Mobilizing Youth

Video Ads Aplenty

The web is becoming Blade Runner with video ads popping up left and right. Some interesting happenings:

Google to run tests of streaming Adsense video. http://www.adotas.com/2007/05/oh-google-is-there-anything-you-cant-do/

Rovion: makes bluescreened walk on ad salespeople - people who walk on your screen and start talking. I just had two windows open at the same time and it felt like a scene out of a sci fi - voices coming at me like a walk through downtown tokyo  - soon they will know my name and ask me questions.

http://www.rovion.com/

Google Universal Search

Google moves to provide more rounded search results. Daylife.com has been doing this kind of more contextualized search results for a bit - looks like Google steals their fire. The basic idea is to present results from various media related to your search term. For example, a search for "Iran Nuclear" will bring up video, podcasts, news stories, local related news, maps, blogs, finance, books, etc. It's like a personalized home page for any topic. This type of searching is called "verical search"

What are the implications for politics? I think that various forms of non-text media will gain increasing relevancy. Whereas currently, a searcher needs to specifically search out video/audio, it will now come by default - which means that gaining a knowledge and expert usage of these other web media forms will become de-rigeur. Video embarassments such as the "macacca" indicent will spread even more quickly. Video producers adept at creating relevant tags and content will gain increased traffic. YouTube will grow even faster.

Article reviewing Google Universal and the concept of verical search: http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php

Statistics on social networking sites

Article reviews stats on social networking sites. Here's a summary of marketshare:

Market Share of US Internet Visits to Top 20 Social Networking Sites April 2007
Rank	Name	Domain	Market Share
1	MySpace	www.myspace.com	79.70%
2	Facebook	www.facebook.com	11.47%
3	Bebo	www.bebo.com	1.28%
4	Imeem	www.imeem.com	1.03%
5	BlackPlanet.com	www.blackplanet.com	0.87%
6	Tagged	www.tagged.com	0.84%
7	Yahoo! 360	360.yahoo.com	0.71%
8	Xanga	www.xanga.com	0.69%
9	hi5	www.hi5.com	0.58%
10	Gaiaonline.com	www.gaiaonline.com	0.58%

from: http://www.adotas.com/2007/05/myspace-still-prom-king/

YouTube / MySpace to host Presidential Events

Yep, it's the YouTube/Myspace election. Myspace is holding presidential town halls:

"The ongoing collision of technology and politics opened another chapter today with this morning's announcement by MySpace.com that it will be hosting a presidential "Town Hall" series on college campuses this fall featuring nearly all of the major presidential candidates. ..“This won’t be the stale debate format with one moderator getting canned answers to the same old questions,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, in a press release. “Our users will have the chance to get direct answers to the questions they want to ask – unfiltered.” Tom Anderson, president of MySpace (which is not the same thing as President of the United States), added, "MySpace is remaking the mold for political interaction online."

Wow, big talk. Will love to see it happen. Unfiltered - in today's politics? Micah from tech president has a *great* idea to enable viewers to comment on quality of responses. Have you ever seen a politician answer a completely different question than the one asked and feel duped? How great would it be to have audience reaction and a moderator who says "you didn't answer the question."

http://www.techpresident.com/node/323

YouTube to cohost Democratic presidential debate with CNN:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5915913?source=rss&nclick_check=1

TV gasps some final last breaths...

City Government Uses Web to Connect with Locals

I just got a robo-call from Gavin Newsom telling me about the new actlocallysf.org web site where "you can communicte with your local government." It's about time that local govt. used the best method available to get and stay in touch with its constituency. Of course, if the mayor's team doesn't read the polls and citizen-submitted "smart solutions" -then it's just a fancy blog and marketing ploy.

http://www.actlocallysf.org/

The robocall and web effort are great. Now I'd love to know if it's making a difference - what results have been acheived as a result of citizen contribution. I for one, can tell you that my recent effort at local action (requesting a stop sign at a very dangerous intersection near my house) has ended in failure. The "traffic calming department" did, however, give me a call to let me know that putting up a stop sign would result in 100 different agencies getting pissed off and 1000 resulting problems with the calming plan. Poor results, but good communication for a city government.

16:9 Dimensions on Hillary's video

I was just watching this video of Bill touting Hillary (http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/wjc/?sc=1182) thinking how cinematic the music sounded - as if Bill was somehow invoking Rob Roy on a historic and heroic battleground when I noticed that the aspect ratio was 16:9 - the same dimensions used on film - or so called "letterbox" format.
What are they getting at? I don't exactly understand this decision. It makes Hillary seem even more distant than ever. Is she playing the role of presidential candidate? While Obama is cavorting with the people- reaching his long arms of dozens of them at a time - swimming in a sea of supporters, Hillary ensconces in the language of artifice. What's the rub? I must be missing it. 

Tony Blair on YouTube

This is great. http://youtube.com/watch?v=P6Cu9187tCY

Tony Blair congratulates Sarkozy in French via YouTube. The era of YouTube politics is coming even faster than expected.

Yoga Goes Mobile

WSJ yesterday reports that a company called Sonopia has partnered with Verizon and Vodaphone to enable groups to set up their own mobile phone company – to sell custom handsets with built in connectivity to the target audience (via text messages) and ability to push content to the handset deck.

This kind of access is the stuff of dreams for mobile content providers. We made a go of it in the early 2000s and were stymied by the wireless operators. Every content provider in the world wants to get “on the deck” and the carriers are overwhelmed with requests.

Sonopia seems to have found a neat way around the problem by bringing the content provider in as a sales rep. So the content provider sells the device and service to their affinity group, takes a very small part of the cut, but most importantly, gains access to the mobile phone’s content delivery systems.

The article mentions a handful of organizations who have signed up: World Wildlife Fund, Long Island Ducks, Film Geeks Wireless, Yoga Revolution. They will deliver news alerts, text messages, and WWF promises to have a button that patches you directly through to your congresspeople/senators.

Working Assets has been doing this kind of targeted selling for years as a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) – selling to progressives interested in changing the world – donating a portion of the profits to causes. And even with a lot more control over the handset and deck, they still have a difficult time acquiring new customers. I can’t imagine that these affinity groups will find much success. Even ESPN failed in this game. It’s just too difficult to convince a customer to change their phone plan when the benefits aren't incredibly compelling. And sorry, but I don't think a daily inspirational text message is going to cut it.

There’s a hilarious quote from the Yoga guy in the article “I felt there was a need to tap into the huge yoga market. It has huge potential.” Huge to the second aside, this product is going to be a tough sell.

Date:May 7, 2007

Where: WSJ B6. Page 1 “Now Everybody Can Be a Cellphone Company”

MySpace beats TV

Fred Stutzman smartly reviews a survey from MySpace that, not surprisingly, shows that young people prefer social networking to pretty much any other form of media. It shows that MySpace time and Videogames time are inversely related - but that MySpace and mobile phoning are positively related. Stutzman points out that this survey may indicate simply that people prefer being with people - and would choose it over a solitary activity. But as a comment on FS's blog points out, video games are rarely solitary these days...

One interesting tidbit: % of young people who prefer to listen to radio in their free time is negligible.

Post is here: http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/04/myspace-report-never-ending-friending.html

MySpace report is here: http://files.hemlock.com/ygf/lweis/40161_NEF.pdf

Obama's MySpace Bruhaha

In case you missed it, a big bruhaha is going down about a fan-run Obama MySpace page. The short of it is that Joe Anthony, an Obama supporter has built a large and successful MySpace page over the course of the past 2 years (~160K friends). Obama worked with Joe for a while, making his page their official MySpace presence and then he requested some money to pay for his time (~40K). Obama considered it, but turned him down and started their own page.

Out of this experience there has been a LOT of blogging going on. Obama, at this point, has even personally called Joe to talk it over. The drama aside, this debacle illustrates some fascinating questions and campaign strategy issues such as:

* what is the value of a MySpace page and a MySpace friend. Estimates range from $0.50 to $4. Arguements for the higher end are that these are pre-qualified people with a high likelihood of being responsive. Low end are that there is no proven fundraising track record. Discussions about evaluation are here: http://www.techpresident.com/node/307

* should a campaign control 3rd party supporters or let them do their own thing (for in the end, it was lack of control over Joe that bothered Obama). Very well written piece on this issue by Zephyr Teachout is here:   http://www.techpresident.com/node/306

In my opinion, there's no question that loose and benevolent guidence is preferable to a strong hand. For one, there's just no way a campaign will have time to offer a reasonable strong hand. For two, supporters are smart, willing, and vital. To cut them down is to cut the campaign down. As Zephry mentions, as long as the press is clear that the 3rd party is 3rd party run, it's a net gain for the campaign...by a long shot.

* big question now is - can Obama win back MySpace - or has he lost it? How long is the collective MySpace memory? Is there really a community there that is capable of a collective memory? There are a lot of MySpacer's taking Joe Anthony's side - it certainly makes Obama look bad. I think there's enough time to work it through - but time will tell.

Summary of the shootout is here: http://www.techpresident.com/node/305

Response by Joe Rospars at Obama is here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvSl#extended 

Joe Anthony's mySpace page is here: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=260260883&MyToken=e1caa48f-9d36-4dad-aaba-d85c2c8c7537