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YouTube and Politics: The Game Has Changed

It has indead.

From Phil, AKA ParkRidge47:

This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.

In case you haven’t followed the story, here is part of it.

The video was posted on YouTube on March 5th under the usernameParkRidge47 (Hillary Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1947)

In an email to techpresident.com, ParkRidge47 explained his reason for making the video:

Hugh Hewitt asks a good (political) question:

What would the MSM be saying if the ad had come out of a shop working for one of the GOP’s big three?

Ok, for those non-political readers, I’m a conservative, so I do feel like the media has a bias. he’s got a point–the media would be all over this.

Conservative Tech Consultant, David All, was going in the right direction with his post.

We’re clearly not dealing with an amateur. This is very much aprofessional – likely someone who I would consider my counterpart onthe Left – and they have a budget behind them.

Based on the evidence above, I’m convinced that anonymous user, ParkRidge47, is a skilled liberal operative.

His reaction to the outing and Phil’s firing from Blue State Digital:

Typical over-reaction from Blue State Digital. “Let’s fire the most effective person on our team.” Back to being normal.

Its a new world out there, and this is how it’s looking like from the trenches inside the beltway. I know most of you readers from outside the beltway could probably care less.

But, if you are a business professional, you should read this and ask yourself “what lessons can I glean from this.” Do you know what your employees are doing? What if one made a YouTube video of your company? You need to be asking yourself some tough questions, and waking up to the reality of a new level of transparency and accountability thanks to citizen journalism, and websites like YouTube.

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Talking Politics and American Idol on NPR

I had the opportunity to talk politics on “Rough Cuts” with Michelle Martin.

Political Blogosphere — Bloggers Kim Pearson and Josue Sierra discuss this week’s news: Bush’s visit to Latin America, the recent controversial firing of U.S. Attorneys and the biggest election of all right now… American Idol.

Check it out and listen to the RealMedia stream (Click on the link that says “Political Blogosphere” under Listen to Today’s Segments). You can leave your comments below, or on NPR’s website here.

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Google, Fairness, Bias: Talking to Eliot Schrage

Update: David All has posted some thoughts on the conversation with Schrage.

Google’s top executives are known to contribute heavily to Democratic pols. And the allegations raised by prominent bloggers in the conservative ’sphere like Michelle Malkin and others brings to light the notion that at some time, some video might be removed, or perhaps, will never be featured.

As I said earlier, I like YouTube’s new editor, Steve Grove. He seems honest and objective and I trust him to give all content a fair shake. But, I’m just one conservative. And this is a very big sphere.

So how can Google + YouTube take steps now to avoid an editorial controversy in the immediate near future?

Read David’s full post – its quite substantial and has some key ideas and warnings that would apply to anyone involved in corporate communications or campaign management.

****

After the keynote (at Politics Online 2007), I had the chance to tape a conversation between David All (David All Group) and Eliot Schrage (VP at Google) on fairness and bias and what is Google doing to preserve objectivity. The noise is high, so you are going to have to do a bit of lip-reading, but notice his look when he sees me taping…listen in.

Precious…

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Live from Politics Online 2007 Conference

9:41 AM: I’m in DC sitting at the first morning plenary. Its starting a bit late–it seems there has been some sort of accident on the Red Line here in DC, so people are running a bit behind schedule. (http://polc.ipdi.org/)

The topic this morning is “On-Demand Politics: Lessons from the Business Web.” I’m going to live blog this session a bit, and share notes and tid-bits as I heard them Check back all day.

9:43 - The moderator, Andrew M Baron (Creator & Producer, Rocketboom) is being presented by the President of Politics Online.

Panelists include:
- Daniel Burton, Senior VP of Global Public Policy at Salesforce.com
- Laura Quinn – Chief Executive Officer, Catalist
- Keith Tomatore, VP of Sales Development and Operations & Manager of Newsweek and Budget Travel, Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive
- Jim Yu, VP of Relationship Management, United Way of America.

9:55 – each panelist is introducing themselves, and talking a bit about what they do. I was just commenting to my co-worker that Baron is REALLY bad at public speaking. You would think these guys could afford a public speaking coach.

10:15 - Some interesting things on the presentations. Burton talked about how the internet has been a catalyst for the evolution of software. His pitch is basically you should be using a Application Service Provider. The idea is that by using a web-based software like Salesforce.com, you don’t have to worry about upgrades, legacy software, and IT costs. He made some good points, but our company has found that Salesforce.com was not the best solution for online advertising revenue model. They don’t integrate with our ad systems, among other things.

10:20 – Jim Yun talked about the evolution of United Way. They are focusing more now on community impact, and going away from the fund-raising business model. It looks like they are providing some key technology infrastructure support to their local chapters. I’m not sure if he said whether their services are available to outside non-profits.

10:37 - Laura Quinn is talking about data sharing. I can’t find her company address, and I don’t see it on the printed material. Not a very “online” thing to do.

Side note: A special shout out to a faithful reader, Judith Martinez in Miami FL.

I think the session is about done. I had to step out to grab my boss, who is speaking on the next plenary, so I missed the discussion. I’ll have some pictures up in a couple minutes…

They are wrapping up with some QA. The questions can be very revealing about the challenges of doing business online. Many of the individuals here are experts in politics, but don’t really fully understand the potential of what’s out there (as far as tools).

Here is me blogging away…can you tell the presentation and exchange is not capturing my attention?

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Politics Online Conference 2007

I’ll be attending this year’s Politics Online Conference in Washington DC. They have brought together a great list of speakers, and looking over the agenda, I see a lot of sessions that are going to be quite interesting. I’m looking forward to it.

If any readers of my humble blog happen to be there, drop me an email. I would be glad to meet up. I’m certainly looking forward to the networking.

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Spanish Media and the FCC

Interesting blog post over at the Washington Post’s Post I.T. blog. “El Piolin” comes to mind…he makes Stern sound like Mother Teresa!

Spanish-language broadcasters (Univision, NBC Universal’s Telemundo, Azteca)have gone largely unpoliced by the FCC. This could be the start of acrackdown, not only on programming requirements but also on indecency.The FCC has issued a couple of fines to Spanish-speaking radio stationsfor indecency, but it’s rare. I have read the (translated) material,and it’s as raunchy, if not more, than anything Howard Stern has been fined for.

Why has such a media giant flown largely under the radar? Sometheories: Not enough people at the FCC speak Spanish. TheSpanish-language audience is well-served by consolidation and does notmind. The audience is not offended by the potentially indecentmaterial. The audience does not know how to file a complaint at theFCC.

In any industry, being bilingual is now an asset. It could save you a lot of headaches. As to why the FCC has allowed Spanish media to go un-checked is beyond me. i’m not one to encourage government regulation, but I have seen what Spanish media gets away with. It is certainly not “chidren’s” material. I wrote a research paper on this subject during my undergrad years. I found clear examples of Spanish “telenovelas” that targeted children, and that included mature and sexual content.

I do hope the FCC will put a stop to that, and start keeping a better eye on Spanish language media–for the public’s sake.



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CPAC 2007 TODAY in DC!

I’ll be managing Internet Row, and usually be somewhere around the Townhall.com booth, at the end of the second or third row. If you are there, come on by and say hello.

I’ll try to post up some pictures or video later today as well.

This is the line up for this year’s guest speakers:

Vice President Dick Cheney – Sean Hannity – Senator Mitch McConnell – Ann Coulter – Michelle Malkin – David Horowitz – Congressman Mike Pence – Newt Gingrich – Phyllis Schlafly – Wayne LaPierre – and many more!



CPAC will feature book signings by the nation’s leading conservative authors, live broadcasts of national and local radio talk shows, hands-on training sessions from grassroots activism to media strategy, internet row and a bloggers’ corner, and much, much more!

Our own Kevin McCullough will be doing a book signing sometime on Saturday, if thats of interest to you.

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John Edwards on 24 Social Networking Sites!!

Yikes. That is a lot. It’s yet to be seen how effective that sort of effort will have. Check out the list.

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Facebook and Younger Audiences

This is how you connect and get your message out to college students.

There are more than 500 Obama groups on Facebook. One of the first,”Students for Barack Obama,” was created on July 7 by Meredith Segal, ajunior at Bowdoin College who first heard of Obama when he gave thekeynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Insteadof starting “a petition or something” to encourage the freshman senatorto run for president, she turned to her Facebook page, created a groupand invited people (first her friends, later strangers) to join.

Now it’s a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members andchapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots studentmovement — there’s a director of field operations, an Internetdirector, a finance director and a blog team director — in thepresidential campaign so far. “Young people are on the Web,” saidSegal, 21. “That’s how we’re organizing.”

The key thing you have to remember is that a college student is only a student for anywhere from four years, to eght. Tomorrow’s customers (voter, supporter, etc.) are in Facebook. How are you connecting with them in their environment?

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Online Video: “Experience” is key here

This is the power of video over the web. It gives you the ability to reach directly to your audience, leverage the power of viral marketing, and define how you or your business is perceived.

“Experience” is key here, because you won’t get an understanding of
his appeal from the print journalism caricature of telegenic (but
Mormon) family values conservative (but Mormon) elected in liberal
Massachusetts (in spite of being Mormon).

No one else in either party’s field of presidential wannabes comes
close to Romney’s communication skill and executive presence. He makes
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., look like just another charming candidate
for high school class president.





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