Political Video Tu- Thursday?: The Race So Far

I couldn't help but post this, since it basically recaps everything I've done on this blog for the past nine months. Thanks, Slate!

Book Review: Interface

Whenever it comes to mixing technology, message crafting, and the presidency, people tend to get a little... hyperbolic. From The Manchurian Candidate to The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror, it seems that the entertainment industry is particularly keen on telling stories about how our leaders are probably out to kill us. However, when treated with a deft hand, this kind of storytelling can offer revealing look into the ways in which electoral politics can both free and enslave, depending on perspective.

Neal Stephenson and George Jewesbury's Interface presents a world in which mass media conglomerates plan to seize full control of the United States through a chip-augmented Illinois governor blessed with the power to perceive and adapt to any and all changes in public opinion. For political consultants, this sort of prediction would probably be met with either snorts of derision or shrugs of it-could-happen. With some of the sci-fi gee-whiz peeled away, Interface becomes an interesting examination of the reliance on a fetishization of political statistical analysis.

Interface highlights the worst habits of political strategists and marketers, like the temptation to view the public at-large as little more than poll numbers and demographics. It also serves as an reminder about the power and importance of grassroots involvement in politics. By breaking out of the typical, passive roles that they are often assigned, voters have the opportunity to affect real political change on their terms instead of being lead by the nose by powerful outside forces.

MAINTENANCE!

With the end of the semester fast approaching, I've taken down quite a few entries for tune-up purposes. I know leaving them up would make more sense, but it's easier to keep track of which ones I've gone over if I send them all back to drafts. So, eager fans, bear with me for the next week. After that, everything should be back to normal.

Political Video Tuesday - There are cameras in Florida, you know.

We all know of famous cases of Internet-fueled flaps that brought down both candidates and Congressmen alike. There was Trent Lott's race-tinged speech at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, or George Allen's unfortunate "Macaca moment" during the leadup to the 2006 midterms. During this primary cycle, videos of Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright stirred up a controversy that resulted in what some call the most important speech on race in America in over half a century.

Now, we may have another smoking gun clip on our hands. This time, the issue at hand is the seating of Florida's delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Supporters of plans to rescind threats to not seat the state's delegation claim that, among other things, the Florida Democrats were essential bystanders, wringing their hands on the sidelines as their Republican counterparts hatched a dastardly scheme to push up the primary (comment 219 on the New York Times link sums up their case pretty well).

Then, this happened:



DailyKos has all the discussion you need, but I gotta ask: where's the anger towards the state party (the rightful target, if there is such a thing), and how long before this gets picked up outside the blogosphere?

Obama's blue plate special.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? If you said Barack Obama, you’d be on to something.

When the money’s tight and every race counts, campaigns need to pull out all of the fundraising stops in order to insure that interest remains high and money remains forthcoming. With his latest online initiative freshly in my mailbox, Barack Obama is once again taking this advice to heart. Between now and March 31st, donors to Obama’s campaign will be entered into a pool of potential dinner guests who get to share a meal with the candidate himself.

There are multiple reasons to like this approach. For one, it seems to adhere to the idea that the most effective use of the internet as a political tool revolves around digitally organizing people for real-world events. The whole appeal of this fundraising push centers on the fact that donors can share dinner with the candidate and fellow supporters. If the campaign had touted this as a virtual dinner, staged remotely with more winners, the buzz wouldn’t be nearly the same.

Second, the campaign’s tactics reaffirm the idea that people will always be up for a game. Like the office workers who enter March Madness pools despite not following college basketball, potential donors this week will likely be spurred on by the promise of a potential “win”. Though the odds may be long for the donors, the results are the same for the campaign: increased cash flow at a time when opportunities for positive campaign news are at a premium.

Finally, this homespun approach to campaigning reflects the fact that the Obama campaign understands of the power of grassroots and netroots organizing, and provides another opportunity for Obama to appear “of the people, by the people”. In the campaign email that I received was quick to point out Obama’s populist appeal:


While Senator Clinton and Senator McCain have accepted millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, this campaign has relied on more than a million individual donors giving only what they can afford. Just last month, more than 90% of the donations to Obama for America were for $100 or less.

Whether or not this gimmick translates into increased fundraising (something that Obama’s campaign has had little trouble with, anyway) remains to be seen. However, as a fan of both political strategy and Barack Obama, I support the fact that the campaign is countering the kitchen sink with the kitchen table.

And yes, I donated today. Fingers crossed!

BOOK REVIEW: Poli-fluentials: The New Political Kingmakers

You know, all good streaks have to end sometime. Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to read some of the reports from George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet, and I've been more impressed by each successive document. That is, until this week. This week, I found that IPDI can completely whiff once in a while. But, hey. 75%'s not bad, right?

It's not that this report doesn't contain interesting material and draw compelling conclusions. It does. The problems that I had with the document stem from two different oversights: a) though it claims to approach its classification process scientifically, the approach researchers use is flawed, and b) it's not telling our class anything that we didn't know thanks to Malcolm Gladwell.

The classification system that the report uses to categorize individuals as "poli-fluentials" is hampered by its limited criteria and small sample size. Setting aside the structural flaws, the report also does a fairly shoddy job of explaining exactly how to take advantage of such individuals, or even how to identify them in the first place. It's like they had a really interesting idea for a report, but then simply lost steam when it came time to flesh it out.

Problematic for our class is also the fact that this report is redundant. Much of the territory covered in this report was covered more engagingly by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. Slapping some specious political statistics on Gladwell basic ideas doesn't make for an enlightening reading experience. Rather, it leaves me scratching my head, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Political Video Tuesday - Raining McCain

Um... what?

I... um... what?

This seems like a mistake. And yet. This might be the most endearing thing to come out of McCain's campaign. If this is actually legit, then kudos. If it's a fake... well, that might be even more impressive.

Easter Break

It's Easter, so no updates for a few days. Also, this.

Cool Sites - Ringtones08

In keeping with the spirit of this week's book review, I thought I'd turn your attention to a site that's pretty much keyed in on the whole mobile politics kerfuffle.

The good folks over at Ringtone08 feel that your phone's ring might as well reflect your politics, catchy Fergie tones be damned. To this end, they've created a site where users can not only find and download ringtones of their favorite candidate free of charge, but create and market their own free ringtones.

While most of the content so far has dealt with the presidential election and recent Eliot Spitzer scandal, I'd be interested to see if any intrepid state or local candidates harness this sort of mobile strategy for use by their supporters. It seems like a concentrated group of people, living in a relatively compact area, could really use something like this effectively as a means of candidate branding. Of course, that also assumes that the ringtone is catchy (an unfortunate prerequisite, perhaps, but present nonetheless).

Oh, if you're curious, I'm now sporting the "Yes, We Can" Obama tone. I'm not only a Ringtones08 advocate - I'm also a user!

BOOK REVIEW: The Politics-to-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics

As far as politics and technology goes, the one medium that I had little exposure to before coming to Georgetown was the world of mobile politics. While the combination of widely available mobile technology and political action seems like a natural fit, it wasn't something that I'd had any kind of personal relationship with. That all changed upon reading yet another of IPDI's fantastically effective handbooks. Like most of IPDI's work, this handbook is designed for practical application, and is generally free from both the Utopian technological determinism and over-skeptical Luddite warnings that poison many works on political technology. The authors of this book realize that, like everything else in the world of political action, mobile technology represents one possible approach to political media. While not a magic bullet by itself, mobile technology can be used effectively in tandem with other technologies, and is particularly well-suited to organizing specific actions and alerting supporters of opportunities for independent activism.

While much of the book deals with ways in which campaigns themeselves can use mobile technology as part of their digital strategy, time is also devoted to examining the effects of mobile proliferation on things like citizen journalism. In a world where everyone has a camera/recording device in their pocket, the opportunities for event-related spin are reduced. One only needs to look as far as George Allen and the infamous Macaca moment, or even to the "Don't tase me, bro!" debacle at the University of Florida, to realize the potential that unfiltered transmission grants to the world of news coverage.

Time is also spent examining the United States' relative lack of mobile penetration, an interesting read for anyone interested in the quagmire that is the American telecom industry. With our current tangle of service providers, it's no wonder that the potential for mobile activism in the US is nowhere near that of other, more effectively linked countries like Korea. However, that is a diatribe for another day.

For anyone who doesn't have time to read the entire handbook (hint: make time.), here's a handy executive summary that hits the highlights. Pay special attention to numbers one, three, five, and eight. Just sayin'.

Political Video Tuesday - The Living Room Candidate

If you're a complete political advertising junkie like me, you're probably in heaven these days. With the emergence of cheap broadband and a new commitment by campaigns to capture the internet market, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some well-done, persuasive videos. Some are amazingly aware of their audience (Mike Huckabee's fabulous Chuck Norris ad), while others sort of... miss the mark (basically any Hillary Clinton video targeting the youth vote). However, for some, this glut of new content isn't enough.

To all of the true geeks out there who want some honest-to-God historical context for today's ads: your time has come. Thanks to The Living Room Candidate, a feature that's part of the compelling Museum of the Moving Image, American Presidential election fans can get their fill of campaign advertising from Eisenhower forward. Each race is treated to a general overview, and ads from both candidates are presented for comparison.

Cooler still, the site allows users to use preset categories to view similar ads from different races, making categorization and trend-spotting even easier. Plus, full transcripts of each ad are available, which came in handy once I got the following song stuck in my head:



Sadly, the site's one drawback is its lack of embedding options. Head on over anyway, though, and get ready to lose a couple of hours.

A belated valentine to Ron Paul

I know this is a bit late, but here goes.



Ron Paul, you're a crazy person. A crazy person with ideas, but a crazy person all the same. I'm sorry that my roommate accosted you about Facebook. He's quite a handful. I wish you weren't a mad scientist, but alas.

Happy belated Valentine's Day,
Tyler

BOOK REVIEW: Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User Generated Content

We're up to another one of those fantastic IPDI reports on today's book review, a treat for you and I alike. Today's covers topics that I have become intimately familiar with over the course of the past academic year: social networks and user-generated content. While there's no question that these areas are having a definite impact on the world of political campaigns, this report examines exactly how campaign managers can replicate and profit from an essentially organic political process.

The report is amazingly comprehensive, running the gamut from digital effects on traditional media forms (Chuck DeFeo's chapter on talk radio's transition into the blogging community) to encouraging offline contacts and action once online communities are established (Brad Fey's chapter on the shifting nature of word-of-mouth advertising). All of these chapters are presented in plain-speaking, easy-to-implement forms, which seems to fit IPDI's commitment to producing applicable handbooks rather than starry-eyed book of theory.

Personally, my favorite chapter covered the use of video games as a persuasive political tool. The chapter mainly focuses on the concept of adver-gaming, or the use of video games as a medium for message presentation and reinforcement. This approach mirrors game studies specialist Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric, a topic that I'm keen to explore as part of my thesis research next year. Bogost's argument that games persuade by "running processes and executing rule-based symbolic manipulation" lends itself well to the inclusion of nuanced, persuasive content within the video game system. The fact that the political half of the industry is picking up on the concept is heartening, and suggests that further exploration is necessary.

Political Video Tuesday - 23/6

I'm not sure how many other internet humor fans are reading my blog out there (though, judging by my general friend base, I can sort of assume that there are a few of you), but today's site should appeal to pretty much everyone I know. It's called 23/6, it's run by the Huffington Post and former Daily Show staffers, and it specializes in, among other things, some of the most amazing spoof political advertisements that I've ever seen.

You might be familiar with the group's most famous cast of characters: the Swift Kids. Playing off of everyone's favorite irascibly outraged veterans' group, the Swift Kids ask the tough questions. Witness!



Aside from the Swift Kids, 23/6 has much more to offer. Witness x2!





Aww, who am I kidding? It's all about the kids, man.

Social Network Update VII - For A Good Cause

I thought I'd take some time to plug a social network cause that's actually having a big impact on my out-of-class life at the moment. As many of you may know, we here at CCT are in a potentially drawn-out fight to get another full-time media and politics professor hired for next fall. Without going into too many details, things aren't looking exactly rosy. Thus, in the spirit of online activism, we decided to go to the internet as a means of organizing the masses.

When we decided to go online, however, we were faced with a dilemma: exactly how would we structure our movement, and what tools would we use to get our message out and action taken?

Since our campaign was going to be fairly local and specialized, we decided that a combination of private communications and information offers and public action opportunities would be the best way to alert our peers to our problem and give them a chance to help us out. To this end, we decided to use two tool that have become quite familiar to readers of this blog: Facebook and Care2.

Since our outreach was going to be targeted at members of our specific peer group, the four of us behind the campaign began by sending out Facebook messages to all of our contacts at Georgetown and other Consortium universities. Facebook allowed us to reach people who we were already connected to and to inform them of where the situation stood regarding our need for a professor.

However, Facebook alone was not sufficient. Since it is not designed with activism in mind, it lacks easily adaptable features for action-related activity. We could've had people join a group or an event (which we did create to serve as an advertisement), but that wouldn't have the same impact as something more intuitively designed. It would've also restricted activity to out peers who were already signed up to use Facebook - not exactly the best strategy in this case. Thus, we turned to another website to give our supporters an easy way to help us: Care2's Petition Site.

We created this petition, copying the appeals that we'd used in the Facebook message and event portions of the campaign, and set a deadline for signatures. Once people began to respond, we sent out blast messages to everyone who had yet to sign the petition, and continued to advertise it in away messages and status updates on AIM, Facebook, and GChat. In the end, after circulating the petition around our limited target group for two weeks, we ended up collecting 80 signatures. We've submitted the petition to the head of our program, and are now waiting to hear back.

UPDATE (4/2): Well, a response came down. From unnamed sources come reports of an emergency staff meeting in which the most vocal member of our little group was been labeled "a troublemaker", our petition as "crummy", and our definition of media and politics as grossly lacking.

(Side note: for a program so enamored with technology, the idea that a technology-oriented petition would be ridiculed by the very people pushing these techno-Utopian pronouncements strikes me as off. If we'd written this in a paper instead of targeted it at them, they'd be falling over themselves to help us publish.)

However, for all of the unprofessional cheap shots, we've also heard that a new professor will indeed be hired to teach media and politics at CCT this fall. So, though we may be firebrands, we're at least successful firebrands.

Spring Break!

Just a note to let everyone know that I'll be taking the week of in honor of Georgetown's spring recess. I plan to use the week to finally get around to emptying out my draft log and establishing some order around here.

Wish me luck.

Cool Sites - Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle/Hillary Is Mom Jeans

While this week's cool sites might not be as calculatingly awesome as some of the flashier ones that have popped up over this election cycle, they do have one thing going for them. What they lack in technical whiz-bang, they make up for by effectively capture the most important voting block of all: fans of Internet memes.

These two sites, writer Matthew Honan's Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle and Jacob Walker's Hillary Is Mom Jeans, both strive to hammer home the same message: Barack Obama is cool kid, while Hillary Clinton is more of the student government square. Admittedly, these aren't exactly fresh topics; however, what the sites lack in originality of message, they more than make up for with intriguing delivery. Visitors to the sites (a membership which I hope, by now, includes you, dear readers) are greeted by little more than a giant hyperlinked statement regarding what makes Obama cool and/or Hillary lame. These phrases are generally life-affirming and nonsensical. For instance, Obama's site is filling with Christ-like examples of generosity ("Barack Obama sent you flowers", "Barack Obama helped you move a sofa"), while the Clinton site focuses on behavior normally associated with terrible roommates rather than presidential candidates ("Hillary forgot to water your plants", "Hillary works for Blackwater").

Now, why do these sites work? For one, they appeal to the surreality that seems to be inherent in Internet humor. In fact, these sites are far better examples of Internet humor than they are of political humor. The jokes here aren't focused on policy, issues, or even the ongoing campaign; rather, they're tangentially connected to the public's general opinion of the candidates. This sort of presentation could just as easily have been assigned to another well known figure a la the Chuck Norris joke movement. The fact that they happen to be about politicians gives us campaign junkies all the more reasons to smile.

Secondly, the presentation has a big impact. Many online humor sites are bogged down with non-optional streaming video, bulky Flash pages, and content that prizes involved style over substance and, importantly, frequent updates. With the minimalist presentation, the creators are allowed to focus on crafting a catchy meme that is memorable and easily repeatable. I would argue that this is the same kind of approach that we see in most successful online memes.

Another important factor in the success of these sites as memes is audience participation. Although it is the newer of the two sites, Hillary Is Mom Jeans might actually win the day in this regard. While Honan's site has the virtue of being the originator of the style, Walker made a crucial improvement to his site's layout: the addition of a user-submission box. Rather than generating all of the content internally like the Obama site (which doesn't even feature Honan's contact information, let alone a submission section), the Clinton site encourages audience ownership of ongoing creation. This factor is key for the success of any would-be viral movement, and it's nice to see this particular meme moving quickly in that direction.

it also appears that Honan approves as well, stating in a TechBlog interview that "Jacob Walker created this great parody site of BOIYNB. He really nailed it, I think. It's a riot, but it also demonstrates why her campaign is in trouble".

Quite right on all accounts, Mr. Honan. Quite right.

BOOK REVIEW: An Army of Davids

Oh, Glenn Reynolds. You almost had me. Really, you did. I was going along, reading through my copy of your long-titled An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths, and I was really on board. See, in the beginning of your book, you seem like a reasonable individual. You take on the music industry in a way that I can only describe as reasonable. Sure, in order to do so you had to fund and establish your own home studio, but that's part of it, right? A great example of how the emergence of relatively cheap, pro-sumer electronics has combined with the an independent spirit to revolutionize popular music. Rad!

Then, I got worried. The chapter on welcoming "big box" booksellers to a neighborhood rubbed me wrong, somehow. Fuck atmosphere or alternative selection! John Grisham and a latte for $15, right? It seemed like an interesting argument to make, considering that many in the retail world would consider stores like Borders or Barnes and Noble Goliaths rather than Davids, but ok. I got it. They were offering a David-y service, creating community rather than maximizing profit. Corporate bookstores... have our best interests in mind?

After that, though, you lost me, Glenn. The whole bit about citizen surveillance of terror suspects is what got me to close the book for good. While I can admit that the examples that you used were persuasive, the fact remains that encouraging that kind of Junior Stasi spy-on-your-neighbors bullshit is not the kind of technological effect that I consider laudable. In fact, I'm not even sure it completely fits, considering the fact that all of these Davids with camera phones and a nosy disposition are generally taking orders from the biggest Goliath there is (the government) when it comes to figuring out who's supposed to be dangerous this week.

Thus, I will not be finishing your book at this point, Glenn. I just don't have it in me this week.

Political Video Tuesday - Viva Obama

Well, if Obama plans on capturing a primary victory in Texas next week, he'll certainly need to capture the sentiment expressed in this video. Personally, I'd be satisfied if I could capture one of those fine-looking hats that those gentlemen are wearing.

For good measure, and for all of my Spanish-speaking friends (Emily, I'm looking at you), here's another video. Viva Obama, and viva reggaeton.

Social Network Update VI - The Competition

For today's social network update, I figured I might give Barack Obama's groups a breather this week in favor of scanning around for the competition. That's right, the other guys. The opponents. The rivals. I'm talking, of course, about Hillary Clinton supporters.

Before Obama fans can get geared up to take on the Republicans in the fall, we have to survive a challenge from within our own party. Clinton has a strong base and great name recognition, but she isn't exactly the sharpest candidate in terms of digital campaign strategy. How does this lack of online acumen translate on Facebook and Care2? Well, there's only one way to find out.

FACEBOOK

The first thing you'll probably notice when searching Facebook for Hillary Clinton is the negative groups. Simply put, there are lots of them. Out of the first 10 results for a group search on Facebook, eight groups are anti-Clinton. They run the gamut, from ideological ("Hillary Clinton is the Anti-Christ! VOTE CONSERVATIVE!") to sexist ("Hillary Clinton is a Man and I will not Vote for Him") to the hyperbolic ("If HIllary Clinton is Elected, I'm Moving to Canada!"). By contrast, a group search for Barack Obama reveals a completely inverted ratio, with only two anti-Obama groups ("Stop Barack Obama", "Against Barack Obama") and none of the overt vitriol found among the Clinton groups.

So, what gives? Why is Hillary Clinton so grossly unpopular on Facebook despite locking Obama in a virtual stalemate nationally? My guess is that Facebook just doesn't cater to Clinton's natural constituency. Not only is it an online community (an area of organization that doesn't exactly play to Clinton's strength), but it's a primarily youth-based group. Despite having the support of George McGovern, Clinton has failed to gain the attention of McGovern-style supporters; by and large, young voters and intellectuals have flocked in droves to Barack Obama, leaving Clinton's cupboard relatively bare.

CARE2

Over at Care2, things are just as bleak. While the folks on Care2 are far more civil than their Facebook counterparts, they're also far less interested in the Clinton campaign. Care2 lacks both the negative groups that are so popular on Facebook and the positive groups that could actually do the campaign some good. While Barack Obama's Care2 supporters hover somewhere around 1,000 (not great by any stretch of the imagination, Clinton's numbers are even worse; in the two groups that support her, Clinton can count just over 200 Care2 members as active supporters.

Obama decided early on to make online organizing a cornerstone of his campaign, and it's paying off. Clinton's skill at 90s-style politics left her both unfamiliar with emerging trends and unwilling to take the risks necessary to overcome the gap. If there's one base cause for her flagging online support, that might be it.

Cool Sites - Huffington Post Donation Tracker

I can only spare a quick update today, but I think it's a pretty good one. As I was bouncing around the blogs last night, I discovered this interesting feature over at the Huffington Post. They call it Fundrace 2008, and it's a fascinating look at fundraising.

Using FEC records from the past two Presidential election cycles, the people at the Post have mapped out personal donations across the country. So, if you've ever been curious about how much your favorite celebrities (Paul Simon: $4,600 to Chris Dodd for 2008) or even your neighbors (a lady in my parents' neighborhood: $2,000 to Bob Graham for 2004) have donated to political candidates, this is the place to go.

Play around a little. It's a pretty intuitive site. My only complaints could be remedied by a broadening of scope, but I don't consider that a bad sign.

Political Video Tuesday - Hillary Goes Negative

I try to limit myself to posting videos that are either a) really clever or b) Internet -related. Those descriptions don't really cover this particular clip, but in honor of tonight's Wisconsin primaries, I'll let it slide.



An interesting choice for attack. Clearly, Clinton hasn't yet fuly embraced the negative, because this ad's pretty tame. Personally, I think Obama's smart for not agreeing to a debate that would essentially be free publicity for a Clinton campaign whose money troubles are well-publicized. Time will tell whether or not the voters of Wisconsin agree.

EDIT: They do not. It's Wednesday morning in America, and Wisconsin likes Obama. CNN reports that the Illinois senator won across almost every demographic group. It's looking increasingly likely that Clinton's only really option is to go fiercely negative in the upcoming states and debates, but even that might not be enough. Then again, this is the same woman who described this political negativity as "the fun part", so I'll hold off on predictions for now.

Social Network Update V – Start Your Own Revolution

This week's social network update focuses less on my experiences in the already-established Obama-related groups on Facebook and Care2 and more on what it might actually be like to get in on the action myself. One of the thing that I've seen touted regarding the political social network revolution is the ease with which any member of the community can create and organize a real-world event using online tools. Since this is obviously something to crow about, I figured I should give it a shot.

Now, I've been creating events on Facebook ever since they added the option all those years ago. Thus, going the the process of creating yet another event there wouldn't really give me any insight into the process. So, I've decided to fudge things a little and use, in addition to Care2, Barack Obama's official social network as the proving ground for my event experiment. One of the great advantages Obama's site has over the other social networks is its complete focus on the candidate. This approach allows community members to appeal to an already-friendly base, but also requires them to stand out among all of the other Obama-related events. Thus, it should be interesting.

MY BARACK OBAMA

Creating an event on Barack Obama's social network is... well, really easy. I mean, really easy. The designers behind this site definitely seem to grasp the fact that Obama's network will be used by masters and neophytes alike, and their design choices reflect an understanding of how both groups operate.

Upon signing in to your network pages, a button click will take you to your event portal, which shows you what events you've signed up for, what ones you've attended in the past, and how to set up an event of your own. Clicking the creation button brings you to the event setup page, where you'll determine the location and type of event you'd like to host. Would-be hosts are given a list of event types to choose from, along with simple descriptions of each type. This makes the selection process quite simple, which in turn must do wonders for the site's internal organization system.

Once the initial step is out of the way, things open up a bit. Like most social networks that offer event setup, Obama's site is fairly open and customizable. The setup categories are organized in a simple "What, When, Where" format, a style that would be uncomplicated for even the most novice networker. One thing that Obama's site has that is missing on Facebook (at least in my experience) is an email alert system; depending on your preferences, the site will automatically remind anyone signed up for the event a certain number of hours prior to the start. As someone who often slogs through email lists doing this kind of thing by hand, I can tell you that this sort of added touch is immensely handy.

CARE2

Care2's approach to events is different from any other social network that I've come across. The site splits its "Get Togethers" into two categories: Events (which consist of traditional physical gathering) and Action Days (which are collective calls to action unrestricted by physical location). This approach is convenient, especially when it comes to coordinating large groups of activists or volunteers.

The Events page is set up similarly to all other basic social network event managers; however, Care2 does have a unique trick up their sleeve. Included with all of the necessary event management tools is the promotion features, which allows event creators the option of advertising their gathering, free of charge, to up to three groups of which the creator is a member. This feature allows for maximum visibility while still maintaining the sense of community and boundaries that makes Care2 the network that it is.

On the other side of the coin, the Action Day option, while less detailed, is arguably easier to execute. Without the physical constraints/demands of an event, an Action Day request requires less commitment from potential participants. Action Days are also eligible for Care2's promotion feature, allowing even more people to get in on the same low-impact call for action.

I think this may be the first time since I've started this examination that Care2 has come out on top of Facebook (which, although it wasn't analyzed in this particular article, does not feature anything remarkable in the way of event management). Since the Care2 community is built on the premise of political action, I guess it stands to reason that organization might be one of their strong suits.

Strategy Friday - An Email, from Teddy? How Thoughtful!

Today, while checking my email at work, I noticed a curious-looking address line near the top of my inbox. Titled simply “I’m with Obama”, the email was (apparently) from none other than Mr. Massachusetts himself, Senator Ted Kennedy. My excitement untempered by experience or expectation, I clicked through the email to find… a fundraising request from the Obama campaign.

Shock! Outrage! Basic disgust!

All joking aside, the email (one of many from the Obama campaign in the past few days) got me thinking about the use of famous names in address lines of campaign emails. I mean, when it comes right down to it, who does the campaign think they’re fooling? No one actually believes that the emails they’re receiving are from Ted Kennedy/Michelle Obama/Barack Obama, so why go to all the trouble of placing their name in the address line? Why not save it for the subject, and just have the address simply read “Obama for America”?

Or, more importantly, is there a chance, in some roundabout, upside down way, that this kind of marketing strategy actually works?

Fortunately, an ongoing conversation in my other inbox provides some insight into the method behind this madness.

In a recent conversation on the Progressive Exchange listserv, the topic of email attribution and names was given a full examination. To make a long set of emails short, the folks at ProgEx generally agree that using names is generally ok a) in high-profile campaigns and b) when the "sender" is already famous anyway. This combination seems to suggest that familiarity will outweigh any questions of authenticity. However, the folks on the listserv urged caution. One participant pointed to the dangers of email from less well-known or low-profile non-profits getting filed as spam due to its unclear sender status. Another pointed out that such a scheme, especially when used in a "man on the street" style situation, might require valuable subject line space to be used just to clearly communicate the organization's purpose behind the email.

In other words, when it comes to mass emails, most organizations would do well to simply play it safe and include their organization's name in the "From" line of any official communications.

Barack Obama and Ted Kenendy, on the other hand, can play by an entirely different set of rules.

BOOK REVIEW: Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book in Politics

Wow. What a difference a week makes. As you might recall, I spent last Wednesday's post reviewing MoveOn.org's 50 Ways to Love Your Country, a handbook designed for political laypeople and would-be weekend activists everywhere. This week, I present: the polar opposite.

While MoveOn's book was great for energized citizens looking to begin their life as political activists, it lacked teeth when it came to actual, on-the-ground political tech strategy. That's where the the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet comes in. In their series of free reports (available here, naturally), they cater to exactly the opposite audience that MoveOn's book is designed for. These documents are for people who are interested in the inner workings of political and activist organizations, especially when it comes to technological impact. In other words, they're not what you might describe as "light reading".

The insider approach works well for the task at hand, though. While I lack the required organizing experience needed to understand some of the finer points the report tries to get at, I'm familiar enough with the general "state of the state" to appreciate the arguments on a macro level.

When it comes down to it, it seems that organizations and campaigns have two choices when it comes to constituent relationship management (CRM). They can either treat their targeted audience/volunteers as piece of a business plan or broadcast model, or they can use the tools available to identify and build actual working relationships with the most dedicated volunteers. Clearly, the IPDI document favors the second option, and sets out to provide strategies and examples of how new software can be leveraged into campaign success.

The one conclusion that I found disheartening was the realiities of use and acceptance of online CRM systems. The report basically concludes that the vast majority of political campaigns or organizations have very little incentive to switch to newer, more innovative CRM means. That leaves underdogs and fringe candidates as the typical ideal adopters. While this still leaves developers with a fertile proving ground, it would be nice to see what kinds of advances might be made in an arena that was less disposed to change resistance.

In the end, I have a feeling that I'm going to get very familiar with IPDI's reports in the weeks to come. I have two more on tap for class, and am eyeing a third that looks like interesting... leisure reading.

Jesus, I really am a grad student, no?

Political Video Tuesday: John.He.Is

As TechPresident's Joshua Levy pointed out yesterday, this next video is so meta, it hurts. And I love it.


I'm telling you, man. It's all about user-generated content. I mean, name the last memorable online political video or advertisement you saw that was paid for or developed by a campaign itself? The Mike Huckabee/Chuck Norris video comes to mind, I guess, but that was memorable precisely because it played upon the DIY/meme culture inherent to the Internet. Other than that, though, nothing comes to mind.

Certainly, people have tried. You might've seen "Hillary and the Band", Hillary Clinton's grab at the youth vote from a few weeks ago. It has all the hallmarks of what the kids like, right? Ironic Photoshopping! Rock and Roll! The Blogs! Right. It's about as inspiring and/or entertaining as it sounds. Witness:



Clearly, strategists and campaigns have witnessed the power of the Internet as a content delivery system. Why they haven't been able to replicate the success found by other, independent sources is a question whose answer is going to make someone very rich someday. My guess? It all goes back to authenticity. Commercialization be damned, the Internet is still a populist place. Netizens (*cringe*) have finely tuned bullshit meters, and can sniff out pandering from miles away. Huckabee's video worked because his campaign demonstrated familiarity with this fact and decided to play along. Clinton's video failed because hers didn't.

Social Network Update IV - Get Active

It's Monday, so that means it's time to check in with Barack Obama's progress in the world of social networking. Today, I figured we could take a look at how easy it is to get involved in offline campaign events using the tools and information found on each of the social network services. Since online organization is only as useful as its real-world effects, organizational power matters. As usual, we'll consider Facebook first.

FACEBOOK

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Facebook's two most popular Obama groups engage in some useful division of labor: "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" serves as the campaign's information repository, while the newer "I Endorse Barack Obama, and I'm Telling My Friends!" is more geared towards explicit calls to action. Naturally, this leads to different sorts of action opportunities found in each group.

Visitors to "One Million Strong..." will find, tucked among the seemingly endless rolls of links towards the official site, opportunities to engage in all of the volunteer actions found on Obama's own social network site. From phonebanking to donation matching, no form of help is left unrepresented or unsanctioned. In fact, that may be the one knock against this group's usefulness. All of the links found here point users towards Obama's own site, reducing the Facebook group to an unnecessary middleman. While this makes sense from a political organizing standpoint, offering some Facebook-exclusive opportunities would go a long way towards justifying the existence of this group past its use as an advertisement for Obama's (in this case) rival network.

Over at "I Endorse...", things are a little more grassroots-y. Instead of focusing on the volunteer opportunities already available on the official campaign site, "I Endorse..." is more concerned with Facebook-based activism and endorsement. To this end, they provide guidelines for Facebook messaging campaigns, create unique events for each Democratic primary contest, and offer state-specific door hangers and graphics that feature their endorsement message. While these efforts might not reach the same amount of people as the official campaign communications (EDIT: As of April, the membership numbers of the official group versus this one are close to the 10-to-1 range), they represent an interesting approach to delivering unique action opportunities. Say what you will about MoveOn.org, but their mobilization efforts are always worth talking about.

CARE2

Things on Care 2 are... not much different from things on Facebook, at least in regards to activism opportunities. Aside from linking to official campaign events, Care2's largest Obama group currently offer no organized activism opportunities on behalf of the candidate. Personally, I'm a little surprised by this, and wonder exactly why an active community like Care2 doesn't have a more energized, organized Obama fanbase. Is it something about the idealism that makes the idea of actual campaign politics unappealing? Or is it something about the candidate himself? Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Strategy Friday - Mo' Money, Mo' (Server) Problems for Obama.com?

For political candidates, demand is the name, and goal, of the game. However, as with any desireable thing, too much demand can leave campaigns scrambling to catch up. After surviving Super Tuesday, Barack Obama's campaign has done everything in its power to spin the stalemate into a victory. Whether that strategy works or not, the fact remains that voters seem to be taking even more notice of Illinois' junior senator. Yesterday, I wondered exactly how the Obama campaign might handle this increased interest/scrutiny.

Well, it turns out that, at least where the Internet is concerned, the answer is "not all that well, really".

After this week's strong turnout, I decided it was finally time to open up my wallet for the Obama campaign. I went to their website's donation page, and... was greeted by a message letting me know that, due to the unexpected surge of traffic after Super Tuesday, the Obama campaign's website was experiencing technical difficulties.

Huh.

What a terrible time for a breakdown. I'll head back when the site is back up, but I wonder how many casual donors might've been turned off. Probably not many, but it's still a problem worth addressing. Having a reliable Internet presence won't win you the nomination, but it certainly won't hurt.

The way I see it, the answer to this problem is one of two things. Either:

a) the campaign wasn't properly prepared for the post-Super Tuesday wave of supporters.

or

b) the campaign was prepared; the wave of supporters simply exceeded their expectations.

For the candidate's sake, I'm hoping for the last one. With nothing decided, everyone's looking forward to a protracted fight, and every dollar's going to count. Obama has a natural advantage in fundraising; he boasts more non-"maxed out" donors than Sen. Clinton all while outraising his competitors to the tune of $32 million in Jaunary alone. Now, if the Obama campaign can find a way to allow it apparently eager donors to actually, you know, fork over even more cash, the system will be operating as expected.

Super Tuesday Special - Putting the "Aware" Back in "Delaware"

By now, I'm sure you've all seen the results from yesterday's so-called "Super Duper Tuesday" primaries. For a day that was supposed to decide so much, things sure do seem to be pretty much where they started, at least on the Democratic side. Though the stalemate may be frustrating, yesterday's results satisfied me as soon as I heard the following sentence:

"CNN projects that Senator Barack Obama will win the Delaware primary".

At that moment, tucked in a booth at Bourbon, half-lit and shouting, rolling out of bed for a 5am drive up the northern slice of the Delmarva Peninsula seemed like a bargain price for the results that Wolf Blitzer was now sharing with the rest of the country.

To be fair, I'm not really that delusional. The five of us (myself, roommates Annette and Aaleeya, and ringleaders Gillian and JoJo) probably weren't terribly important pieces of Obama's plan to win Delaware. What we lacked in individual experience or significance, however, was bolstered by sheer numbers; there were many volunteers on the streets of Dover today, and all of the ones that I saw supported the same candidate.

We knocked on doors, mostly, in neighborhoods where kids from Georgetown wouldn't typically be found on Tuesday mornings. Or ever. Though we made our rounds early in the morning, everyone who answered greeted us with behavior that ranged from courtesy (at worst) to enthusiams (at best). Even though it was early, many had already voted.

Later in the day, we stood on the corners of busy intersections and waves the handmade signs we'd been provided back at campaign headquarters. Here, finally were the jeers that we'd been expecting all day. Once, an elderly lady rolled down her window and faked us out with a thumbs-up that turned quickly (and violently) downward as she passed in her car. Later, stopped at a long light, a bearded, ponytailed Harley cast-off and his (runner-up) trophy wife informed me that they were "Hillary people". When I asked if they might reconsider, he deadpanned a "Nope." before pulling away through the intersection.

We left earlier than we could've, after a day of Amish food and civic engagement. Most of us dozed on the way home, rousing as we neared the district in time to hear the radio reports of Obama's projected victory in Georgia. After the results started pouring in, it was off to Bourbon, where we celebrated victories and drowned sorrows in a crowd reminiscent of a March Madness game.

I'm not sure what last night means for the nomination. I do know that, whether getting out the vote in that nation's first state or reeling onto Wisconsin Ave. and shouting "I love Kansas!" after another Obama victory, I really did have the Super-est of Tuesdays.

BOOK REVIEW: MoveOn's 50 Way to Love Your Country

Sometimes, it's a shame that MoveOn.org's name is so instantly polarizing that it renders most non-partisan discussion of its relative merits impossible. Idealogies aside, there are a great many things that MoveOn advocates that are healthy for politics regardless of party affiliation. Chief among these agendas is MoveOn's support of bottom-up, people-centric political action. In the book MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country, contributors from across the country offer stories that read like two parts instruction manual, one part Chicken Soup for the Political Soul.

Most of the advice offered by the MoveOn members responsible for the book runs the gamut, ranging from common sense reminders to tactical strategies on a host of grassroots activities. Ever wanted to know the most effective way to get your letter to the editor published? They've got that covered. How about strategies for voter registration drives? They're in your corner. Most forms of grassroots action are covered in short, simple, easy to reference chapters, making field use possible and profitable.

When I started reading this book, I figured that, with some of the names changed and a few different case studies here and there, this book could easily be adapted to serve politically-minded individuals from both ends of the spectrum. However, the more I think about it, the more I feel that the problem of adaptation might go deeper than some surface changes. I often get the sense that the political makeup of the right might discourage the kind of grassroots, can-do activism that you see so often on the left.

I know there are lots of angry conservatives out there, but I don't see that anger poured into citizen-centered activity. Rather, conservative outcry is often funneled through institutions, such as the National Rifle Association or Focus on the Family. This trust in the establishment brought me back to George Lakoff's concept of the right's reliance on the stern father motif when it comes to political action. Does that sort of framework prevent the same kind of community action that we see from the left? Or, are conservatives just not yet frustrated enough to take action? Remember, it took an impeachment of a president and an illegal war to stir the Democrats into high-profile action. The unfortunate reality is that we may only see conservative organization as a response to the goals that progressives are currently working to achieve. I guess Hinduism has that part right: it's all just one big circle.

Political Video Tuesday: Yes, We Can

This is everywhere by now, but I'd feel like a bad supporter if I didn't link just one more time...



It's been a busy week around here, as my friends and I are trying to not so singlehandedly deliver the mid-Atlantic states to Barack Obama. We're in Delaware today (an experience which will get an entry all its own) and will spend the weekend working in the Potomac triangle of DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Plus, marvel as I resume my frightening trip into the world of online activism. BLAMMO!

For stories on all of that and more, keep on coming back.

Social Network Update III - Level of Discourse

As my adventure into Barack Obama's social network presence continues, I figure it's probably long past time to explore one of the key components of any network group: the discussion board. Home to well-reasoned discourse and terrible, terrible trolls alike, discussion communities are often representative of the state of the movement. How would the conversations on Facebook differ from those on Care2, and what would that mean for the groups? Sadly, there's only one way to find out: we have to hit the boards.

FACEBOOK

Since there are many different social communities dedicated to Obama and his candidacy, I'll be looking at messages from two separate communities. The first, "I endorse Barack Obama -- and I'm telling my friends!", is an activist group that advocates direct support of and involvement in the Obama campaign. That being the case, you would expect the messages found here have a distinctly energized tone, for both good and ill.

The group is extremely new, having been formed within the last week, but already the messages cropping up seem to bear our my expectations. For instance, the first message that appeared when I loaded up the message board was an invective-laced accusation regarding Obama's apparent status as a Muslim terrorist. Though this well-intentioned fear-monger was quickly shouted down, it seems like this kind of thing is going to be par for the course going forward.

The community that is forming around this group handles the trolls and weirdos as best as they can, and uses the board mainly as a bulletin space for calls to action, announcements of milestones, and heads-ups for Obama-related events. So far, actually debate/discussion seems to fall more under the auspices of the older, more well-established Obama group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)".

When I arrived at this board, I was expecting the worst, simply because... well, that tends to be what politics brings out in people. I was surprised to find that the board, with a few exceptions, was fairly respectable when it came to the level of discourse. Part of this comes, I suspect, from eagle-eyed moderation; as I perused, I noticed topic deletions sprinkled throughout the threads. The supporters who are here also seem to take trolls with a grain of salt: numerous threads are devoted to venting about everyone's favorite type of internet rabble-rousers. In one, a particularly proactive community member (and apparent fan of It's A Wonderful Life) suggests donating to Obama every time a troll posts.

In terms of topics for discussion, the board is currently in the throws of Super Tuesday fever. This post, which I chose because of its proximity to my destination for tomorrow, captures the general feeling of many around the board. Elsewhere, there are numerous topics devoted to frustrations regarding Obama's opponents; in particular, Hillary Clinton seems to be drawing the most amount of fire, well ahead of any Republican candidate. The distaste ranges from outrage (a post regarding alleged Clinton puush-polling in California) to tactical (a breakdown of Mark Penn's latest talking points) to downright Drudge-ian (an apparently shocking video that "the Clintons don;t want you to see!!!").

As a site dedicated to Obama support, there is very little room for a middle ground approach when it comes to Obama's chief rival. However, the board does show some sense of awareness when it comes to life in the world of online politics. This post, which may be my favorite of the ones I've read so far, contains a conversation about the role of trolls and agitators in these kinds of communities. Far from being self-exonerating, many of the messages contain admissions of trolling by board members on Clinton sites, and seems to reflect the belief that "everyone's doing it". Though the group's view of such behavior seems to be negative overall, most of them still aren't willing to grant Clinton, or her supporters, a break.

More surprising is the group's preoccupation with Ron Paul. Instead of focusing on Any of the Republican frontrunners, most messages about the GOP are in regards to the TExas congressman's longshot bid for the White House. From complaints about his supporters, to ways in which to win them over, the Facebook crowd is either swept up in the Paul "revolution" with the rest of the internet, or aware of the power that Paul's bloc wields as a potential swing group in the upcoming election. Whatever the reason, though, you have to admit that, for someone with no with no shot at the nomination, this guy's everywhere.

One thing that's lacking from the board (as far as I can tell, at least) is a strong presence of undecided voters. People don't seem to be coming here in order to figure out if Obama is their candidate of choice or not; the people who have chosen to be active in these groups all seem fairly set when it comes to who gets their vote. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does remove the possibility of non-partisan information/persuasion sessions.

Another possible problem with the Facebook forums is the lack of lingering threads. Most discussions that I found on the site were created within 76 hours of my first searches. Going deeper, I found that, in most cases, all messages found on the first few pages were new rather than ongoing. There are a couple of problems with that. First of all, a lack of old, or even sticky, threads leads to redundant posting, as newcomers attempt to assert (for the 37th time) that Obama is not a Muslim/white supremacist/anti-Christ/etc. Second, the value of new content overshadows the need for the kind of foundational posting that takes a message board from a bulletin space to a community. In this climate, the possibility for the lengthy debates found on other boards is lost.

Overall, the message boards of the Facebook groups are far less painful than I was expecting. While the occasional troll slips past the keeper, the community generally fulfills its goal as a place where Obama supporters can come to have their beliefs reinforced. Undecided voters who wish to participate would do well to do what I just did: lurk.

CARE2

It goes without saying that Care2 is a very different animal than Facebook. As a community of progressive activists, you would expect their message boards to be quite different from those found on a general use social network site. For the most part, however, the same concerns and content found in the Facebook groups is present in the Care2 forums, albeit in a smaller setting. The people who participate in the Care2 groups are, generally, against Hillary Clinton, for Barack Obama, and ready to do something to help the process along. Thus, the instances of troll abuse are low to nonexistent. If anything, there may be even more outrage present on the Care2 boards than the Facebook one. In one post, the topic starter takes an endorsement of Obama in the direction of a screed against lobbying and special interests. In another, an earnest citizen calls for the campaigns to remove race and gender from their arsenal of potential attack points. On the whole, the Care2 boards seem to be more focused on political discussions, with campaign minutiae taking a back seat to political discussion. That said, the topics discussed do not deviate significantly from those found on the Facebook boards.

However, in spite of their similarities, the Care2 boards do offer several differences from their Facebook counterparts, to both their credit and detriment. For instance, Care2 allows users to embed images within their posts, which allows for interesting visual aids in addition to inspired argument. However, this advantage is nullified by Care2's difficult-to-navigate dating system, which uses the "x days ago/x months ago" display style for archived posts rather than the easier, more explicit dating method found on Facebook.

In the end, the Care2 boards may be more civil than the Facebook ones, but their small size and scope renders them less useful for daily visitors than their Facebook counterparts. Though Care2 wins the battle on many fronts in the worlds of online organizing, the campaign forum fight can be more successfully fought on the larger, more well-organized Facebook boards..

BOOK REVIEW: Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope

To the majority of uninterested Americans, the name Howard Dean probably continues to conjure images of that red-faced night in January when the former Vermont governor’s dreams of victory in the 2004 presidential race evaporated in the wake of one ill-timed scream. However, ignoble ending aside, Howard Dean’s campaign for the presidency in 2004 was the backdrop for numerous lessons about the highs and lows of netroots campaigning. In their book “Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics”, former Dean ringleaders Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter lead a gaggle of their fellow Dean staffers in a semi-narrative, semi-analytical examination of why the Dean campaign mattered both then and now.

If you had to take just one idea away from the Dean experience, it might be the notion that the primary force that drives any authentic political movement is a sense of purposeful action. The authors spend a substantial amount of time reminding the readers that, for all of the “Internet candidate” labels that were bandied about in the press throughout Dean’s campaign, the message only really found footing because it was tied to fundamental citizen involvement. The Dean campaign didn’t simply use the Internet as a cash register or a bulletin board; they identified the desire for community-based action and set about using the tools at their disposal to create such a system in a digital environment.

I was refreshed by the lack of irrational, starry-eyed optimism exhibited by the book’s contributors (not that I was expecting any, really). No one confuses the Internet with a strategy in and of itself; rather, they regard it as a powerful tool that, under the right set of circumstances, can circumvent traditional media roadblocks (name recognition, the “money primaries” of the early fundraising months), establish digital word of mouth buzz, and give voice and purpose to a large community of potential supporters. At every turn, however, the authors stress the importance of the circumstances rather than simply the tools themselves.

If Howard Dean’s message had been different, or come in 2007 instead of 2003, or if the United States hadn’t been gripped in the fog of post-9/11 hysteria that didn’t seem to dissipate until after the 2004 election, the campaign could’ve taken a very different turn in regards to both strategy and respectability. In the end, you get the sense that the relative successes of the Dean campaign were as much a product of the moment in history as it was of the new netroots revolution. Today, many of the Dean campaign’s risky innovations have become required, if overlooked, campaign tools. However, most candidates in the current field continue to exhibit an unhealthy lack of understanding when it comes to Internet campaigns. Ultimately, it seems that the Dean campaign’s legacy will be respected only when these tools receive the same consideration.

Political Video Tuesday: A Beer with Steve

Just thought I'd pass along a great new ad for a great candidate. As Liz from the Progressive Exchange listserv puts it:

[Steve Novick] is a progressive Democrat running for US Senate in Oregon with a very grassroots campaign. This generated 28,000 hits in 24 hours, all from blog posts and people sending it virally. Now it's at the top of YouTube's political page for the day.

I think this is a great model for grassroots campaigns, activists, etc. to get the news out there. Because of this video post and its views, many mainstream media outlets have taken notice and written articles about this. People are buzzing about it around the country. It's amazing how a little Internet coordination in Portland, Oregon can make ripples around the country. Ah...my geekish heart just skipped a beat.

Well said. Also, here's the ad itself:

Social Network Update II - Surveying The Scene

As I mentioned last week, I decided to take my support of Barack Obama online, joining the movements on Facebook and Care2 in hopes of finding out what all the fuss was about. In this, my first update as a user-activist, I thought I might offer some initial impressions on the culture and atmosphere of these two vastly different social networks.

Facebook

For the Facebook portion of my research, I decided to sign up for multiple Obama-related items to see how they did, or didn’t, interact with and influence one another. My list included the groups “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” and “I endorse Barack Obama -- and I'm telling my friends!”, as well as applications like “Obama” (run by the campaign itself) and “Barack Obama Supporters” (built by an independent application developer). I also used Facebook’s relatively new “Fan” system to become a supporter of Barack Obama. After that, I let the lurking begin. Before I start participating in the conversation, I’d like to get a feel for exactly what the culture is like on both sites.

The first thing that you notice when you join Obama's groups and applications on Facebook is the sheer number of members that each one boasts. "One Million Strong" has over 400,000 members alone, while the more activist-oriented "Endorsement" group pulls over 40,000 of their own member. I'm sure these numbers overlap quite a bit, but they're still impressive.

Content-wise, each separate group appears to fulfill a separate function. "One Million Strong" is set up as a link clearinghouse; if you're looking for ways to donate, places to find news, or just a little more info about the candidate himself, this group is only too happy to send you on your merry way. This group also has the most active discussion forums of all the groups; there are currently over 15,000 Obama-related threads.

On the other end of the spectrum, the "Endorsement" group urges informed action instead of simply information by itself. From offering direct links to sponsored fundraising efforts, to providing template for creating your own door hangers and stickers, this group seems to be more grassroots-oriented than its other, bigger counterpart.

In terms of usefulness, the applications are a mixed bag. The "Obama" app is set up as an Obama news aggregator, updating continually with all of the Obama news that's fit to print. The others, however, seem fairly redundant. The "Supporters" group, built using the same template found on many second-rate TV show fan apps, is shoddy and unnecessary, and the Obama fan page rehashes much of the information found on all of the other sites. In the end, I think my focus will probably shift away from these last two pretty quickly, unless I'm given a compelling reason to pay attention.

Care2

It's safe to say that Care2 is an entirely different animal when it comes to social networking. While Facebook's activism and political opportunities are just a small part of the overall Facebook experience, Care2 operates under exactly the opposite ratios. If you're not politically (or rather, progressively) active on Care2, what's the point of joining?

Surprisingly, there are relatively few Obama groups to be found on Care2. When I did my initial search, the first result that came up was a group dedicated to advocating a Kucinich-Obama ticket in 2008. Clearly, this ain't your father's social network.

I finally settled on joining the two biggest Care2 Obama groups. In Obama's Care2 world, big is a relative term. The first, "Barack Obama for America in 2008", covers roughly the same territory as its Facebook counterparts, albeit in a smaller, stripped down setup, and has around 600 members. The other "Barack Obama for President", seems a bit more activist-oriented, and boasts a membership of around 100.

How interesting. On both sites, there are specific groups for information and activism. So far, I haven't seen the two go hand-in-hand. I wonder what that says about these communities?

BOOK REVIEW: The Tipping Point

To master the power of fads, trends, and movements, you simply have to think like a virus. That is, according to Malcolm Gladwell, at least. In his book The Tipping Point, Gladwell seeks to explain exactly what makes some ideas take off and causes others to languish in obscurity. While the book tends to be written with marketing in mind, the implications that it has for the world of online politics are still numerous.

One of Gladwell’s chief observations is that, regardless of the marketing technique or tipping points surrounding a given trend, content is still king, especially in the early going. People might catch on to a clothing trend once the audience of connectors, mavens, and salesmen are on board, but there has to be something that draws in those groups to begin with. Without the initial interest, whether it’s generated by quality or quirk, the idea has no chance of taking off. This is especially important in the political world, where the field of both online and offline messages gets more crowded every day.

Gladwell’s examples run the gamut, from expected (the resurgence of Hush Puppies in the 90s fashion world) to surprising (the sudden decline of New York’s staggering crime rates). However, they each have one thing in common: the all tipped because of subtle nuanced factors far outside most observers’ fields of vision. For Gladwell, the devil is in the details, and having the ability to recognize and monkey with these particulars is generally the difference between a successful campaign and a fair to middling one. For online organizers, this means that things like button placement on a website, or the delivery style of actors in a campaign ad might be all it takes to make or break an otherwise politically sound message. While scary to some, this concept also insures that those who’ve trained themselves to spot such problems are guaranteed a spot in the process.

Speaking as a keen-eyed, would-be political consultant, I find that heartening, at least.

Social Network Update I - Introduction.

As part of my current course in Internet politics, I've been given the task of evaluating the use of social network sites by campaigns through firsthand experience. Over the next few weeks, I plan to track my involvement in a political campaign using social networks as the main means of communication and organization. Below are my choices for social networks.

Facebook

My first love in online social networks, Facebook really has all that people in my age range can ask for in terms of establishing an online presence. Though the addition of innumerable (and often shoddy) user-made applications has cluttered Facebook's once-sleek appearance, this social network still hasn't lost the reputation that it gained in the heady days of .edu-only admission standards.

Care2

I just finished signing up for Care2, and my first impressions are fairly positive. The profile options are comprehensive and accessible at the same time. I particularly enjoyed the "see choices" option for categories like issues and interests. The tag clouds that pop up are solid ways to gauge the popularity of issues on Care2, and also serve to jog the memory when it comes to thinking of personal preferences. I know that I always go blank when presented with so many blank boxes; Care2 presents a nice cure for that particular syndrome.

Since I don't have a very large network of friends who are currently members of Care2, I'll be casting my net wide in terms of the groups I join. For the purpose of this project, however, I will be primarily focusing my efforts on observing the level of activity and discourse surrounding Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. While I am confident that Obama's campaign will continue throughout the spring semester, I will also pay close attention to the Clinton campaign and, in the event of Obama's defeat, will shift my focus accordingly.

Now that introductions are out of the way, all that's left to do is join some groups, make some friends, and get active. Let's see what happens.

And now, this.

The Wizard of Glover Park will return after these messages.