The Bivings Group was recently interviewed by NPR’s All Things Considered for a piece about the online success of Republican/Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul. Micah Sifry from the Personal Democracy Forum was also interviewed.

You can listen to the piece here.

In the interview, Robert Smith asked me if I thought all of the Paul-related activity would have a real impact on the election. Can Paul become the next Howard Dean?

I said no. Paul isn’t going to become a viable candidate and I don’t think the online movement being built around Paul’s candidacy will come close to reaching the scale the Dean movement achieved.

Regardless, I think all the noise being created has had the desired effect. It is exposing more people to Ron Paul, which is all his supporters can really hope for. As I told Robert, one of the reasons Paul supporters are turning to Digg and online polls is that they feel they aren’t getting enough attention from the mainstream media. So the fact that NPR and other media outlets are doing stories on Ron Paul’s online success is the ultimate validation of what they are doing online.

Well I'm here at Pace University in NYC for the Personal Democracy Forum.  Larry Lessig just started things off with an interesting talk on copyright and the presidential campaign.

The gist of his speech: copyright absolutely has its place; that place isn't necessarily online or in the presidential campaigns.

A big part of his speech talked about the presidential debates and how these debates are covered.  Mr. Lessig, like most of us in the blogosphere, believed that the debates should be shared and available to everyone through a variety of mediums.  He made an interesting analogy: airing presidential debates on proprietary networks where the content can't be shared is like locating voting booths in amusement parks like Disney World.  The accessibility of the debates is limited and therefore the value is lessened.  Mr. Lessig recommended that perhaps debates should be aired instead of publicly accessible networks, like PBS so the content can be shared with everyone.

Another point of his speech:  the value of "copying, remixing, and sharing" vs. media concerns about "commerical free riding" and "journalistic integrity".  These concerns are valid, but the benefits from sharing content are overwhelming.  Unfortunately, as Mr. Lessig said, "we can't force 'them' to be free…not in Iraq and certainly not 'here'."

What do you think?  How will the 2008 election be affected by "fair use", the ability to instantly create content, and the preference for sharing and remixing content?  I think these factors will, and to a large degree, already shown their power and impact.  As a result, these will be issues that politicians will be increasingly forced to address and deal with on a daily basis. 

Tom Friedman: "George Bush never could have been elected now if he was at Yale now, with cell phone and digital cameras" cataloging his college years and perhaps, every indiscretion he ever made.

It's going to be an interesting day, folks.

A lot has changed in the newspaper industry since we published our study of newspaper websites last summer.  In order to get a better picture of the changing landscape in the world of online news, we are going to publish a sequel to last year's study.  In our preparation for the research, we're outlining the categories and criteria we want to track.  Here are the categories we analyzed last year:

RSS

• Does the site offer RSS?
• If so, does the feed include ads?
• Does the site offer RSS for different sections?

Most Popular

• Does the site offer alternative content views such as most popular, most read, or most emailed?

Video
Podcasts
Chats
Reporter Blogs

• Does the site have reporter blogs?
• If so, can users comment on these blogs?
• Do reporter blogs have blogrolls?

Comments on articles
Registration
Bookmarking
Message boards/forums

This was a pretty extensive list, and we plan to carry over many of these criteria to this year's study.  Some key changes we are thinking of making are dropping "chats" and "message boards/forms" from the list because we feel that these tools are a bit dated.  In addition, we'll add a category for availability of mobile content and integration user-generated content, such as photos and videos.  I think these are two areas that our study really missed out on last year and adding them will be a big improvement.  Finally, it would be interesting to see how many newspapers are offering social networking features like the Washington Post and USA Today.

What would you like to see our study address?  We'd love to hear your suggestions.  You can either leave them in the comments below or add them to the TBR wiki on the 2007 Newspaper Study Criteria page.  Thanks for your support!

Corporations, media organizations and even political campaigns are launching online communities left and right seeminly. Many of them are doing so without having any real knowledge of what makes a good online community go or how to manage the community if it flourishes.

Matthew Haughey from the massively successful community site Metafilter has a good post up providing some tips. Here are some of his key points with my comments: (more…)

A number of us will be headed up to NYC later today to attend the Personal Democracy Forum conference tomorrow. I will be participating in the conference’s Idea Market, where I will be discussing “Best Practices in Blogger Relations.” We’ll also be co-sponsoring a post-conference happy hour from 8:00-10:00 tomorrow night with the David All Group, Heritage Foundation and Townhall. If you are interested in attending, details are here.

We hope to see everyone in New York.

We just added a new function to our sidebar that lists current employees of The Bivings Group that have contributed entries to the blog. Clicking on the name will take you to a page listing all that author’s posts. Next week we’ll expand this to include some bio and contact info for each person.

Start browsing our archives below:

• Gary Bivings
• Alex Clover
• Bobby Dodd
• Tom Mccormick
• Yukako Nishihara
• Steve Petersen
• Erin Teeling
• Ajit Verghese
• Todd Zeigler

It is mini search engine optimization (SEO) for journalists lesson time!

News outlets want healthy traffic levels on their websites so that they can charge more for advertising.  In fact, The New York Observer's Michael Calderone quotes a former Forbes.com staffer as saying that their former workplace is "a page-view sweatshop " (hat tip: Romenesko).  Forbes isn't the only news outlet concerned about getting more page views.

Last night I met a writer for National Geographic News.  We were chatting about her job and when I mentioned that my company helps news organizations better harness the Internet, she mentioned how it was funny that her editor emphasized that headlines should have important keywords first, which is not how traditional journalists are taught to write headlines. This headline writing technique is aimed at attracting more visitors from search engines to the site by ranking higher for keywords web surfers use. (more…)

Prince William: Facebook Fugitive

Prince William starts a Facebook profile.  Hilarity ensues.

Grupthink

Sort of a Digg for multiple choice questions.  Sample: What is the best open source project?

Truemors

Guy Kawasaki’s new rumor reporting site launches.  Apparently the whole thing was built using Wordpress.  I don’t think this is going anywhere judging from current content, but cool that it is all Wordpress.

Outsourcing Journalism? 

Local U.S. beat being covered by journalists in India? 

Which Candidates Are Holding Conference Calls with Bloggers?

A look at the Presidential candidates blog outreach efforts.

The Matt Drudge primary

Apparently, Drudge is fed some of those scoops by folks with agendas.  Who knew?

I’ve always been an admirer of the concept and execution of the social news site Newsvine. I wrote about it glowingly when it first came out. Conceptually it always seemed like a good compromise between the chaos of sites like Digg and the top down nature of traditional newspaper websites.

With their redesign, they’ve pushed things in a pretty dramatic new direction. Essentially, the site is now a cross between the old Newsvine and an Ajax startup page like Netvibes. The site is beautiful and works wonderfully from a technical perspective.

But despite my admiration for Newsvine, you vote with your feet. And I’ve never really spent much time on the site because I’ve never found the content that compelling. I think there are a couple of reasons why: (more…)

Late last week the Washington Post launched a light social networking component called My Post. The feature allows users to create a profile that will be linked to whenever a user comments on a Post article. The profile includes personal information about the user and aggregators all of a user’s comments. The feature also includes the ability send private messages to other users, make other users your “friend” and to recommend the posts of other users.

A screenshot of a profile is below and you can view a profile page here. Note that this feature is powered by Pluck’s Sitelife software, the same package used to power the social features on USAToday.com (although the Post version has less features).

Via Cyberjournalist. 

I’ve been telling anyone that would listen that someone should comb through the FEC reports and figure out how much Presidential campaigns paid their web vendors during the first quarter. I did this because I wanted to know and was too lazy to do it myself.

Shira Toeplitz from Hotline dove in and wrote the story. She did an awesome job.

While interesting, as a campaign web vendor myself I find the data difficult to interpret because it is hard to know what the fees are really for. Here are some things to consider (FEC experts please correct mistakes): (more…)

Isn't it annoying when a "digger" on digg digs a web page and uses a horrible headline?  Well, I've found out how you can counter that by submitting the same URL with a small hack to get the same page on the site with a better headline.  I did this while trying to chime in on the digg fray around Republican 2008 US Presidential hopeful Ron Paul.

As Todd has chronicled, many diggers vehemently support Ron Paul on the site.  (more…)

Everyone knows about author bloggers like Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin. But outside of the Technorati Top 100, there are a lot of authors that have used blogs to create fantastic communities of users. Here are my five favorite, slightly lower profile author blogs:

(5) Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point and Blink, started his blog in March 2006. Most of his posts expand on his New Yorker articles or comment on interesting stories he comes across. He has a very engaged community that posts hundreds of comments to every entry. He’d be hire if he posted consistently (nothing new since January).

• Sample Post: Defining a Racist

(4) Tim Ferriss

Ferriss is the author of the book the Four Hour Workweek and just started his blog a month or so ago. His writings, which focus on how to streamline your life and increase your own efficiency, have really struck a chord with folks. The blog has been really entertaining so far although it is possible that Ferriss is a bit of a one trick pony. Plus he doesn’t work much so we’ll see if he sticks with it after the promotional aspect wears off.

• Sample Post: How to Check E-mail Twice a Day… or Once Every 10 Days

(3) Scott Adams

Dilbert author Scott Adams writes daily posts about whatever is on his mind to his surprisingly fantastic blog. I’m a much bigger fan of the blog than I am of the Dilbert cartoon. Adams just has an interesting take on life that really comes across in his blogging.

• Sample Post: What’s Your Permanent Age?

(2) Freakonomics

I’m a big fan of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s book Freakonomics. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a year ago that not only were they blogging, but were doing so quite well on a daily basis. On their blog, they provide theirs takes on whatever topic strikes their fancy.

• Sample Post: Poker: Skill vs. Chance

(1) Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a bit of a jack of all trades - he has written books, comics and films, among other things. He is also one of the first author bloggers, having started blogging in February 2001 in an effort to promote his book, American Gods. These days Gaiman blogs about his work, his life and spends a great deal of time answering reader mail through the site’s Ask Neil feature. Gaiman was born for the blog format.

• Sample Post: Tabs, writing and why writers should not carry portfolios

This post is part of ProBlogger’s most recent group writing project, with the theme of “top five”. Be sure to check out other entries!

Wading through the commercials, the web sites, the speeches and the (gulp) Town Hall Meetings, you come across the same tried and (somehow) true visual buffoonery with almost all of today’s candidates. Below are 5 examples of why I drink:

1) The Sleeve-Roll John Edwards perfected it with his classic faux denim shirt roll, but it’s been the embarrassing metaphor of the hard-workin’ servant of the people for years. Howard Dean rolled them so hard he still has marks. Can I get a beer over here?
2) The Littlest Thumb Bill Clinton started this weird little gesture and after 8 years of watching him do it, most politicians have gotten it down perfectly. I still don’t know what it’s a metaphor for, but it’s creepy and I wish they’d just stop. Coupla shots here, please? Hello?
3) The Lip Bite Again, it’s Bill Clinton trademark, but I’ve seen Edwards borrow it when he needed to look instantly sincere. Kucinich did it once, but bit down too hard and it bled. Hillary won’t do it, and don’t ask her to. Another round here? Yeah, it’s just me, why?
4) Man of the people attire Joe Lieberman in a leather jacket. Remember that one? Can I get a case of Schlitz to go?
5) I’m a human, like you! Look at me! When Hillary pretends to be a homemaker and bake something, when John Kerry awkwardly walks out of the brush with a shotgun wearing camo, when George Bush senior visits a Safeway and pretends to buy some batteries or something…These are the actions of a desperate politician on the ropes, and they are tough to endure with a straight face. Hey one of you kids give me a lift?

Got one that makes you squirmy? Send it.

This post is part of ProBlogger’s most recent group writing project, with the theme of "top five". Be sure to check out other entries!

This is getting kind of weird.

Yesterday, I took a look at Ron Paul supporters on Digg and today I bump into Ron Paul buzz wherever I go. Here is the latest:

(1) Ron Paul is the number one search on Technorati today, beating out Paris Hilton, Sarkozy, MySpace and YouTube. Our own traffic stats bear this out. We had 100+ people visit our site yesterday based on a “Ron Paul” search on Technorati. It is very unusual for Technorati to send us that much traffic on a single search term. (Via Ron Paul Quest)

(2) According to the notoriously unreliable Alexa, traffic to Paul’s site has boomed the last few days (credit Alex Hammer). Check out this chart showing Paul traffic trends versus those of other Republican nominees.

Wild and crazy stuff.