$5 Million for Facebook Causes, Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins, Mashable.
During the IPDI Politics Online Conference I heard from one of their founders, Joe Green, during a panel about using social networks for political outreach.
They seemed determined at the time to show the level of success they’ve reached in a number of examples that they cited, and while they didn’t have explicit monetization models in place at the time of the conference, John Furrier, who was participating in the stream and liveblog at the site, posed the question to the panel on how they planned to monetized the Causes application, either from a profit perspective or to channel money into the various groups supported by the application.
Joe Green responded by saying that they would maintain the application always as free to the users, and that further monetization would take place by relevant ad placements in the Causes application.
Sunlight Foundation Asks The Public For Ideas On A More Accountable Government, Sarah Lai Stirland, Wired.
A new effort put together by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington DC non-profit, has pulled together various ideas that have been floating around Congress for some time, consolidates them and asks the public for feedback.
Sunlight has created an online 'bill' called the Transparency in Government Act 2008. It has nine sections and addresses transparency both in Congress and the executive branch. The foundation has used a blog-like format, which allows the public to submit their own ideas and commentary on the proposed legislation.
The foundation has dubbed the project Public Markup since that's the term used by inside-the-beltway types for the process of people from both sides of the aisle working together to shape legislation.
Google steps up eco-activism, will help flood Capitol switchboard, Carrie Sheffield, Washington Times.
A group of environmental activists has enlisted Google to help flood the congressional switchboard with one million phone calls on Earth Day urging lawmakers to enact eco-friendly measures.
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Rogers said her group is finalizing talks with Internet giant Google to coordinate online advertisements and other publicity measures in support of the calls. Details of the arrangement are still being worked out and are scheduled to be released on April 14.
Know Your Sources, Eric Pfeiffer, Ground Game.
A few problems today with an otherwise pedestrian article by the Washington Times' Stephen Dinan on how John McCain's outreach to conservative bloggers resulted in a "respectful truce" with McCain's campaign. I agree with the article's thesis, but it has at least one notable flaw: proper identification of his blogger sources.
