Facebook vs. Twitter. It’s the fight of the social media universe.

All of Facebook’s moves lately, demonstrate its focus is on fending off Twitter and adopting Twitter’s successes whenever possible. For example: its renewed focus on promotion of content via the stream, it's acquisition of FriendFeed, and the launch of the slimmed down Facebook Light, a site that looks surprising like Twitter.

And most recently, the introduction of @mentions to tag other Facebook users in your status updates. 

When you tag someone in your status update, the content pops up on the tagged user’s stream and she gets an email notification saying she’s been tagged.

It's this latest change that I've been curiously testing out over the past few weeks. 

Overall, my reaction has been a big ::: shrugged :::

I've seen a slight increase in people interacting with my content on my personal profile and it always seemed to grab the attention of the person who I tagged in the update. 

But the increase in interactions hasn’t been that large. However, the enterprising politico can still leverage this new feature to help push their message.

Try It Out

I recommend you start asking supporters to @mention your candidate or organization in their status updates. Make using @mentions part of your call-to-action. 

Improvements?

One of the best things Facebook could do to improve the @mention is to deploy a tab on your profile to allow users to easily view all their @mentions in one place.

This way you don’t have to wade through your newsfeed to find updates that mention you. 

Here’s to Facebook continuing to try to out Twitter, Twitter.

What do you think, do you like using Facebook's new @mention?

We all get bad emails. But this morning, I awoke to find a real gem in my inbox.

It's from the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, a group whose mission I support but whose email makes me want to cry.

Take a look at the screen capture of the email on the right. Yeah, that's not even the whole email. It goes on for another page or so...  

The whole point of this email is to get people to contribute money. But the first link to the donation page is 1,741 words into the email!

Writing five pages of copy may work in direct mail, but not for email. As Shakespeare said, "brevity is the soul of wit."

Now class, what can we learn from looking at this sad little email?

1. What's The Point?

Your Call-To-Action, what you want people to do, should be clearly visible above-the-fold or in the inbox preview. People should not have to scroll to the bottom of the email to take action.

2. Keep It Short

People are busy. They have a lot to do and no time to do it. So respect their time with your emails. Keep your note short and get to the point quickly.

3. Send When People Will Read

This email arrived in my inbox at 6:33am. It was buried under dozens of other emails and Google News Alerts. Send emails when people can and will read them.

There's been a lot written over the years about bad emails. But clearly people still haven't gotten the message.

This was my second year speaking at the RightOnline conference hosted by Americans for Prosperity and it was bigger and better than ever.

DAG was a sponsor of the conference, deploying the #RightOn Tweet Lounge to aggregate the conversation on the Twitter using the #RightOn hashtag.

A number of very smart folks spoke this weekend including my colleagues @DavidAll and @EthanEilon. On Saturday I spoke on a panel with Eric Odom regarding Online Community Building to a packed house. It was one of the better panels I've been on, and I was thoroughly impressed with the engaging and insightful dialogue Eric and I had with the audience.

I've uploaded my presentation below and laid out some key principles from my introductory remarks that I try to think through when going about building communities online.

*Have a Plan* Know who you're trying to reach and what your metrics for success are, before you begin.

*Recognize Top Activists* Show that you acknowledge the importance of your top supporters. For example, deploy a Leaderboard (like we did on Operation Waiting Game) to encourage competition amongst your community, to make it to the top of the activist heap.

*Find a Gardener* A community is like a garden, without a gardner it will become overrun with weeds and die. You need a dedicated community manager who wakes up every day and thinks about your community. For Operation Waiting Game, this is the CR Co-Chair, Jeremy Hagen.

*Keep in Touch* If you build it, they won't come. You have to tell them about it first. Once you've gotten people into your community, you need to continually find ways to communicate with them and get them to come back and participate.

*Train Folks* Just because you've built a really neat tool, you can't assume people will know how to use it. You need to train them. That's why for Operation Waiting Game we created a short training video explaining how to sign-up and get started using the web site. It's one of the first actions people are asked to take.

Do you think I missed anything? What other principles should one keep in mind when engaging in online community building? Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

Earlier this week, I bolted up to NYC for my third annual Personal Democracy Forum.

This year's conference was bigger and badder then ever with over 1,000 of my closest tech & politics nerds in attendance. Indeed, the crowd size started to show, with some panels filling to capacity and ushers turning people away.

DAG certainly contributed to the growth. The last two years, it was only David and I at PDF. This year six daggers attended.

As always, there were a number of excellent panels and thought-leaders (and some not so great ones too) - but for those who couldn't make it up or were too busy twittering to pay attention, I've recapped it for you.

Without any further blather, here are the top five things I learned from this year's PDF.

1. The Pickens Plan By The Numbers

Since it launched over a year ago, I've been paying close attention to the widely successful Ning-powered social action network Push.PickensPlan.com and at PDF I got to hear some of the amazing stats behind the network. Including:

• 1.1 million emails sent to administration officials.
• 40 percent of supporters have taken at least one action on the site.
• 201,000 active members of Push, the ning network.
• 91% of Congressional Districts have an active "District Leader".

Wow. More info on here.

2. Technology Can Fix Health Care

The current debate over health care reform can seem pretty bi-polar: a government takeover or privately run health care. But lost in the debate is the idea that a smarter embrace of technology can reduce costs, improve quality of care, and increase efficiency.

For example, moving to electronic medical records is a reform effort that Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Right now, gaining access to your medical records is difficult to impossible. But if you stream-line access to your personal health records, you're empowered to better control your own health care. That's the philosophy behind the site HealthDataRights.org, check it out.

3. Whatever.

Michael Wesch, the anthropology professor from Kansas, who's viral video "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" you've probably already seen (If not, do so. Now.) - did it again. He described a short history of the term "whatever". From 60s counter-culture to the present and used the term to frame a analysis of the Youtube community. More info here.

4. Class Politics Online: Myspace vs. Facebook

Danah Boyd delivered a much buzzed about lecture on the divide between MySpace and Facebook users and made the case for the white flight of suburban, college-bound youth from MySpace to the "safer" Facebook.

As someone who uses social networks for pretty much everything, the talk was an eye-opener. And it's making me reconsider how I can leverage MySpace (which I've tended to write off) to reach certain demographics for advocacy and activism. Read her lecture online here.

5. IT Dashboard

White House CIO Vivek Kundra announced an IT Dashboard to track government spending on technology across 28 federal agencies. Government 2.0, here we come. It offers data feeds to pull out the info and a clean, accessible user-interface. More on the project here.

I want to give special props to at @bivings for not only hosting a blowout happy hour but also deploying some solid tech for PDF, including a simple Twitter aggregator for #pdf09 hashtags. The clever logo makes the page (note the # and @ symbols in the cup). 

Yesterday, Kate Kaye - Senior Editor at ClickZ stopped by DAG to talk to us about her new book, Campaign '08: A Turning Point For Digital Media.

Kate was in town for the #POLC09 conference, to moderate my panel on Social Media Analytics.

Here's a brief video of Kate explaining how McCain and Obama's campaign leveraged online advertising:

A few highlights:

While the conventional wisdom has the McCain campaign getting blown away by Obama online - that's not entirely the case when it comes to paid media.

For example, McCain had some really smart people running his paid media - particular his Google Adwords - and saw excellent results.

However, McCain's advertising was not integrated with the larger campaign message while Obama's was - the team did not have a "seat at the adult table" as Kate aptly puts it. Further the scale of Obama's online ad buys, dwarfed McCain's.

Hungry for more info? Good, then go out and get the book right now.

Whenever the Pew Internet and American Life Project releases a study, I drop what I'm doing and pay attention, because I know it's going to be good.

Their most recent report, The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008 is no exception. Here are the highlights:

* Some 74% of internet users--representing 55% of the entire adult population--went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election.

* 45% of internet users watched online video.

* One in three internet users forwarded political content to others.

* Fully 83% of those age 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of young profile owners took part in some form of political activity on these sites in 2008.

Wow. Let's let those number sink in for a minute.

Ok, now pick your jaw up off the floor and let's move past the executive summary.

Newspapers and Radio Lose - the Internet Wins
26% of adult Americans get most of their news online, almost equal to the 28% who read dead-tree papers. But TV still dominates the media landscape with over 70% of adults tuning in.

The biggest loser for share of audience to the Internet over the past 12 years has been newspapers and radio to a less extent.

More McCain than Obama Supporters Online
Here's something you don't hear everyday:

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain were more likely than backers of Barack Obama to be internet users (83% vs. 76%).

This is attributed to Republican voters being better educated and wealthier. I guess there goes the conventional wisdom that Republicans don't use the Internet.

Older Americans Sharing Content
I often hear how older voters, don't use the Internet. While it's true, only 22% of Americans 65 and older are online - of that segment currently online a surprising 40% watch online video and a whooping 47% share/forward political news. That's the highest of any other age group.

Engaging the Conversation
One in five Internet users post political news online, primarily on social networks and this activity is dominated by young people. In the 18-29 year old demographic, 49% engage in politics on socnets and 40% post content.

Two Quick Lessons to Learn
1) If you want to reach young people, get your content on social network sites. Period.

2) If you want to reach older users - compelling emails and videos that make them want to share your content, is the strategy to follow.

This morning at CPAC, I got my online fundraising on.

my friend and colleague Sendhil Panchadsaram spoke on a panel with Mindy Finn and Kevin Lucido moderated by Erik Telford.

For a 9AM event, there was a good sized crowd that had good questions to ask for the Q&A portion.

Some highlights from the panel's remarks include:

Mindy

Obama was focused on building a movement as opposed to chasing down the high dollar donors.

When doing online activism, at the local level, focus on issues that have national relevance. There’s no limit to your message's reach on the Internet.

Sendhil

What does Trickle Up Activism mean?

1) It's a way to get more passive activists involved at the local level.
2) Get activists comfortable with using the Internet to organize, donate & volunteer.

It’s not that there’s not enough activists out there – it’s that they're not being harnessed effectively.

Kevin

Pay attention to where your display advertising is running and the content that's associated with where it's displayed.

Example - the McCain campaign ran display advertising on NRO but at the same time that all the ads were running on the site - there was extremely negative story about Senator McCain, which on NRO was surrounded by three display ads for the McCain campaign.

The takeaway: if someone was playing closer attention the ad buy - this would have been avoided.

If you want to follow the CPAC conversation, be sure to head over to CPAC09.com to catch the live UStream feed of CPAC and track all the tweets with the #CPAC09 hashtag.

Yesterday, I headed over to the Conservative Bloggers Briefing at Heritage for the first time in well... way too long.

It was a good one though. Senator Jim DeMint was the headliner - there to discuss the stimulus bill and Fox News was there with two cameras to get his comments.

I've seen Sen. DeMint speak several times, and he knows how to deliver a solid conservative message. He didn't disappoint yesterday. A few of his quips include:

On the stimulus bill:

This is not change you can believe in. This is business as usual.

On being rushed by the White House to vote on the bailouts and the stimulus bill:

When someone says, you need to make a decision "right now”. My answer is automatically "no".

DeMint's call to action was clear - look at the stimulus bill and help us pick it apart. You can check out the House version of the bill at www.ReadTheStimulus.org.

Appealing to Conservatives on Privacy Issues
The other speakers that I found particularly interesting were from a new think tank called The Future of Privacy Forum.

Jules Polonetsky, co-chair of the forum, talked about where privacy was heading in the digital age and how he thought the Federal government could better protect consumer privacy online.

Polonetsky, who appeared very well-caffeinated with a brook-no-fools demeanor, has spent his career working for leading web firms (AOL and DoubleClick) advising on privacy practices. He also advised the Giuliani and later Obama campaigns on their internet/tech agendas. Clearly, he knows what he's talking about.

I asked him what steps he thought the government should take to better regulate consumer privacy online. He referenced a recent post on their website that lays out a "Consumer Privacy Agenda for the New Administration".

Some highlights include:

1. Appoint a Chief Privacy Officer to Promote Fair Information Practices in the Public and Private Sectors.

2. Ensure that Interactive Tools used by Government Provide Users with Enhanced Transparency and Controls.

7. Encourage Accountable Business Models.

He also touched on the dust-up over the new www.WhiteHouse.gov site placing cookies on site visitors' computers. His take:

Calm down. Take a pill, relax. Then launch a process to decide how to have web 2.0 sites in the government, but maintain users' privacy.

Good advice in my opinion.

I think the hard question for conservatives is whether to support additional government regulation (Oh no, big government!) or trust private companies to self-regulate (big brother, anybody?).

My inclination in this case is to support limited, sensible steps aimed at insuring personal privacy online. But the flip-side to this view, is that liberals could use these "sensible" steps as a trojan horse to ram through much more onerous government regulations.

But what do you think? Leave a comment and let me know you thoughts.

Yesterday, I made it across town to hear from Rep. Jeff Flake at the conservative bloggers briefing at Heritage.

Rep. Flake came by to talk up a new site he's launched: PorkParade.com (disclosure: PorkParade.com is proud product of DAG, that I worked on.)

The site's goal is to put pork on parade and help build a movement to push back on Washington's wasteful spending. Cool tech features on PorkParade.com include:

* Email capture.
* Twitter - any tweets with the hashtag #pork are displayed in real-time and top twitters are also listed.
* YouTube videos.
* del.icio.us bookmarks, anyone can "tag" links with "porkparade" and those items will show up on the site's feed.

When Rep. Flake goes down to the floor of Congress he'll tweet about the earmarks he's going after and using #pork the tweet will show up on PorkParade.com. But the site isn't just about Jeff Flake, anyone can share examples of wasteful earmarks, help spread the message, and follow the discussion.

In addition to PorkParade.com, Rep. Flake shared his views on the possible bailout of Wall Street.

He noted his extreme skepticism to the whole plan and opposition to Wall Street executives walking away from failed firms with a golden parachute.

Rep. Flake noted that despite Treasury Secretary Paulson's pleas to the contrary, this bailout should come with costs for firms that take government funding.

According to Paulson, we can't make this bailout a punitive measure, but Rep. Flake asked the sensible question - why should we have to bribe companies to participate in this bailout? If we have to, then apparently this proposed bailout isn't all that necessary.

I have to nod my head agreement to that - failure comes with a cost, and Wall Street firms should not be able to escape their bad investment decisions without facing certain costs. Bottom line.

I'm heading over to the Xcel Center right now for the last night of the GOP Convention here in Minneapolis - St. Paul. After Sarah Palin's home-run last night - the expectations are high for John McCain to equally deliver. I'm confident he will.

If you're not watching the Convention on TV scope out the action live on UStream and follow the back channel chatter on Twitter at RNC08.com.

Lastly, check out David's interview of Erick Erickson of Redstate on how bloggers are being treated at the Convention.