Special thanks to Jordan for stepping in on Friday and blogging the news to the people while I was out sick. It's good to have a team behind you.

Obama's failed text-message ploy, The Guardian.

Indeed, less than two weeks ago, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe assured supporters that they would be the first to know who Obama chose for his VP – via text. I worked for John Kerry in 2004, and we announced the John Edwards VP pick to our supporters via email, then the grassroots technology du jour. We were scooped by the press, but not by much. The emails were cycling through the queue on a Tuesday in July. It felt like a victory for the millions of grassroots, online supporters, although I don't think it was ever recognised as such.

On the blog TechPresident, Republican strategist David All summed up the Obama text effort in one word: "Disappointing."

Yes, the mainstream media scooped the netroots again this time around.

New C-SPAN Sites Get Way Unboring With YouTube, Twitter, Qik, Flash…, TechCrunch.

But today C-SPAN gets fairly cool with the launch of two new sites dedicated to the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver and Republican Convention in Minneapolis. C-Span is still workingout some technical issues, but TechCrunch readers can get an early preview by clicking on these links for DNC08 and RNC08. Both are similarly formatted sites that incorporate citizen journalism via blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Qik into portals to cover convention and related news. They will complement the existing C-SPAN Politics site.

The sites also incorporate normal C-SPAN video content. But unlike the unwieldy content on the main C-SPAN site the new sites will show video in Flash format and allow embedding on other sites. Third party blog content from sites like Huffington Post, Instapundit, Gateway Pundit, RedState, etc. will be incorporated into the site and Twitter messages marked with hash marks #RNC08 or #DNC08 will also appear on the site (with moderation). C-SPAN employees will be given Qik cameras to record the action when not on main camera.

McCain up 5 points, increasing youth support, CR Voice.

Also interesting is that the poll shows that Obama’s lead among young voters age 18-29 slipped 12 points from July. His lead among our age demographic is now only 12 points, 52-40. This is the second major poll that has shown Obama losing his grip on this group of voters.

Where Politics Reigns, So Do Political Blogs, NY Times.

Then, there is CWA-NJ Conservatives with Attitude! (www.gopusanj.com). The counterpoint to Blue New Jersey, CWA bills itself as the home for “home-grown, rock-ribbed, All-American patriots.” The site offers new posts on most days, with supportive fans largely echoing the authors’ sentiments.

Text messaging could help Obama's turnout, AP.

"What Obama is creating is this army of individuals, these grass-roots activists, who are out there trying to change the world in 160 characters or less," said David All, a Republican strategist who specializes in technology.

Obama's electronic outreach is the most prominent example of a larger movement by members of Congress and political campaigns to present their message and connect with voters through text messaging on cell phones, social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, and the microblogging site Twitter.

In Congress, some Republicans turned to Twitter in their protest of the Democrats' energy policies on the House floor. When the House recessed in August, microphones on the floor were turned off, the TV feeds to C-SPAN ceased and the lights dimmed, but the Blackberries worked.

Obama Selects No. 2?, CBSNews.

How Obama Really Did It: The social-networking strategy that took an obscure senator to the doors of the White House., TechnologyReview.

The MyBO tools are, in essence, rebuilt and consolidated versions of those created for the Dean campaign. Dean's website allowed supporters to donate money, organize meetings, and distribute media, says Zephyr Teachout, who was Dean's Internet director and is now a visiting law professor at Duke University. "We developed all the tools the Obama campaign is using: SMS [text messaging], phone tools, Web capacity," Teachout recalls. "They [Blue State Digital] did a lot of nice work in taking this crude set of unrelated applications and making a complete suite."

Blue State Digital had nine days to add its tools to Obama's site before the senator announced his candidacy on February 10, 2007, in Springfield, IL. Among other preparations, the team braced for heavy traffic. "We made some projections of traffic levels, contribution amounts, and e-mail levels based on estimates from folks who worked with [John] Kerry and Dean in 2004," recalls Franklin­-Hodge. As Obama's Springfield speech progressed, "we were watching the traffic go up and up, surpassing all our previous records." (He would not provide specific numbers.) It was clear that early assumptions were low. "We blew through all of those [estimates] in February," he says. "So we had to do a lot of work to make sure we kept up with the demand his online success had placed on the system." By July 2008, the campaign had raised more than $200 million from more than a million online donors (Obama had raised $340 million from all sources by the end of June), and MyBO had logged more than a million user accounts and facilitated 75,000 local events, according to Blue State Digital.

Obama's Wide Web: From YouTube to Text Messaging, Candidate's Team Connects to Voters, Washington Post.

The launch began in early 2007, when Joe Rospars, a veteran of the Dean campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was hired as new-media director. In the following weeks, the 27-year-old assembled a group that included one of the co-founders of Facebook, an award-winning CNN producer and a text-messaging enthusiast. BarackObama.com was born.

A year and a half ago, Rospars led a group of 11. It's easily double that now, with staffers taping signs on the back of their furniture that read, "This is not an extra chair! This chair belongs to . . ." Rospars won't divulge the total number of people in his team. "We don't want to give away our entire playbook," he says.

What Makes for a Good Blog?, 43Folders.

# Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?

# Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?

The Politics of Digg: Understanding the complex network that drives stories to the front page, Bloggasm.

As the site grew increasingly popular, it became the target of more and more users who wanted to game the system; entire companies sprouted up offering to promote stories for money and homogenized groups worked together to promote their own agendas and content. The site administrators eventually rolled out new algorithms that necessitated a “diversity” of votes to make it harder for a group of 50 or so malicious Diggers to hijack the site for its own purposes.

...

As many relayed to me over the past few days, it’s a game that takes a good bit of persistence and an abundance of spare time. And, because of a lack of transparency from Digg employees, there has been a growing tide of conspiracy theories about this group and others, claims of “bury brigades” and secret cabals of editors that comb through upcoming categories, bashing down any links that don’t promote a particular viewpoint or bias.

In the past week I’ve conducted phone and email interviews with over 50 of Digg’s top users in an attempt to piece together the cohesive links and strategies that make them so successful. It was during these discussions that I discovered that these Diggers are much more than a team of link pushers and self-marketers; many of their conversations have later developed into real-world friendships.

Google Plans Big Presence at Summer Political Conventions, Wired.

To that end, Google plans on having a large presence at both the conventions. Delegates, reporters and bloggers will be able to use computers to upload their photos and videos to the web. The company says that it also plans on offering free smoothies and massages.

Google staffers gave presentations on some of the projects that its teams have been working on on Monday. In addition to the Google Power Reader in Politics project, the company also showcased its political video search tool, which it rolled out in July.

Company staffers also provided a preview of a project that will enable people to look up their voting registration status, voting precinct location and ballot information online. During the primaries, one of the most consistently searched-for terms on election days was voter precinct location information. Google is working with the Pew Center's Electionline.org to launch the project this fall. The company plans on demonstrating an example of its collaborative efforts with the Ohio Secretary of State at the convention.

Young Republicans campaign in cyberspace: Group uses new media to woo youth vote, Seattle PI.

Since Cowman began making videos after MoveRed.org was created last year, the UW senior and former Marine has become a minor Internet celebrity, specifically for the "Republican on the Street" series, where he interviews passers-by about politics. He posts the clips on Facebook and YouTube.

"The videos are really unique and something a lot of people saw on a grass-roots level," Cowman said. "I went to the state Republican Party convention in Spokane and people came up to me and recognized me from the video -- and that kind of freaked me out a little."

Even the campaign manager for GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi stopped to say hello, Cowman said.

Congressman Gresham Barrett Launches Cool New Site, GreshamBarrett.com.

The website features the latest news, videos, and blogging by Congressman Barrett concerning the issues facing the 3rd Congressional District and South Carolina. The website also features a special Solution Center focusing on the hard-hitting issues of the day, such as energy independence and wasteful pork-barrel spending, and bringing comprehensive solutions to those issues.

The new site will launch featuring the “Bring Congress Back Now” petition to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Can technology bring buzz to conventions?, Politico.

The GOP National Convention will be using Microsoft's Surface, a desktop touchscreen interactive program with information about the events for the visitors that will be available on monitors located around the convention hall.

"This is going to be the most tech-savvy convention in GOP history," GOP National Convention spokeswoman Yohana De La Torre said.

The GOP also will have up to six live video streams of different views of the convention simultaneously and will make them available at its Web site.

Max Everett, chief information officer of the Republican National Convention, said the main goal is to let people at home feel like they are at the convention.

Flickring here, twittering there , the Economist.

Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton’s internet director, says that YouTube, even more than Facebook or MySpace, has had a huge impact on the campaign. Will.i.am’s ode to Mr Obama, “Yes we can”, has had nearly 9m views since it was uploaded six months ago; some 1.9m have watched the McCain Girls’“Raining McCain” over the past four months. Thousands of clips created by ordinary people have been uploaded, to be shared in blogs and often covered by traditional media too.

The "Colbert Bump" is real—at least on one side of the aisle, ars technica.

The picture is not nearly as rosy for Republicans. Far fewer have appeared on the "Better Know a District" segment, making analysis more difficult, but none of the ones that did showed any improvement in fundraising post-Colbert. In fact, the Republicans that did appear had previously been doing quite well, only to slump following their appearance. Dr Fowler suggests three possible reasons for this effect: that the Colbert Report selects the Republicans because they've been doing well; that the only Republicans who accept the invitation are ones that have been doing well; or that a peculiar rift in the space-time continuum means that Republicans see their Colbert Bump in the weeks preceding their show.

McCain Tech Plan to Continue Hands-Off Approach to Regulation, WSJ.

Among the newer ideas in Sen. McCain's plan is the 10% tax credit on R&D wages. Mr. Griffin said it would serve as an incentive for companies to hire local workers rather than seek cheaper labor overseas.

Ms. Whitman said that when she headed eBay, she grappled with the pros and cons of hiring overseas: cheaper labor costs, but a loss of proximity. The tax credit will help "keep those jobs here at home," she said.

Sen. McCain will also call for an expansion of the H1-B visa program in order to allow foreign guest workers to "fill the shortfall of qualified labor" for highly skilled technology jobs, Mr. Griffin said.

The agenda bundles some of Sen. McCain's previously announced economic-growth proposals, such as keeping capital-gains taxes at 15% and lowering corporate tax rates. In addition, the plan will reiterate Sen. McCain's support for free trade and open markets, something he says will help U.S. technology companies.

The plan will emphasize the importance of providing tax breaks to companies that offer high-speed Internet access in low-income and rural areas.

Why Obama Changed His Space Policy, CQ Politics.

As McCain’s campaign correctly pointed out, though, Obama wasn’t always so enthused about the new moon program. Late last year, he had proposed funding his early education plan in part by “delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years,” as shown in this version of the plan preserved by the NASA Watch Web site.

Woman to Woman, Online, NY Times.

Heather Armstrong’s wickedly funny blog about motherhood, Dooce, is more than just an outlet for the creativity and frustrations of a modern mother. The site, chock full of advertising, is a moneymaking machine — so much so that Ms. Armstrong and her husband have both quit their regular jobs.

J. C. Penney and Crate & Barrel sell their furniture and offer decorating tips next to posts on Ms. Armstrong’s conversations with her 4-year-old daughter, Leta. Walgreens promotes its photo printing services next to pictures of the family dog. And the W Hotel chain of Starwood brags about its Internet-friendly rooms on the Dooce (pronounced deuce) home page.

Online Campaign Ads Come Into Their Own: Web Advertising Is Becoming More Important Than Ever For Candidates Hoping To Reach Voters, National Journal.

Q: I just got the latest numbers from Nielsen Online about who is buying more impressions, Obama or McCain. According to them, Obama bought 1.15 million impressions in June, and McCain bought many more impressions across sponsored search networks. He bought 7 million total. Why do you think that disparity exists between the two campaigns, that one is spending so much more on sponsored search?

Greenberger: I would encourage you to speak with either of those campaigns... but to answer it with a generality... it really depends on the strategies of the campaigns. The online strategies today correspond directly to the more general strategy that the campaigns are engaged in.

Early in the cycle, campaigns were interested in gathering e-mail addresses and raising money from the base. You saw a lot of that sort of direct-response search advertising trying to sign people up to build your donor lists.

In this stage, you are seeing more of an effort at persuasion. Everybody knows there is a certain sliver... of the electorate that is undecided and that is looking for more information. Here is where I think you might see the campaigns interested in more impressions and maybe in more display advertising as opposed to search, because you are not looking for that active voter who maybe knows who he or she is voting for. But you are looking for more of that passive voter who is reading information but not quite ready to commit. And so I think you will see more display advertising based on that.

Digg Bury Brigade: 28 negative McCain stories buried in 30 days, LA Times.

A close look at campaign-oriented stories on Digg shows that, in the last 30 days, at least 28 stories critical of GOP Sen. John McCain have been mysteriously "buried" — meaning enough Digg users have voted against a story that the submission may no longer appear on the site's high-traffic front page.

Only about five Barack Obama-related stories (positive and negative) were buried in the same period.

According to Digg's search results, 10 of the 28 McCain stories were zapped after they had already graduated to the front page, including several that had received more than 700 diggs.

Text the Vote, NY Times.

For Mr. Obama, who is building his campaign around bringing in new young voters and registering minority voters, there’s no more effective outreach than a text message. Cellphones, which legally can’t be called by pollsters and can’t be reached by campaign “robo-calls,” are the most intimate form of communication technology today. Young voters of every race are more likely to use their cellphones and, in many cases, don’t even have landline service. (About one in three people between the ages of 18 and 29 doesn’t have a landline.)

The Obama campaign has been aggressively using text messaging since the earliest of this year’s primaries and caucuses. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, the campaign sent repeated messages and caucus tips to the cellphones of its Iowa supporters. In New Hampshire, Mr. Obama sent his supporters three text messages over the course of primary day to remind them to vote and to get their friends to vote. There, Mr. Obama won the 18-to-24-year-old bracket by nearly 40 points, the largest split of any age bracket.

McCain Girl and The Enchanted Republican Forest, BarelyPolitical.

Why Twitter Hasn’t Failed: The Power Of Audience, TechCrunch.

Twitter has a simple premise: You tweet & the message is pushed to your friends. The actual mechanics are slightly different (messages go to everyone who follows you, whether they’re your “friends” or not, assuming your stream is public) — but from a user’s perspective, the circle of receivers consists only of the people they know. Everyone else is part of a faceless crowd that’s hidden behind the follower count.

This simple premise holds the key to Twitter’s success: messages go to a well-defined audience. In the moment you release a tweet, you know who’s on the line and you have an idea of who can catch a glimpse of your message. @replies are the best illustration for this sense of audience: Even though Twitter is not a point-to-point message delivery system (let alone a reliable one), @replies are sent with the understanding that they will be read by the intended people because they are known to be in the audience. (Imagine a newspaper article that suddenly greeted a specific reader.)

Obama's 'Cybergenic' Edge: How McCain and Obama Operate in Cyberspace Could Determine Election's Outcome, ABC News.

Hillary Clinton lost to Obama because her campaign didn't take cyberspace seriously. In early 2007, I found myself at a dinner with Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn and, asking him about his cyber-strategy, I was astounded to hear him scorn the idea that Hillary would ever blog. Perhaps if she had, the race would have played out differently.

Is Google a Media Company?

While Knol is only three weeks old and still relatively obscure, it has already rekindled fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google’s becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.

Salon launches blogger 'tipping' system, CNet.

So you liked that blog post you just read--why don't you toss the writer a buck or two?
That's the rationale behind new-media outlet Salon's latest initiative. Members of its "Open Salon" user-generated content community can now "tip" one another with real-world money if they like what they see. You know, like street musicians. Popular content will also appear on the main Salon.com homepage.

LOL - Obama to announce VP via text message, Washington Times.

I've written a lot about the Obama campaign's use of text messaging as a fundraising tool and also to promote his message of the day or to make sure people tune in to his appearances on television such as "Meet the Press" or even "The Daily Show."
But this is a new one, and it will help the campaign collect (even more) valuable data on potential voters they can reach out to for the Nov. 4 election. The announcement from campaign manager David Plouffe also lets voters sign up to get an e-mail alert with the choice.