Erickson Joins the Best Political Team

Prominent conservative commentator and RedState.com editor Erick Erickson will join CNN as a political contributor, appearing primarily on CNN's new show John King, USA¸ the network announced Tuesday.

Erickson, a self described "obsessive news junkie" who grew up in Dubai and rural Louisiana, will also provide perspective and commentary on other programs across the network.

Best U.S. Think Tank Websites

As part of my research for a project we are working on, I recently looked at the websites of around one hundred U.S.-based think tanks to see what the best practices area.  All and all, this was an inspiring set of websites and not nearly as extraordinary as the list of best university sites I put together recently, but there are a few that stood out.  Below is a list of the five best of the ones I looked at, in alphabetical order.

How to Use Tweetups as a Marketing Strategy

Social media goes beyond Facebook or Twitter.  It’s about connecting with people and developing relationships.  And sometimes those connections can be literally face-to-face!

Social media allows us to make connections faster and over greater distances, but there is power in social media to bring us closer to our neighbors, too.  One of the ways to do that is with a Tweetup.

How PR Pros are using Social Media for Real Results

PR professionals use social media every single day to get the word out about clients, to communicate with customers and to respond to questions or problems. Twitter (Twitter), Facebook (Facebook), YouTube (YouTube) and other social sites have quickly become important tools in a PR professional’s overall toolkit.

CNN Prez Klein More Afraid of Facebook than Fox News

CNN president Jonathan Klein sees social networking sites like Facebook as more of a threat to CNN than Fox News.

From Fishbowl NY:

In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor Josh Tyrangiel at BusinessWeek's annual media summit in New York this morning, CNN President Jon Klein said Web 2.0 presents concerns him far more than cable rival Fox News.

Social Campaigning ROI

ROI for a campaign or call to action can be condensed into a four-step process called

DIDM:

D = Define your GOALS
I = Identify the METRICS that represent those goals
D = Determine the TOOLS and methodology for measuring your metrics
M = MEASURE

Express Yourself with the Blogger Template Designer

In Blogger’s more than 10 years, we’ve learned that blogging is a powerful way for people to express themselves. More than 350,000 words are written on Blogger every minute of every day and over the years we’ve added a bunch of features to ensure that writing those words is as easy, fun and rewarding as possible. Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of the Blogger Template Designer on Blogger in Draft, our experimental playground where you can try out the latest features Blogger has to offer. Instead of creating a lot of new templates that will grow stale over time, we decided to go beyond static templates and reinvent the whole process of designing your blog, making it even easier to express yourself online.

Nevada Politicians and Journalists Engage Constituents One Tweet at a Time

Something you don't see everyday is a politician "live tweeting" (by themselves) from the floor of a legislative session to keep constituents apprised of up-to-the-minute happenings. Something you never see is a politician leading a session at an interactive conference about reporting government and politics through social media.

Data Shows: Articles Published on the Weekend are Shared on Facebook More

When I started posting my new series of Facebook data points, one of the most requested graphs was the days of the week (and times of day, which is coming soon) that are best to publish on to get lots of Facebook shares. What I found when I looked at days of the week is at first a little unexpected, but upon further thought fairly logical.

How Targeted Online Ads Helped Sink Lou Dobbs on CNN

Be sure to catch this article from the February issue of Politics Magazine, particularly if you’re looking for examples of how even a relatively small online ad buy can reverberate across the media landscape. Late last year, longtime CNN host Lou Dobbs resigned due to pressure from a coalition of organizations, including media watchdogs and groups representing Latinos and immigrants. Lacking a huge budget, the organizers used a strategy planned to leverage their limited money into as much news coverage as possible. According to Josh Koster and Tyler Davis, online advertising gurus working with the coalition and the authors of the Politics Mag piece...

Google's Establishmentarianism

National Journal suggests that political incumbents have amongst their advantages Google Juice. The longer political records of office-holders, as (generally speaking) compared to challengers, provide Google more to work with, and can boost those establishment folks higher in search rankings than their underdog peers.

Cashmore: Why I'm Banking on Facebook

We already connect with friends on Facebook to share photos, videos, text updates and Web links, but might we also use the service to exchange money?

I'm willing to bet we will.

Buxter, a Facebook application that launched this week, tries to make that logical leap: Users add the app to their Facebook pages to send U.S. dollars or euros to friends.

Is the Internet a Fundamental Right? [POLL]

In a study conducted by the BBC World Service, four in five respondents said they believe web access is a fundamental right. 90% described the Internet as “a great place to learn,” and 78% considered it a source of “greater freedom.” A bit more than half said that the Internet should not be regulated by government at all.

Bing Now Bigger than Digg, CNN and Twitter

With the headlines that Microsoft’s new search engine Bing has been grabbing, it’s easy to forget that it only went live about a month ago. Since its launch at the beginning of June, it has given Google pause and even had its own web infomercial.

But none of that matters if Bing doesn’t grow and find a way to compete with Google. So after a month, where are we? We knew that Bing was growing, but the numbers being released tonight tell a tale of success, as Bing is now the 13th most visited site on the web.

Facebook Fan Pages: Embeddable Facebook Pages

Facebook continues to extend outside the walls of its social network. The latest: Facebook Fan Boxes, which lets Facebook Page admins embed the latest activity from their Page on their own website.

Google Drops a Nuclear Bomb on Microsoft. And it's Made of Chrome

Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might with the launch of Android, Google’s mobile OS. But they persisted. And for good reason, because it’s real.

In the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch the Google Chrome OS, an operating system designed from the ground up to run the Chrome web browser on netbooks. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be,” Google writes tonight on its blog.

Conservatives were hopping mad at CNN yesterday over their coverage (or lack thereof) of the hundreds of Tea Party protests that took place across the country. After a correspondent lashed out at a protester during a live interview and exclaimed the protest was “not really family viewing” Twitter was ablaze with anger at CNN and what has been perceived as frequent obvious bias against Republicans.

This all came hot on the heels of a scathing Department of Homeland Security report released by the Obama administration that blasted “Rightwing Extremism”. Conservatives came out swinging yesterday and Twitter became the weapon of choice in the war of words:

@AliAkbar: Disappointed in CNN. Their coverage was not fair, not independent, and almost non-existent. #teaparty #msmbias

@justin_hart: Most incredible evidence of CNN bias... This reporter should be fired #TCOT #TEAPARTY http://ow.ly/2ZGm

@ericjodom: Have you seen the video of the CNN reporter spreading propaganda? http://twurl.nl/tenu4w #teaparty (I met her yesterday, BTW)

@joecaruso: CNN aptly proved that journalism is dead. http://is.gd/sKe6 #tcot #newmedia #teaparty

@FreedomRing: PROTEST CNN BY UNFOLLOWING ALL CNN TWEETS! #TCOT #sgp

Only time will tell if the momentum from the Tea Party protests rolls into a serious Conservative groundswell of action against CNN. Honestly, I hope it does.

Indeed (full story here):

Another pic here.

CNN just shot out the following blurbs:

As an extension of CNN’s ‘Magic Wall’, Tonight CNN will use a 3-D 6-foot-long virtual U.S. Capitol and will break down data about the presidential race and report on updates to the House and Senate balance of power. ... Wolf Blitzer to Jessica Yellin “"Jessica, you're a terrific hologram, thank you so much"

Neat(ish) but kinda creepy. I like it.

CNN bid to tie Palin to secessionists is a stretch, LA Times.

The anchorman's serious tone and dancing eyebrows -- not to mention a "The Palins and the Fringe" banner across the bottom of the screen -- suggested big surprises. Must-see TV! And all of it coming "right after the break."

So I holstered the remote for a couple of minutes and waited to see what CNN was up to.

The answer: no good.

FCC Chair Wants to Go Forward With Use of White Spaces, The Washington Post Blog.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said he wants to allow portable devices to use the airwaves between TV channels for wireless broadband service.

After months of testing and over a year of lobbying by tech firms Google, Microsoft, HP, Dell and others, the FCC's engineering office is releasing a report today that spells out the standards devices must meet in order to use the empty airwaves.

 

Earlier tonight I had the opportunity to participate in a CNN.com/live debate within the debate -- or more like a conversation -- with Ana Marie Cox.

Our task was to watch the debate, read incoming Tweets, IMs, emails, scan the blogosphere for reactions to what the candidates were saying, and of course, comment throughout for the live-stream.

The task-at-hand to juggle loads of information was difficult but fun. I've gotten a little feedback from the more than 100K viewers that checked in to our stream that it was an interesting experiment but that a delay in the feed wasn't syncing our comments directly with what folks were saying.

A big thanks to the CNN.com for the opportunity, to the crew in DC for ensuring that our Internets worked well, and to anchor Nicole Lapin for breaking up our squabbles. And, I'd be remiss not to thank Ana Marie Cox for so eloquently and artfully disagreeing with me throughout our 3.5 hour tour. I enjoyed it.

I found one clip of our post-debate analysis in the CNN.com clip bin in case you missed it.

Tune into CNN.com/live tonight from 8-11 PM EST to see me and Ana Marie Cox discuss the debate.

You'll remember Ana Marie as the former Wonkette, then editor of Time Magazine Online, and now editor of Radar.

The format will be similar to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" so it should be worth a peek.

Go ahead and Twitter me or email me your feedback and questions and I'll try and get them on the "air."

We'll be on for three hours so it'll be great to hear your Tweet.

Today, one of the Republican Party's fastest rising stars, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, joined New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin to announce that they are working with YouTube and Google to "bring American voices into a forum with Presidential nominees."

Along with the New Orleans Consortium, Jindal and Nagin plan to host the forum on September 18, 2008 at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

Appropriately, here's the YouTube announcement:

Let's hope all of the candidates decide to participate.

Two things worth thinking on:

1. For the past two Presidential events, CNN was the official media sponsor with YouTube. So far, no media carrier has been listed. We shouldn't assume that this means that CNN is out of the running for the gig, but given how CNN handled the Republican debate last fall (see the Save the Debate Coalition statement), I'd be surprised to see them get it.

2. As Dan Manatt blogged last December, the Commission on Presidential Forums has already made it clear that to increase participation, the "Internet" will play a major role in the second commissioned debate - which is a "town hall style" debate:

The second departure from past CPD formats will be the introduction of internet access to the presidential town meeting debate. Questions solicited by Internet will be included with those from citizens on the stage with the candidates.

The second CPD debate is scheduled for Tuesday, October 7 at Belmont University, Nashville, TN. Will YouTube and Google be there? Time will tell.

One thing is clear, I'm heading to both New Orleans and Nashville.