January 2008
Odds and Ends →
A couple of quick bits at the end of the day:
First, I got my hands on some Yahoo Buzz stats for the Democrats in New York State that show that, while Barack Obama enjoyed a huge surge in attention directly before and after the South Carolina primary, Hillary Clinton has been enjoying a rise in attention too.
Between Jan. 28 and Jan 29 — Monday and Tuesday of this week —...
The Money Myth →
If he wins, John McCain will have spent roughly $40 million to secure the nomination against two vastly better funded opponents. That is a far cry from the conventional wisdom that it would take $100 million to compete.
How much you raise may not matter that much, but I’m about to argue that how you raise it makes a big difference. Two data points.
One:
Boosters, including state...
The Canvass →
When somebody asks me about how the internet changes politics, I want to tell them about canvassing. Because if the story stops with “how many house parties” or “how many people go to SC,” then it actually stops right at the foot of the experience, right before it happens. Internet-enabled canvassing creates spaces that never existed before.
I looked up Obama’s SC...
The MoveOn Primary →
Be sure to check out Ari Melber’s piece in the Nation about MoveOn’s Democratic primary, in which they’re asking their 3.2 million members to vote for their preferred Dem.
…if MoveOn does manage to unite “as a progressive community around one of these candidates,” as Executive Director Eli Pariser explains in a new e-mail, its activists could play a pivotal...
Daily Digest: Does McCain Get the Tubes? →
The Web on the Candidates
Almost 45 percent of voters think the next president will know as much as them about the Internet, according to a poll from 463, the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, and Zogby International. That number is kind of surprising; no offense to John McCain, but do you really think he knows as much about the tubes as you do? Meanwhile, “38 percent of 18-29...
YouTube to YouBama →
Barack Obama recently shattered YouTube records with popular speeches, and now his YouTube fans are talking back.
Obama’s videos keep breaking campaign records — his rebuttal to the State of the Union drew over 700,000 views in two days — and some people are uploading their own grassroots videos on his behalf. A new site, YouBama.com, invites people to join a “citizen...
Are bloggers press? The LAPD doesn't seem to think... →
“…this is online, right? We’re not doing online. You have to submit the employer and show me three months of coverage in Los Angeles and I have to look at it before I can give you passes.”
Sound familiar? If you’re a blogger, you’ve no doubt had to justify your “media-ness,” or maybe you’ve had to justify your reach, audience, general...
Daily Digest: And Then There Were Six →
Special Announcement: PdF 2008 is Coming!
Mark your calendar: We are proud to announce that this year’s Personal Democracy Forum — our annual conference that has become the seminal gathering place for the growing community of people who understand how technology affects politics, and are looking for what’s coming next — will be held on June 23rd and 24th at the spectacular Rose Hall, the home of...
Daily Digest: And Then There Were Seven →
Special Announcement: PdF 2008 is Coming!
Mark your calendar: We are proud to announce that this year’s Personal Democracy Forum — our annual conference that has become the seminal gathering place for the growing community of people who understand how technology affects politics, and are looking for what’s coming next — will be held on June 23rd and 24th at the spectacular Rose Hall, the home of...
The Year of Twitter →
Over the last week or two, I’ve been noodling on the idea that 2008 could be the year of Twitter in the way that 2007 was the Year of Facebook and 2006 was the Year of YouTube.
Well, it looks like this may not be so farfetched. Last night, Twitter crashed, overloaded by live reactions to the State of the Union:
First Macworld, now the State of the Union. Several times during...
Daily Digest: Goodbye Rudy, Tuesday →
The Web on the Candidates
Arbiter of Silicon Valley cool TechCrunch has announced the winners of its TechCrunch Tech President Primaries (no relation to this fair site…). For the Democrats, it’s Barack Obama, who, according to site founder Michael Arrington, “has put more time and effort into defining his technology policies than any other candidate.” The GOP pick is John McCain,...
RNC Convention Partners with UStream.TV →
The Republican National Convention has brokered a deal with UStream.TV to serve as its “Official Live Video Streaming Provider.” Appropriately, the announcement was made live via streaming video at www.GOPConvention2008.com.
Watch now here:
Readers of TechRepublican will recall our conversation with UStream founder Brad Hunstable two weeks ago where he teased that a “major...
State of the Union Overloads Twitter →
First Macworld, now the State of the Union. Several times during tonight’s SOTU address Twitter’s servers were overloaded, preventing users of the popular micro-blogging service from sending or receiving tweets for several minutes at a time.
A scan of Twitter’s public timeline during the speech showed a number of tweets about Bush’s (hopefully) last address to Congress....
Clinton, Huckabee Present Closing Arguments in... →
This afternoon, MTV announced that on Saturday, February 2nd, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee will both participate in the ongoing MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogues. Billed as a “Super-Dialogue,” the event will offer any candidate polling with at least 10% support to address the MTV/MySpace audience, however only Clinton and Huckabe have accepted thus far.
If you’ve read my...
Daily Digest: Telenovelas Get the Vote Out →
The Web on the Candidates
Have you been waiting impatiently for someone to combine the telenovela with a voter registration drive? Wait no longer, Voto Latino is here. The site uses a pleasing array of Web 2.0 goodness (MySpace and Faceook widgets, Yahoo! maps, YouTube) to encourage Latinos to register to vote. At its center is a hilarious sendup of telenovelas starring Rosario Dawson and...
Yahoo Buzz in SC →
We already know that Barack Obama won South Carolina on Saturday by a huge margin. Duh.
The outcome may be no surprise to those of you following Yahoo’s Political Dashboard, who would have have seen Barack Obama dominate online buzz in the run-up to the South Carolina primary. But what explains Obama’s skyrocketing numbers and Hillary’s dip on the day of the primary?
...
The (Mostly) New BarackObama.com →
I’m a bit late to the party on this, but hopefully it’s fashionably late, and not like the guy that gets there after everyone has gone home and wants to sit and chat despite the fact that you’re dropping hints for him to get out. I thought I’d take a closer look at the new BarackObama.com. I still think, despite all the prognostications that Hillary has it locked, that...
Obama Doubles Down on YouTube →
He’s done it again.
Barack Obama shattered YouTube records last week with a speech that shot past Britney Spears as one of the most watched videos of the day, drawing over half a million views in total. A new video of his South Carolina victory speech was the fifth most watched video in the world on Sunday, drawing a whopping 180,000 views in its first day online. It was also the most...
Is This Beat Up on Hillary Week on YouTube? →
Hugh Atkin, who made the “Changes” video we highlighted last Friday, mashing up the David Bowie song with all the candidates talking about “change,” has a follow-up that’s incredible: a mash-up of Senator Hillary Clinton’s now famous emotional moment just before the New Hampshire with, get this, Tom Cruise talking about his passion for Scientology. The...
Late-Deciding Voters and Last-Minute Search... →
Cross-posted on e.politics
Political campaigns typically use search advertising primarily for long-term list-building, but with a big chunk of February 5th voters apparently still undecided, shouldn’t targeted search ads be an effective way to reach people who are still making up their minds?
Here’s why: if X percentage of primary voters in a given state haven’t picked a...
Congrats to Julie Barko Germany →
Hearty congratulations are in order for Julie Barko Germany, who has just been officially named the new director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at George Washington University. Julie has been deputy director of IPDI since 2003 and acting director since its longtime leader Carol Darr stepped down last summer.
IPDI sponsors the annual Politics Online...
Politweets - All the News That's Fit to "Tweet" →
Cross-posted at Off the Bus
While traditional media outlets excel in wordiness during election season, one social media outlet proudly flaunts its brevity. Twitter is a free “microblogging” service that lets anyone share online what they are doing or thinking, in 140 characters or less (including spaces). Many Twitter users are now “tweeting”—sending out—their...
Daily Digest: Kucinich Bows Out →
The Web on the Candidates
The Blogometer’s Ian Faerstein writes that liberal bloggers continue to be divided about Hillary Clinton’s aggressive tactics, and Paul Waldman even compares her campaign to one being run by Karl Rove or Lee Atwater. But Ezra Klein points out that “distasteful as some of Clinton’s hits are, they’re nothing compared to what [Obama will] face as the nominee.”
But in...
Our Favorite Videos of the Week: The Best... →
Friends, it’s Friday again and time for you to indulge in a little political web video action. This week, watch as PoliticsTV recaps some of the top moments from the primary/caucus races, Mitt lets the dogs out, the candidates join David Bowie in a call for change, Bill gets sleepy, Hillary and Barack go at each other, and more.
Also, YouTube YouChoose ‘08 is asking for your political opinions,...
Fred08.com: An Outside Insider's View →
A lot has been written about the Thompson campaign in the past two days. I have read a bunch of post-mortems all focused on what went wrong, but I thought I would spend a little time telling you what went right. For people interested in online politics and the way candidates use the web, the Thompson campaign is a great case study in what can go well, and go badly in our world.
On May 22nd, I was...
Three Ways to Rev Up the Web Campaigns →
[Here’s an excerpt of my and Andrew Rasiej’s latest column in the Politico.com.]
The way it looks now, there is a strong possibility that both the Democratic and Republican nomination contests are not going to be resolved with a quick knockout blow that gives one contender in either party the momentum to force his or her opponents to drop out.
Instead, we are heading into...
LeftvsRight.com: Political Search Meets Political... →
Cross-posted on e.politics
A new site announcement arrived in my inbox yesterday, courtesy of an aggressive Waggener Edstrom outreach campaign (two separate emails came here and here plus an extra copy of the second; the PDFs unfortunately don’t fully capture the complexity of the messages’ layout). LeftvsRight.com is a strange mix of targeted political search engine and political...
Daily Digest: Senators, Get Thee to DC! →
The Web on the Candidates
Telecom lobbyists are once again pushing for an update to FISA that would give telecoms retroactive immunity for participating in an illegal government wiretapping program. In response, progressive bloggers are urging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to take a break from the campaign trail to oppose the bill. “Get thee to DC and filibuster, Senators,” Jane Hamsher...
On Day One: Can Ideas Alone Change America's... →
What do you think should happen on the day the new American president is sworn in? On Day One, a new site that launched today, is inviting folks from around the world to post their ideas.
The ideas are like status updates on Facebook — a box on the left side of the site asks you to “set the agenda” by submitting your “ideas for a better world.”
You can also upload...
Presidential Hopefuls Display Online Ad Maturity →
Presidential campaigns may not be spending tons on Web ads, but they’ve recently shown a greater willingness to experiment with innovative ad creative and messaging. Though these advertisers are typically less savvy than commercial marketers, ads placed by the campaigns in December leading to the Iowa caucuses revealed a maturing approach to online advertising.
According to Nielsen...
Daily Digest: Who Let Mitt Romney Out? →
The Web on the Candidates
The truce between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is long gone, and as things get more heated between the candidates the blogosphere is also getting fired up. The Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas writes that “these are busy — and impassioned — times in the Afrosphere,” with many black bloggers reacting to racial under- and overtones that are making the Democratic...
Hope Will Not Be Televised: Obama YouTube vs.... →
Great speeches don’t matter if no one hears them. Barack Obama delivered a riveting speech about America’s moral crisis this weekend, calling for a united movement to overcome the nation’s moral deficit and mounting economic inequality. Political observers praised the address and reporters covered it — 53 mentions in major papers — yet it’s been largely...
Daily Digest: Huckabee Is An Ewok? →
The Web on the Candidates
Polls used to be the only tools we had to measure the horse-race campaign (not that that’s all we should be doing), but, as Jeff Jarvis writes in the Guardian, “now the internet gives us new metrics to spot, measure, predict - and influence - public thinking.” He gives examples of how we can track media coverage, search trends, blog mentions, and advertising funds, and...
Bush Blogs, Sort Of →
Looks like President Bush or one of his ghost-writers had time to post some “Trip Notes From the Middle East” that are almost bloggish in their style. Now we know who picks out the president’s suits and ties. (Hat tips to Steve Klein and Amy Gahran.)
Daily Digest: Does Campaign Coverage Suck? →
The Web on the Candidates
NYU journalism professor and founder of NewAssignment.net Jay Rosen has a fantastic excoriation of horse-race journalism titled “Why campaign coverage sucks,” in which he argues that mainstream election coverage is “a beast without a brain,” and that most of the time, “it doesn’t know what it’s doing.” (Jay helped launch Off The Bus as a counterweight to the breathless...
The Candidates Turn to Eventful →
Our friends at Eventful have released some good news about the candidates’ use of their site to organize local events in the runup to the Nevada caucus and South Carolina primary.
In Nevada, Sen. Barack Obama has more than 500 supporters demanding an appearance in their town, far out-pacing his competition. Edwards and Obama are both using Eventful to send messages to supporters through...
Daily Digest: The Netroots vs. Ronald Obama →
The Web on the Candidates
The netroots have made a big deal out of Barack Obama’s recent comparison of himself to Ronald Reagan, thinking it further proof that Obama is too centrist for their tastes. Matt Stoller rounds up some steam-blowing from the leftisphere, citing posts by Digby, Big Tent Democrat, and Rick Perlstein. But Ezra Klein thinks Stoller might be misinterpreting Obama’s words,...
"We're Not Just the Internet" →
[Cross-posted at One Million Strong]
Last weekend, tourists in Las Vegas were greeted by the sight of Ron Paul supporters parading down the Strip, chanting:
We’re not just the Internet. We’re flesh and blood.
Could this serve as the motto of the 2008 campaign? The election when online social networks proved that they exist, by out-fundraising traditional party elites, by helping create...
Our Favorite Videos of the Week: America's Mitten... →
Mitt Romney, victor of Michigan, dominates our favorite videos of the week. Watch as he’s criticized for dissing a medical marijuana user, Democrats are urged to bring out the vote for him, and he gets testy with a reporter for bringing up the small question of whether lobbyists are running his campaign. Touchy subject, Mitt?
7. Edwards campaign unleashes secret weapon
Douglas, a precocious...
Our Favorite Videos of the Week: America's Mitten... →
Mitt Romney, victor of Michigan, dominates our favorite videos of the week. Watch as he’s criticized for dissing a medical marijuana user, Democrats are urged to bring out the vote for him, and he gets testy with a reporter for bringing up the small question of whether lobbyists are running his campaign. Touchy subject, Mitt?
[LATE ADDITION]
Hillary’s Inner Tracy Flick
I loved Election...
More Yahoo! Buzz Data: Dems in a Dead Heat →
Yesterday I posted data from Yahoo! Buzz that showed Mitt Romney topping searches among Republican voters in Nevada and much closer numbers among Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee in South Carolina. Now some data about Democratic voters in Nevada and South Carolina suggests a dead heat between Clinton and Obama.
As the chart below shows, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been locked in a...
Romney Tops Yahoo! Buzz in Nevada →
Last week I wrote about Yahoo! Buzz, which in addition to tracking celebrity fandom across the web also tracks searches for political candidates (displayed in the excellent Political Dashboard). The service has the uncanny ability to know, for example, how many New Hampshire women were searching for “Hillary Clinton” the eve before the New Hampshire primary, and for accurately...
Daily Digest: Google Announces Political Checkout →
The Web on the Candidates
Ian Faerstein at the National Journal’s Blogometer rounds up conservative bloggers’ reactions to Mitt Romney’s win in Michigan. Most agree that, with three separate winners of three separate states, chaos has descended on the GOP. “Folks, if you know who’s going to win this nomination you are dreamin’. Three states. Three separate winners,” writes CBN’s David Brody....
Ross Perot Surfaces →
Jonathan Alter has a fun scoop in Newsweek: a rare interview with Ross Perot, America’s most reclusive political figure. Three things jumped out at me in the interview, which was mainly about Perot’s dislike of John McCain: 1. The tiny Texan is still incredibly obsessed with the cause of America’s Vietnam POWs, and his belief that we left men behind there. Back in 1992, I worked...
Obama's Fundraising Juggernaut →
Barack Obama sent out an email this afternoon making a bold claim: his campaign has raised money from 100,000 online donors since the beginning of the year.
After the New Hampshire primary last week, we set a goal of 100,000 online donors in 2008 — a goal we hoped to reach before the Nevada caucuses on Saturday.
Last night we got there five days early.
Think about that: 100,000 donors in 15...
Daily Digest: Mitt Wins, War Metaphors Abound →
The Web on the Candidates
Mitt Romney is the latest Republican candidate to take home a gold in a primary, winning Michigan last night (well, he won Wyoming, but does that count?). After Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and now Romney have won big primaries, it’s clear that there’s no GOP frontrunner. Now it’s a fight to the finish, and to come up with the most preposterous war metaphors. The next...
Searching for Onffline Support →
As more candidates (ok, Barack Obama) make the transition from online activism and organizing to offline support, I’ve realized that I have no word to describe the convergence of political action on the web and in meatspace, so I’ve come up with a neologism:
Onffline.
As in, “Barack Obama is leading his opponents in onffline support.”
Of course, maybe Obama and all of the other candidates...
The Democratic Race: Obama Dominating Online... →
Time for another periodic look at grassroots activity being generated by the top Democratic campaigns, which give their supporters online tools to organize and advertise local house parties, fundraisers, phone-banking and the like. With Nevada, South Carolina and then the February 5 mega-primary states coming up soon, I looked for events within 100 miles of Las Vegas and Raleigh, and then turned...
Calling Convention Bloggers →
If you’re a blogger, it’s not too late to apply for credentials to attend the Democratic convention in Denver, Jason Rosenberg tells me. Rosenberg is the convention’s online director, and he called me yesterday to make sure techPresident got its application in. (The deadline is April 15.)
The DNCC will be credentialing one blogger from every state and territory (56 in all),...
SNADFU: Obama Campaign Places Nevada Ad in South... →
Managing placements of online ads can be a challenge, as the Obama campaign recently learned. With more caucuses and primaries approaching, his campaign accidentally placed an ad for Nevada on a South Carolina TV news website. This seems to be an isolated incident. Fortunately, online ads can be swapped or pulled in ways that print ads cannot. The ad is no longer displayed on the News 14 website.
...