A pair of advertising heavyweights in recent days launched new efforts aimed at opening up the political media world to small-time candidates and everyday citizens.
One of them, VoterVoter.com, will allow any individual to sign up, throw his or her approval on a television ad for a political candidate or cause, and show it to a targeted audience. The other, Spot Runner, launched a political program aimed at helping less well-funded campaigns get on TV, radio and the Web.
The efforts build on a growing trend dubbed “producer democracy,” in which the Internet allows individuals, as opposed to big companies and organizations, to influence the political process through their own creative content.
“This gives people the ability to be their own political media consultant, upload their own ads and put them on television,” said Julie Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. “It demystifies the process; it makes it easier.”
"Facebook is set to launch a highly anticipated chat feature in the next 2 weeks to allow for real time communication within the popular social network."
Will this help with the ability to get more people engaged? In the past I have done facebook advertising and found it effective in getting people to join a group but I have been disappointed in efforts to get those that join groups to do anything. Maybe facebook chat will help in that regard.
So the NRCC was running this contest for the last month to have the grassroots do an online video answering the question: Has the Democratic Congress Worked for You? So last Wednesday I spent about four hours directing my kids in this little spot that I'm pretty happy with. Not perfect, but I think it's alot of fun. Directing my kids was the biggest challange and I now have alot more respect for those directors that deal with all those child stars.
Writing in the Boston Globe recently Dan Gillmor states in a lenghtly piece. about using technology to save the Presenditial debates.....
"A second approach would be even more ambitious: A debate that would unfold online over the course of days, or even weeks and months. Imagine that one candidate takes a position and poses a question. The opponent would answer with a written response of some predetermined length, but with the help of staff, experts, and the general public. Then the first candidate, again with the help of anyone who wants to join the process, would dissect the response and reply with (we'd hope) a truly nuanced update. Continue this process at length - and repeat it with many other topics.
What would the site look like? What technologies would we use? I have my own ideas, and have posted them on my blog (citmedia.org/blog), but I'm just one person; we need a collective effort to figure this out, using much the same iterative process. The specific tools are less important than the willingness to deploy them."
His follow up suggestions at his blog are posted here.
It won’t make you dinner or rub your feet, but nearly one in four Americans say that the Internet can serve as a substitute for a significant other for some period of time, according to a new poll released today by 463 Communications and Zogby International.
The Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll found that 24% of Americans said the Internet could serve as a replacement for a significant other. Not surprisingly, the percentage was highest among singles, of which 31% said it could be a substitute. There was no difference among males and females but there was a split based on political ideology. Thirty-one percent of those who called themselves “progressives†were open-minded to the Internet serving as a surrogate significant other while only 18% of those who consider themselves “very conservative†would consider it a substitute.
The Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll examined views of what role the Internet plays in people’s lives and whether government should play a greater role in regulating it. The online survey was conducted Oct. 4-8, 2007, included 9,743 adult respondents nationwide, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.0 percentage point. The full survey included detailed demographic information is available at http://463.blogs.com/
Government Regulation of Internet Video: More than half of Americans believe that Internet content such as video should be controlled in some way by the government. Twenty-nine percent said it should be regulated just like television content while 24% said government should institute an online rating system similar to the one used by the movie industry. In contrast, only 36% said the blocking of Internet video would be unconstitutional.
The older you get, the more likely you are to support government restrictions. Only 33% of 18 to24 year-olds supported government stepping in on content, while 72% of those over 70 years of age support government regulation and ratings.
“Some view the Internet as their new best friend, others as an increasingly powerful tool that can infect our youth with harmful images and thoughts and therefore must be controlled,†said 463 partner Tom Galvin. “Our challenge as a society is to let the Internet flourish as a dynamic force in our economy and communities while not chipping away at the fundamental freedoms that created the Internet in the first place.â€
Among other findings:
Your (Digital) Identity. More than one in four Americans has a social networking profile such as MySpace or Facebook. Among 18-24 year-olds, it’s almost mandatory—78% of them report having a social networking profile. More Democrats have a social networking presence than Republicans (32% to 22% ). But few Americans say it plays a large role in their identity as a person. Only 14% say the Internet is an important part of what they consider to be their identity; 68% responded it’s just how they identity themselves online; it’s not really who they are.
The Wall Street Journal is free today. Perusing through the site today, I found this nugget worth noting:
Pact Brings Skype Service to MySpace
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN and ETHAN SMITH
October 16, 2007 5:59 p.m.
News Corp.'s MySpace and eBay Inc.'s Skype have agreed to put Internet calls into MySpace's instant-messaging feature to gain more users and broaden the distribution of their two services.
The companies will share revenue from the partnership. Other terms weren't disclosed.
MySpace, which is the largest social-networking Web site with 110 million members, and Skype, which lets consumers call other users via computer free, have been trying to broaden their networks. Skype has 220 million registered users. The companies benefit from having more people join their communities and connect to people they know.
Voice communication is "a competitive advantage to us for gaining users and keeping users," said Kyle Brinkman, vice president of product development at MySpace.
Hmmmm... Get-out-the-vote calls from your MySpace profile? Now we're talking.
We’ve spent the summer laying the groundwork for our annual Politics Online Conference (POLC), one of our premiere events each year. This will be our 15th POLC, and we’re planning a big one. It will be March 4th & 5th in Washington. Mark your calendars.
If you take a moment to think of all the year’s developments in politics, tech and the Internet, you’ll understand why we’re already excited. We’ve had a YouTube debate, a cyber war in Estonia, record breaking online political giving, and a constant stream of innovation from both those in the political realm and Silicon Valley. We’re going to have a lot of ground to cover, and we hope you join the conversation.
We’ve already nailed down some innovative speakers. One panel we’re really excited for is “Political Cartography 2.0: Web Mapping and the Election Cycle.†Chad and EJ from Mapthecandidates.com will chair the panel and lead some interesting discussion on the role of mapping in getting out the vote and data analysis.We’ve spent the summer laying the groundwork for our annual Politics Online Conference (POLC), one of our premiere events each year. This will be our 15th POLC, and we’re planning a big one. It will be March 4th & 5th in Washington. Mark your calendars.
"A few days after the Teamsters BBQ at the YearlyKos convention (see video on WorkingLife TV), a blogger named Shockwave posted a Call to Action to Kos bloggers asking them to get involved in helping the Teamsters organize school bus workers. The result has been an ongoing conversation on DailyKos about the different ways that the netroots can work with the Teamsters on this campaign."
MySpace, MTV team up on candidate dialogues
by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor for the Boston Globe
The presidential campaign continues apace in the online world of the young.
MySpace and MTV announced today that they will team up on a series of dialogues on college campuses with candidates that will be broadcast on television and on the web.
Students on site and viewers will be able to submit questions, and live online polling will gauge reaction, the companies said.
The first hour-long dialogue will feature Democrat John Edwards and is to take place in New Hampshire on Sept. 27. In the Democratic field, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have agreed to take part. Among Republicans, Sam Brownback, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney have committed. More here.
From Voice of America News:
Voters will be able to instant-message, e-mail or text message their questions during the discussions, which will also include online viewers' responses to candidates' answers. College students attending the forums will also be able to ask questions.
I wonder if they can stream these ads based on region, state or zip code? I'm sure the initial roll out will be National in scope but it would be nice to have a Statewide GOP candidate have the targeting ability via YouTube.
YouTube videos to have 'overlay' ads
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 9:31 AM CDT
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Video advertising is coming to YouTube, but it won't be the type common at sites elsewhere. Starting Wednesday, the popular video-sharing site plans to feature semitransparent "overlay" ads at the bottom of selected video clips.
The ad disappears after about 10 seconds if the viewer does nothing; the featured clip automatically pauses if the viewer clicks on the overlay to launch the full pitch.
YouTube said it was trying to avoid pre-rolls that precede the main feature at sites like Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, which partners with The Associated Press on a video news service.
Shiva Rajaraman, product manager for YouTube, said internal tests show more than 70 percent of people give up when they see a pre-roll. By contrast, less than 10 percent decide to close an overlay, which they can exit by clicking on an "X" in a corner.
The overlay format also gives advertisers more flexibility, he said, because they aren't constrained to keeping a video ad at 15 or 30 seconds to avoid defection. Because a viewer chooses to watch, a video ad can run much longer - clicking on one pre-launch overlay launched a 2-minute trailer for "The Simpsons Movie."
YouTube, which Google Inc. bought last year for $1.76 billion, is still trying to justify its hefty sales price. Despite its huge audience, YouTube generated about $15 million in revenue last year, based on figures provided in Google's annual report.
