October 31, 2008
The 21st Century Election
Barack Obama bypassed Hillary Clinton’s well-run ‘old style’ campaigns, proving that a new era of Internet campaigning is on the horizon.
Launched in February 2007, Obama’s technological infrastructure has achieved the Holy Grail of online activism, realizing that online efforts were creating offline movement.
Obama’s social networking site, myBarackObama.com, has created a community of volunteers who provided invaluable feedback. Not to mention the fundraising ability of the Internet and its role in Obama’s campaign: Obama’s 3.1 million donors who have contributed an average of less than $200 dollars to propel Obama into a record-breaking total of $600 million dollars in overall contribution in 2008. The most recent online fundraising record hit $1.5 million in September of donations averaging $86 dollars.
Door-to-door canvassing and information processing are elements that have made Obama’s online grassroots movement one to study. The Obama campaign has given their volunteers online tools to phone-bank and canvass more efficiently such as access to online databases. In the past, campaigns kept lists under lock and key, but the available online resources allow volunteers quick and easy access to call lists.
As Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and Obama’s online organizer, (he left the company last year to work join Obama’s campaign) said, “We’ve really poured a lot of energy and thought into making this focused on real-world organizing activity.”
Obama Mobile, another way Obama's campaign has pioneered the movement of political campaigns into 21st century technology uses the cell phone numbers it has collected through promo's like the VP text announcement sweepstakes and the Obama iphone application to collect cell phone numbers to reach Obama supporters.
Whether you read the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report, the resounding opinion is that Barack Obama has utilized the Internet and technology such as social networking, online fundraising, information processing and mobile technology to empower grass-roots activism more effectively than John McCain in his run for the White House. Will Obama’s online grass-roots path lead to the White House? We will have to wait and see.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 28, 2008
Mobile Technology Lead U.S. Into Election Day
From Tweeting voting conditions to receiving text messages reminding you to get out of bed to vote, mobile technology looks like it will be playing a crucial role on election day.
Text messages have already proven their worth this election cycle, after a study found that sending ‘get out to vote’ text message reminders" to young voters on Super Tuesday brought an increased turnout in the targeted segment by 4.6 percentage points.
Text messages bring cheap, fast, viral and most importantly, personal messages to supporters. Unlike robocalls, which McCain has been using, the text messages that supporters willingly sign up for are helpful reminders that can be resent to contacts. McCain, whose campaign has struggled to keep up with the tech-savvy Obama campaign, has been using robo-calls to spread messages to supporters.
Obama Mobile, another way Obama's campaign has pioneered the movement of political campaigns into 21st century technology, uses the cell phone numbers it has collected through promo's like the VP text announcement sweepstake to collect cell phone numbers and send out reminders to Obama supporters. Text messages from Barack can easily be forwarded on to entire address books of contacts.
Tracking and reporting voting conditions has never been easier with the hashtag #votereport at Twitter.com, a text messaging social network. techPresident's Twitter Vote Report Project takes text messages one step further, allowing voters to post reports on voting conditions, such as, "long line, zip code 21012, wait time 120 minutes." It should be interesting to look back on the Tweets from voters as a means of improving the US voting system and making Election Day 2008 a turning point in our quest for 21st century politics.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 23, 2008
Online Donations Flood Into Minn. 6th Congressional District
The impact of online fundraising has hit Minnesota Republican incumbent Michele Bachmann, whose charges of anti-Americanism against Barack Obama and liberal members of Congress has helped her opposition to raise $1 million dollars online within four days.
18,000 donors from across the country contributing on average $40 dollars may change the outcome of this election.
The ‘Far lefts’ have generously donated online to Democratic opposition Elwyn Tinklenberg after Bachmann went on ‘Hardball’ with Chris Matthews and was coerced into admitting she felt a link between Obama and Anti-Americanism. Since the Bachmann made the Anti-American comments in a seven-minute appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Friday, Tinklenberg has money pouring into his website.
By and far the largest impact the Internet has had on the 2008 election is the ability to fundraise, with liberals being the most aggressive in their online donations. Now, the Internet as a fundraising tool has trickled down to local campaigns, recently benefiting one Minnesota Democratic candidate in particular.
The Washington Post reports: “The backlash from Bachmann's remarks gave Tinklenberg enough donations to quadruple his television advertising, prompted the nonpartisan Cook Political Report to flip its take on the race from "likely Republican" to "tossup" and inspired a Republican who lost to Bachmann in the party's primary to launch a write-in campaign.”
Adding insult to injury, the National Republican Congressional Committee has cancelled $50,000 dollars worth of TV advertising for Bachmann and has decided to completely pull funding from the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race.
Rep. Michele Bachmann said in a press conference Tuesday, "I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism. I didn't say that Barack Obama was anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American."
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
Obama's Online Small-Donor Base Brings In $150 Million In September
Small donations of $5, $10 and $25 dollars over the Internet brought Obama's campaign $150 million dollars in September, proving he made a wise decision to forgo public financing in exchange for the unyielding power of the Internet to fund-raise.
Obama is the first presidential candidate to opt-out of the public financing system since its establishment in 1976. Around the world, politicians have taken not of Obama's online success, embracing the Internet like never before.
Obama heads the far-most tech-savvy campaign in American history and may be paving the path towards an online political landscape. This will be the largest campaign whose fate is determined by the Net, an election that will be won or lost online.
ePolitics' Colin Delaney has a great story on the small online donor
Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, reported in a video sent out to supporters that the campaign has added 632,000 new donors in September for a total 3.1 million donors. The average donation was $86 dollars.
Here is the video:
Posted by Buzz Webster at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 15, 2008
Obama Goes After Gamers, Campaigns on xbox 360
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Obama campaign team has taken on in-game advertising, carefully placing billboard advertisements inside prominent xbox 360 games, making him the first political candidate to ever buy ad space within a video game.
The idea of temporary advertisements embedded in video games was created 18 months ago, so the Obama campaign is entering this market with a first mover's advantage. Obama is using prominent online video games to reach a demographic that is known to infrequently vote: young males, ages 18-32.
Depending on the size of your state, the Obama ads may be displayed for a month, typical for gamers in smaller states, and less frequently for gamers in larger states.
Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, was quoted saying, “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates.”
Obama ads placed in video games
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 10, 2008
Barack the Vote on Facebook
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Democracy for America launched a Get Out The Vote campaign using Facebook. The GOTV is asking supporters to utilize their social networking tools to get Facebook friends to the polls by Election Day with the goal of 3 million votes for Obama in 30 days.
DFA’s site goes on to say that, “This first of its kind viral voting campaign uses innovative tactics and technology including text messaging, emails, celebrity communications, and Facebook - America's most popular social networking website.”
All it takes to reach three million is for each individual to commit to getting three friends to vote for Obama.
If you’re getting high school flashbacks, its because this campaign is banking on online peer pressure, stating “We all know peer pressure works. When you ask someone you know to commit to do something for you, they won't want to let you down.”
There’s even a secret weapon: “This campaign is viral! As friends pledge to vote, our campaign will motivate them to drive 3 of their friends, co-workers, family and others to pledge to vote... who in turn will drive 3 of their friends... and so on.”
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 08, 2008
Second Presidential Debate...Nothing Much to Blog About.
In the middle of the second presidential debate last night, Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama, shot off a one-liner email that simply stated, “Did John McCain just refer to Obama as ‘that one’”? Instantaneous mockery via the internet was well on its way…
Considering that McCain’s inarticulate description of his presidential opponent as “that one” was the most interesting point in the 90 minute debate last night, it is no surprise that Obama’s camp emailed it around and that a new website, www.thatone08.com, has popped up.
Much anticipation had built up surrounding the first ‘town-hall-style’ debate and the ability to post online questions at the MySpace’s MyDebate.org grew an enthusiastic online following. Unfortunately, the pointlessly enacted rules regarding follow-up questions kept the debate stale, uninteresting and confined to the same robotic responses we’ve heard for the past few months.
Although the yearning for interaction in the debates was proven by the tens of thousands of questions posted online, the host, NBC’s Tom Brokaw, only read four internet questions.
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) had hopes of using the internet to “fully develop the potential of debates” but the CPD’s promise of open and interactive presidential debates seems to have fallen short. Jose Antonio Vargas at the Washington Post asks the important question, “Was the town hall format as inclusive as it could have been?”
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
