Former Republican operatives turn to blogging in attempt to rebuild party, The Hill.

“We’re all interested in building the apparatus, the new conservative apparatus, because we feel like the old one has broken down,” said Dayton, who was briefly a McCain staffer last spring. He noted that even if McCain wins, Democrats are likely to control Congress. “If he loses, it’s probably even worse. And rebuilding a majority in Congress is going to take a long-term effort.”

Those within the GOP, however, see conservative blogs lagging behind liberal ones when it comes to one area where they can help candidates directly: campaign contributions. ActBlue, a website founded in 2004 that takes donations for Democrats, says that it has taken in nearly $57 million in candidate contributions since its inception. Meanwhile, the Republican version, Slatecard, has raised about $410,787 since it was launched about nine months ago, according to that website.

“Blogs like RedState and others usually provide more of an in-depth philosophical view or clearinghouse on issues of the day as opposed to generating grassroots activism or financial contributions for like-minded candidates,” a Republican strategist said. “A lot of Republican-leaning blogs claim to be doing the same thing, but they are mostly ineffective on that front.”

Google Lively: Really? I mean… really??, Bivings Group.

# The platform is not as lightweight as it seems. Shoving something into a browser via plugin isn't always the way to go, and it doesn't always mean it's going to be lightweight. While it does allow the embedding of these rooms in any webpage (arguably the strongest offering of this entire product), the rooms take a long time to fully connect to (and sometimes time out completely).

# The controls are awkward. Moving your avatar, furniture, and other elements on Lively isn't as easy as one might think, and for something that feels like a videogame, lacks decent keyboard functionality. It combines the awkward interface of click-to-move with the neck craning camera angles of an uncompensated third person viewpoint.

# Limited Compatibility. Currently, there is no Mac compatibility, and the only browsers supported are IE and Firefox. Non-mainstream users (read: people who are generally interested in Google Labs releases) will have to sit this one out.

Poking Holes In The Long Tail Theory, TechCrunch.

Just because the Internet makes it possible to offer a near-infinite inventory of goods for sale does not mean that consumers will start wanting more obscure items in any great numbers. That is the conclusion Harvard Business School associate professor Anita Elberse comes to in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review that takes on some of the sacred cows of the Long Tail theory.

The Long Tail is Wired editor Chris Anderson’s theory (based on an article and resulting book of the same name) that as it becomes easier to distribute a wider variety of items, consumers will venture down the long tail of the distribution curve and find the products that exactly match their interests and idiosyncratic needs. Elberse questions this notion:

NBC to use Olympics as research lab for new media viewership, Ars Technica.

In addition to the 3,600 hours of programming on network and cable TV, NBC also plans to put 2,200 hours of streaming video on its website at NBCOlympics.com. NBC also plans to post "Olympic data" (probably game scores and times), blogging of live events, and even games to the website. Quantcast will help NBC determine the statistics of who is using the site, what are people doing there, and for how long.

Quantcast is just one of NBC's new partners in this new research experiment, though. Integrated Media Measurement Inc. has also joined forces with NBC to distribute "special" mobile phones that will track how users might view Olympic content while on the go. Finally, the network plans to conduct online surveys—a total of 8,500 for the duration of the Games—to ask about how consumers are using the media on different platforms. This will be the first time the company has tracked this kind of usage data to such a granular level, and apparently doesn't have a clue as to what to expect. "I have no idea how people are going to use this stuff," NBC research chief Alan Wurtzel told the Associated Press.