Liberals and Conservatives Different Species? The Answer is Yes.
- Extended rant against microsites. Not sure if I agree, but it’s worth reading.
- A Whole Toolbox of Contention.
- ETech: Lessig Calls for Geeks to Code Money Out of Politics.
- Wanted: A More Digital Congress.
- Inside Obama’s Ground Game.
- Hillary’s Rapid Responders.
- Obama Lawyer Crashes Clinton Call. With audio!
- Politico 2.0: Ruffini Blogs, Twitters, Crowdsources Obama Donations. Via tPrez. C.f. Josh’s take on the candidates’ post-Tuesday splash pages
- Flickr and TechSoup to hand out free Flickr Pro accounts to nonprofits.
- Facebook changes political affiliation choices. Michael Whitney and Nancy Scola are not impressed.
- Over 1 million people have seen Robert Greenwald’s anti-McCain online videos.
- Geeking out before checking out: Spacecraft photographs avalanches on Mars. Don’t miss the accompanying Earth/Moon family portrait, taken from Mars orbit — such a cute couple. And, dig the new European automatic robotic space truck. Finally, some good advice for the Coast Guard, and a Farewell to the Dungeon Master.
– cpd
March 6th, 2008
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- Update: Primary Season Signals Adoption of Online Ads by Political Campaigns. “Not only are those ads relatively inexpensive; they’ve allowed often cash-strapped campaigns to determine whether their dollars were well spent, before voters went to the polls.” Lots of details in this one.
- Politics and tax top US search league. Also note that Huckabee’s site outdrew McCain’s by 50% in January, and that Obama’s site had double the traffic of Hillary’s and four times that of McCain’s.
- Story on McCain’s Relationship with Telecom Lobbyist Sets Bloggers Abuzz. Nothing like a potential scandal to wake up the pajama-clad warriors — and set up a fundraising frenzy.
- John McCain Abuses Email. Lithe, blonde email in question denies all allegations.
- UK-Based Facebook User Figures Begin to Plateau. Facebook dons waterskis, prepares ramp over shark tank.
- The race online: Obama, rivals bring Internet campaigning to new level. Overview article from Frank Davies of the Merc News.
- Ralph Nader’s Bid for Presidency Meets with Negative Online Buzz. No love for Nader in the Lefty blogs.
- Googlebombing McCain. Via tPrez. Warning: he’s no stranger to flak.
- U.S. online search up 10% since last year.
- GOP politics in a nutshell. Dissecting a Republican online video.
- U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft. Juan Cole replies:
“The recent alarmism about terrorist activity in virtual worlds seems designed to prey on the fears of the Internet common among the Great Unwired. Most of the concerns are simply unreasonable.”
- Viva Obama!. Lots of citizen vids. But wait: here comes the inevitable online Obama backlash.
- Ad Age: Creatives Have a Crush on Obama. One reason that Obama-supporting citizen media is so good — plenty of it is created by professionals. Via ReelPop.
- How much millet can a cellphone buy?.
- Lost in Wisconsin. “Again and again, following Super Tuesday, the Clinton campaign failed in basic on-the-ground organisation.” Also check out this reader comment about “Camp Obama,” Deconstructing an Obama Victory and Clinton on the ropes: How she got there (the last a Burt Edwards suggestion).
- “In Canon” Voter-Generated Content. Interesting model for considering citizen media.
- How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Domestic Wiretapping.
- Email best practices: What are the best days and times to send bulk email?. And, Using Images in Email.
- Map of the Political Blogosphere. Via Technology Evangelist, who argues that it shows the continuing value of having original content.
- Two Articles on Political Online Advertising. Eric Frenchman adds to Kate Kaye’s excellent Clickz reporting.
- EBay Boycott Ends Today; Impact Disputed. Online activism ain’t just political.
- Grassroots organizing online, post-Ron Paul. Top-down vs. bottom-up — the battle continues.
– cpd
February 25th, 2008
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Check out Priscilla Bryce-Weller’s comment on the Facebook status/advocacy piece from a few days ago:
We did this in Australia last week. Our parliament apologised on behalf of previous governments to Australia’s Indigenous Stolen Generations. We suggested to both our Facebook and MySpace friends that they change their status to “is sorry” on the day of the apology. Lots of people did, and as an added extra, hundreds of people joined our cause that day.
Excellent way to get an issue out in the public eye, and obviously in this case it benefited the folks encouraging people to do it. On the same article, also check out Briton Mark Pack’s comment on Facebook’s use in UK elections:
Using status in this way is a pretty common campaigning technique in the UK, though what’s become more popular here (at least in the Liberal Democrats) is changing your profile picture to a graphic that says you are backing / have voted for a particular candidate.
Also clever — clearly, this is a promising tool to help activists spread political messages. Facebook users are bombarded by tons of messages and group invitations, but even when they tune those out, they’ll still see their friends’ status and picture.
– cpd
February 22nd, 2008
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Potomac Primary special edition — special because for once, DC’s vote actually matters.
- Update: Over the Horizon: User-Centered Online Politics?
- Hillary’s Valentine Email to supporters. Tasty treat or sickly sweet? Also check out the viral email that’s helping her.
- Michelle Obama Robocalls DC Voters, as does DC mayor Adrian Fenty. C.f. Rep. Foxx pledges no more robocalls.
- Ron Paul Rallies Supporters via YouTube.
- Dueling Washington (State) GOP Web Sites. Huckabee die-hards launch online offensive.
- What, No Flowers? RNC Sends Valentine E-Cards. Mike Turk’s not in love.
- Moroccan Man Jailed For Fake Facebook Profile. It’s good to be the king, but don’t pretend to be his younger brother.
- How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free.
- Not every site needs to be a social network.
- Why Google keywords cost more but deliver less.
- A cellphone in every pocket.
- Putting Candidates Under the Videoscope.
- Predicting the return of predictive journalism.
- Georgia Perspective on the Evolution of Media and Politics. From an MTV voter turnout organizer.
- Catch-22: Communicating with Congress. Interesting — mass emails may actually be being heard.
- Nokia creates its own mobile advertising network.
- TSA Reads Blog Comments, Changes Policy.
- Google News Goes Local With Neighborhood Headlines.
- Super Tuesday’s Gadgets: Touch Screen Monitors, New Notebooks, and 3D Graphics Drive TV Coverage.
- A New Online Fundraising Record on the Horizon. C.f. Money, Money, Money.
- But do donations predict a state’s final vote?
- Despite Web success, Obama loses Silicon Valley.
- Wired’s Guide to Starting a Viral Political Campaign on YouTube.
- Start a Nonprofit and Join Election ‘08 YouTube Free-For-All. A new route for 527s and similar outside political groups.
- MoveOn delivers Obama $500,000, plus 500,000 messages to friends.
- Political Blogging Scholarship. Please don’t feed the animals.
- Video Games for Social Change.
- Matt Stoller Fails to Consolidate the Netroots. Food Fight!
- Presidential fundraising doubles in 2007.
- Lolcats meets Obama: Yes We Can Has (cheezburgers).
I does haz no understanding of why this is as funny as it is. Via tPrez.
– cpd
February 12th, 2008
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