First on the Ticker: Wilson to Deliver State of the Union Facebook Response

Congressman Joe Wilson will deliver the first ever live response to a State of the Union via Facebook on Wednesday.

The South Carolina Republican is most known for blurting out “You lie!” during President Obama’s last speech to a joint session of Congress. Wilson will deliver an address live on his Facebook page approximately 30 minutes after Obama concludes the State of the Union.

Can Candidates Accept Text Contributions?

Americans are donating to the Haiti relief effort at unprecedented levels through text messaging, but can congressional candidates use them same technology to solicit contributions? For now, the answer appears to be “no.”

To help in the earthquake’s aftermath, people can contribute $10 by texting “Haiti” to 90999. The donation is added as a charge to their cell phone bill and then the carrier writes a check to the Red Cross.

A Modern Media President

Auletta describes the web-driven information world where the idea of news "cycles" has been largely replaced by a broad and unceasing river of information. It's well, well breaking away from Twitter and Facebook to give Auletta's New Yorker piece on the Obama White House and the media a read.

Get the transcript here...

Outlook: Out of the Wilderness, Onto the Web

Political consultants Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini were online Tuesday, Jan. 26, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss their Outlook article titled "Out of the wilderness, onto the Web."

Want a preview of Governor Bob McDonnell's SOTU YouTube response?

+ Because every Wednesday morning needs a good old splash of humor --

New White House iPhone App Parody

Everyday Banter created a parody video of the new White House iPhone app.

A New Approach to China

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

(H/T @PatrickRuffini)

Tracking Moveon.org Emails for the Greater Good

My friend Charles Lenchner has a fascinating new obsession — he’s keeping track of advocacy emails from MoveOn.org and publishing them for the larger advocacy community to check out. The goal? To study an unusually effective list and get an idea of their tactics over time, including subject lines, content, narrative arcs and all of the other elements that go into a successful email campaign.

How a Twitter ReTweet Promotion Really Works

While I don’t work for or with them, I often use men’s and women’s clothing retailer Express as a great example of social media marketing. Formerly part of Limited Brands, which includes Victoria’s Secret, another social media powerhouse, Express only recently started selling clothes online and are relatively new to the Twittersphere. But they jumped in, in a big way, and are doing a great job.

This Will Be the Year Adobe's 2 Million Flash Developers Come to the iPhone

It’s no secret that Apple doesn’t like Flash. It won’t allow Flash apps to run on the iPhone or iPod Touch despite all of Adobe’s cajoling and pleading, and despite the fact that it’s long been working in the labs. The iPhone’s lack of support for Flash is a major inconvenience for both consumers and developers, and is a gaping hole in the iPhone’s arsenal.

But all of that is about to change because Adobe is going to bring its 2 million Flash developers to the iPhone, with or without Apple’s blessing. 

9 Tips for Promoting Blog Creativity

Everyone and their dog has a blog these days and though I follow many, there are few I actually feel add something to the web. They’re awesome because they’re creative, they’re different, they look at the world in a slightly unique way meaning the readers come in droves. This may be an oxymoron, but I’ve learned a lot on how to be creative by reading other people’s blogs. Here are my favorite tips on how to generate blog content by being unique and being creative...

The Obama Disconnect: A Belated Response to Micah Sifry

Before the new year, Micah Sifry came out with a provocative, much-discussed piece on the failures of the Obama organizing model in government. At once, the piece is a surprising indictment of the Administration's modus operandi from one of its supporters, but the reasons the indictment came about are not surprising at all. Like 43 similar outfits before it, the Obama White House is essentially a top-down operation.

Tweets About Obama in 2009

I collected all the public tweets containing 'Obama' during 2009. There were over 5 million recorded during the course of the year. I've done some analysis on a sample containing every 20th tweet. This first graph simply shows the distribution over the course of the year of the number of times the name 'Obama' was used. The curve has a big peak during the inauguration, a few smaller ones in February and March and is then remarkably level for the rest of the year.

Last night, when perusing the interwebs to select good tech reads for this morning's Second Cup, I discovered all the good snippets hail from our friends at TechPresident.

Now that the site is up and running, you can read their take on the assent of conservative online activism.

How Much to Spend Online, and Other Tips

In a wide-ranging conference call with Micah Sifry and members of the PdF Network, Engage partners Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn filled in a lot of the gaps in knowledge about Bob McDonnell's successful, online-powered campaign to become governor of Virginia, as well as about the ascendancy of the netroots on the American right.

I was listening in, Tweeting as the call progressed and furiously taking notes. Here are some highlights, but you can listen for yourself when the call is added to our archives...

Danny Glover's New Gig: Editor of Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report

The word came via email on Monday that Danny Glover, a veteran editor with National Journal and other publications, had taken over the editor's role at Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report. The Tweet Watch Report was itself launched by techPres contributor David All's David All Group early last month, a daily email tracking what members of Congress, members of the press, and other relevant people are saying and doing on Twitter.

Springtime for Republican Political Technology?

Bob McDonnell's Virginia gubernatorial campaign was just one example of a maturing Republican political technology industry.

En route to McDonnell's victory, the new governor made heavy use of technology, from web tools built by Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn's company, Engage — which they'll talk about with Micah Sifry and PdF Network members in less than an hour on the latest PdF Network conference call — to the Tusk Mobile platform for mobile engagement. We covered that, too. Republican-only vendors also worked on the other big governor's race last year, the successful campaign to elect New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In a phone interview earlier this week, Ruffini also told me that he tested a fundraising widget in Jim Tedisco's unsuccessful special election campaign to become the next congressman from New York's 20th Congressional District.

Social Media Measurement: Assets Are Not Returns

Most smart people working in and around the social media space realise the truth in the follow quote but it never hurts to remind ourselves to measure business results as opposed to soft metrics such as the ones listed below. We should be doubly careful to ensure what we think is measurement is actually measurement and not counting.

Fun Fact of the Day:

Did you know, 20 of the top 21 most viewed @BarackObama YouTube videos were not TV ads? (Via @PatrickRuffini)

HOW TO: Manage Successful Social Media Promotions

With holiday shopping in full swing, social shopping is already making a big impact. Data from Hitwise shows that downstream traffic to the Retail 500 coming from both Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) increased 36% and 15% respectively on Thanksgiving from the previous day. Downstream traffic to retailers grew again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as many retailers promoted sales through fan pages and tweets.

This data is very encouraging for marketers, but a social media campaign must still be managed correctly for maximum ROI. Here are some tips on how brands can best engage their customers by offering what everyone now looks to social media for – a bargain.

Are you in the know?

The *first ever* FREE daily email of must-see Tweets from Capitol Hill is about to go out to those who signed up at TweetWatchReport.com (Via @DavidAll)

In Case You Missed It -

In case you missed it, Jordan Raynor followed up with TechRepublican's own David All to discuss Joe Wilson's impressive online fundraising game after writing this post:

How to Turn "You Lie" into $2 Million Online

Immediately following Congressman Joe Wilson's now famous "You lie" moment, Wilson turned to David All, President of the David All Group, to defend himself from attacks from the left online.  What transpired was a campaign which utilized YouTube video responses, Twitter and online advertising to raise more than $2 million online in less than 2 weeks.  On Tuesday, December 8 at 11:00 a.m. I will conduct a live twinterview with @DavidAll to ask just how his team pulled off this massive rapid-response campaign.  Find out what your campaign needs to implement online today to be prepared for your own 'You lie' moment.

You can catch the full-length Twinterview here.

On Twitter, Only Some Airlines Soar

Attention, passengers: This is your airline Twittering.

Yeah, like everybody else. But in the cramped, bandwidth-starved confines of airport concourses and airplanes, Twitter -- available not just on Web-connected cellphones (http://m.twitter.com) but even on those that handle only text messaging -- can help airlines and passengers talk to each other.

As a result, some airlines can't seem to shut up on the popular site, which allows users to publish short updates to the Web. Others, however, haven't printed their Twitter boarding passes just yet. 

Is Twitter Worth a Billion Bucks?

Twitter's home crowd can be pretty tough. When reports emerged on Sept. 24 that the microblogging service was close to securing $100 million in funding that valued the company at $1 billion, flurries of 140-character jeers flooded the service. "Nutty valuation," wrote @Nicklippis. "I've seen this movie before," twittered @ericclovesbacon. "It starred eToys.com and ended in fail."

True, a billion dollars for a company with virtually no revenue recalls the excesses of the dot-com era. The logic behind Twitter's valuation comes straight from the very same school. It views Twitter less as a single company than as the base for a whole realm of communication and data. "It is an increasingly important platform for business and consumers," says Seth Levine, managing director of Foundry Group.

Rising Rightroots and Declining Netroots Now at Parity (or Better)

Lost in the hubbub about the tea parties, the health care town hall protests, Joe Wilson, and the ACORN sting is the outcome of a long-simmering meta debate about the vibrancy of the grassroots right and its capacity to organize online. Along with a slew of other bad political indicators, the perception that the GOP might be stuck in a permanent Luddite rut reached its peak with the election of Obama and the role the Internet played in his victory.

Nearly a year later, not only have things turned around, but they've done so faster than anyone could have dreamed or imagined in those post-election doldrums. 

Working Moms are the Mobile Power Users in the US

Perhaps upsetting stereotypes about the male early adopter and big spender in the realm of technology, a new study shows working moms are some of the U.S.’s highest spenders on cell phone services.

The average cell phone bill for a working mom is $94, which is 21% higher than that of the average mobile user. Additionally, working moms are 42% more likely to download content to their phone than the average cell phone user.

Our own David All was just named a Rising Star by Campaigns & Elections' Politics.

Congratulations are in order! And perhaps a bowl of porridge?

When David All started working in the office of Rep. Jack Kingston at age 24, he hadn't even made his first YouTube video yet. Now he is leading the Grand Old Party into the new Internet era. "I started realizing in late 2005, there were all these bloggers out there that absolutely no one was talking to," All says. He started engaging the online community and helped earn Kingston the moniker "King of the Blogosphere." All spearheaded a workshop for other staffers, and blogs started popping up all over the Hill. "It was like explaining water to people who had only lived in the desert," Kingston says. In early 2007, All founded Slatecard PAC, the GOP's answer to ActBlue, the Democrats' online fundraising vehicle. In less than a year, Slatecard has raised more than $350,000 for Republicans.

Robert Bluey, Patrick Ruffini and Mike Bober are among 25 others have also won the prestigious honor. Congrats to all.

This morning, I woke up early, threw on my "Blog Off" T-Shirt and got ready for an UnConference at PodCampDC. So far, I'm learning many cool things from folks like Christopher Penn & Joel Mark Witt about marketing online and finding a place for social media.

This topic is important to TechRepublican readers. We aim to establish our organization's/campaign's/member's message or brand online, but often our bosses don' t buy the hype.

Maybe The Powers that Be don't always understand the words we use or don't understand how new media will effect the bottomline. We can't assume that it's because they're not using the technology.

Christopher Penn's Talking Points:

Every organization should go where the people are. (Did you know that Myspace currently has a user population that surpasses that of Indonesia or even of the United States?)

When talking to your boss, find the Old Media Analogy:

*Google Reader is your own personal newspaper

*RSS Feeds are online deliveries of your newspaper

*Social Networks are the new water cooler

In reality, new media isn't so much new as it is a different way of communicating to different people, on their terms.

Penn goes on to say that being online is essential, but not enough.

To be effective, you have to be a regular publisher of content.

You have to have something to say.

You have to have a goal.

Otherwise, your boss will not see the big picture.

ID your brand. Penn quoted someone who said that a brand is merely an "emotional aftertaste" that results from a unique experience with your product.

Test market your brand. Get out there.

Joel Mark Witt says, Don't ask permission, just do...then emphasize results.

Social media is like a no man's land in which organizations can open up a new world of opportunities. We need to break out of our comfort zone and snap out of our geek bubble.

Translate new media language into words your boss can understand and relate to.

This is just a snippet of what's going on here. We're having some fun.

Up next: Andy Carvin & Jim Long on "Social Media & New Journalism" -- expect a post on how twitter is changing journalism and affecting information distribution. See Also: Patrick Ruffini's The Year of Twitter.

Campaigns & Elections Magazine has a new look-and-feel for 2008. From a note from William Beaman (editor-in-chief) and Jordan Lieberman (publisher):

Campaigns & Elections has unveiled a redesigned and revamped version of the flagship publication and will now be known as Campaigns & Elections’ Politics magazine.

The redesigned magazine will retain the features that have led to its unprecedented growth in recent years, but will also add new original content, larger trim size and upgraded cover stock.

To help encourage new subscriptions (or renewals), they've reduced the subscription rate to $25 so make sure you get your subscription today.

The re-design looks and feels great. Congrats.

But at least one story in their latest issue is sure to cause sales to decline. You see, included in their latest issue is a profile piece on Robert Bluey, Erick Erickson, Patrick Ruffini, and me.

Read on after the jump for a chuckle.

After the YouTube-CNN Debate, I spent some time in the "Spin Room" talking with folks about their thoughts on the Republican debate. (I did the same thing at the Democratic YouTube debate earlier this year.)

Below, find short vlogs from Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Patrick Ruffini, Robert Bluey, Mary Katharine Ham, James Kotecki, Jose Antonio Vargas, Meghan McCain, Charlie Smith, and, wait for it... Chuck Norris.

Ready.
Set.
Go.

(After the jump)