happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

10Questions - moving the political needle with online video

I got a great email from Blogher Jory today announcing their co-sponsorship of 10Questions:

... a new, non-partisan “People powered presidential forum” hosted by TechPresident.com, in cooperation with the New York Times and MSNBC.com and many of your favorite websites and blogs.

Here's how it works:  you post a short video asking candidates a question, vote on your fave videos, top 10 get picked, candidates answer your video questions with their own video, public decides if they actually answered the question. 

Here's why it was especially cool to get this from Blogher:  the Democratic YouTube debate showed an obvious majority of men submitting/asking the questions.  What gives?  Last time I checked the Interwebs liked girlies too...

No offense to the dudes, but as a female voter I want answers to (what often appear to be...) female questions.  Healthcare, education,  humanitarian issues,  poverty...  I get that most voters are concerned with these, but in my experience not nearly  as much.

So let's do something about it.  Submit your own questions.  Vote on questions you think really need answered (like Rubji's above!).  Get involved.  Make a difference.  Rock the Internet.

Tuesday quickie: Fred Thompson as blogger-in-chief?

Here's an interesting piece on Republican Fred Thompson's active Blogging life.  Love, love, LOVE to see a politician embrace and enjoy Social Media so much!

While the Internet and blogs are a basic cornerstone of any modern campaign communications strategy, Thompson has been notably enthusiastic about expressing his thoughts online.

"The guy actually likes blogging. Before he decided he was going to take the plunge on a presidential race, he cruised the blogs. It attracted him," said Roger Simon, co-founder of the Pajamas Media Web site, where Thompson frequently wins a weekly Republican straw poll.

Thompson has promised to keep the Web commentaries coming even after he formally kicks off his campaign. He praises the blogosphere as part of "a true information revolution."

And now we bring you the Democratic debate... sponsored by YouTube

Like a bajillion other people ('bajillion = a highly technical count of users, incidentally), I use YouTube for brilliant video finds like GalagaGal's 'Waiting for a bus' and Mr. Show videos.  But lately YouTube has been making me look/feel so much smarter by smashing really great political content into my ordinarily chuckle-induced online video world.  This makes me really happy.

Case in point:  YouTube is sponsoring one of 6 Democratic debates this year

It's all still a fascinating experiment at this point, political stuffed shirts relying on their young, hip campaign team members to lead them to virtual campaigning ecstasy.  And why not?  It's a different world, with new technologies and new ideas on how to communicate, share and spam each other.

“It’s really a new day,” Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University said of YouTube’s role. And, she added, it’s smart marketing - especially for organizers of an early debate - to seek out an audience, and online political activism is especially hot this election cycle.

“You go fishing where the fish are,” she said.

To be honest, I don't know that they are really going to get the kind of catch that they are intending.  Previous efforts to move young voters have fallen flat on their faces - apathy is so much cooler than standing in line to make a difference, I guess.  Ironically that same demographic has no problems standing in line for 12 hours to buy Xboxes, audition for American Idol or get the coolest new sneakers.  What gives?????

This YouTube sponsorship is still significant though - in all sorts of crazy ways.  It symbolizes potential partnerships between the old skool MSM suits and the new skool social media crazies.  Perhaps most importantly, it means that my YouTube favorites won't look quite so cracked out (or depending on the candidates, maybe 10 times more so).

Presidential candidates do the Google thing

Yet another reason it would be cool to work for Google - important people swing by your office to chat!

2 presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain, have stopped by the Big G's complex to speak with Google CEO Eric Schmidt on their campaign, technology prowess and other friendly chitchat I-want-to-takeover-the-world-and-know-I-need-to-appeal-to-YouTube-and-Google-audience topics.

Check out other political video goodies on CitizenTube.

Barack Obama's first campign slip-up

Barack has been riding pretty high and pretty on the campaign trail thus far - so the news that Obama's campaign has highjacked a citizen's Obama MySpace page is pretty surprising.  From the LA Metblog:

Joe Anthony, a Silverlake man, set up an Obama MySpace page in November of 2004 after being impressed with the Chicago Senator's keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. As the site gained popularity, the campaign team for Obama asked to become involved in the page, and Anthony agreed, even giving them the password to access the page to make changes as needed.

In March, the number of "friends" on the profile boomed from 100,000 to 140,000, and the maintainence of the page turned into a full time effort for Anthony, and as a result he asked for some sort of compensation, suggesting $49,000.

According to Anthony, there was no counter offer. And over the past few days MySpace cut off his access to the Obama page, turning it over to Obama's campaign staff who plan to shut it down, and are trying to get people to sign up for a new "official" Barack Obama page. On Joe Anthony's personal MySpace page are a number of blog postings reflecting his side of the story.

So not cool Obama-peeps.  Why would you bully out a longtime supporter, losing face and 160,000 MySpace friends in the process?   I'm interested to see how this will be spun...  and how technical voters feel about getting their comrades' toes stepped on like this...  Read more on techPresident here.

Political e-campaigning just that much easier with CampaignForce

Ease of use changes behavior.  I hear this all the time at work from Ed.  And you know, it's really true.

That's why I am so interested in the social technology tools that can jumpstart an aspiring candidate's political campaign with a little elbow grease, some e-love and a small budget.  Talk about changing the world - the social Web brings the small guys up front and center.

SalesForce just released (perhaps a little late...) their CampaignForce application - which is basically SalesForce with some app tweaks to make it campaign staff friendly.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think that everything they are doing is psychotically groundbreaking or uber-excitingly fresh and new.... but it warms my heart seeing more and more opportunity for easy online campaign access.

CampaignForce gives campaign staff a single point of access to just about everything they need to run their campaign. Candidates and their staff finally have a shared view of everything that matters to the campaign: donors and fundraising progress; outreach campaigns, polls and the buzz around candidates; and events and appearances on the campaign trail.

The longevity of political blunders via online video

The Seminal has an interesting post on politicians' public speaking faux pas getting caught and shared via online video.   Yet another wonderful thing about social media = everything that makes it online lives forever.  And ever.

Politicians are humans (unless they are robots or demon spawn, but it's still to early in the race to tell that just yet) and of course will make mistakes, blunders, oopsies and judgment errors.  But blatant lies and completely offensive mannerisms can and should be easily avoided by... well...  completely avoiding them.

Perhaps now political candidates will feel even more accountable for their words and actions by the fact that the YouTube crowd has a nasty obsession with the 'Share' button and embed code?  Ha ha, good joke.  Anyway, at the very least we'll be amused by seeing candidates' spin doctor team working overtime on crafting intricate responses to the latest Digg tidbits.
 

How many emoticons will your election ballot hold? MySpace holds mock election

A quickie political technology update:  MySpace has announced plans for a January 1, 2008 mock presidential election on their Impact channel.

This timing is questionable, as it seems cruel and unusual punishment to subject any interested on voters in navigating emoticon blinking, animated gif MySpace land on National Hangover Day -- but still is a very cool idea.

MySpace Impact channel feeds the political beast

MySpace's Impact political channel is the social community's latest foray into the wonderful world of Web-based election communication - (hopefully) reaching a good number of emoticon animating soon-to-be voters.

The channel features profiles of 10 presidential wannabes with links to videos, candidate bios and other  voter essentials for the upcoming 2008 election. 

I also dig the voter registration links and featured videos and news links to important social and campaign issues - easy access for some eyeballs that may not regularly peruse such non-Britney related news items.

Will the younger MySpace demographic move beyond merely friending Barack Obama and dive into campaign vlogs and surprisingly interesting candidate Twitter updates?  Well, at least the communication medium is more accessible...  but I have a sinking feeling that if P-Diddy couldn't rally the troops, MySpace probably won't get voting to trump the Wii either.   

Barak-star Obama: Blogging Net Politics at sxswi 2007

This is my only SXSWi 2007 liveblog, so I'm hoping this is discernible and valuable.  Of course you can listen to the podcast of this panel later on.  Some of the major points in the Net Politics:  The Internet Can Make You President (to be cleaned up later btw):

• MoveOn primary had a 'big thing' going - with lots of media attention (CNN and other MSM news oulets) helped them get a TON of email addresses and got candidates to give them their supporters. 
• Meetup was thinking of naming itself 'America Offline' - to get people out in society together that share common interests.
• What's it worth to pay for an email list?
  Organically grown list is worth about $10/name just in fundraising - more if you can recruit volunteers, take addresses for direct mail purposes (save cash on postage and printing).  Nobody pays $10/name, but organic is super valuable.
  
  Organic list also establishes a relationship - people are searching for you and want to support you.  This is invaluable, getting people write letters, knowck on doors and work at rallies.  New coalition - awesome.

• Internet rockstars are going to be your online rockstars.  2008 is going to be the 'boring' Internet campaign-wise, just as 2001/2002 Internet got boring - same thing going for candidates.  Major players will do well online (like Hillary), b/c she gets exposure and does well offline.
  
  Obama's online interface will get more unsolicited fundraising funds b/c of 'rock star' quality (Barak-star) and his interface.  The key is being authetnic - if you do good things offline (are a good honest candidate) people will flock to you online as well, looking for more and how to participate.

Read on for cool things candidates should and should NOT do