The Obama Team Takes to Twitter

So how important is the debt ceiling crisis?  So important it has gotten the Obama team to actually use Twitter.  I’m only sort of kidding. 

It is understood that the 2008 Obama campaign was the most successful digital campaign ever.   Given how well run it was, it always seemed strange to me that they never really did much on Twitter.  They built a massive following to be sure (over 9 million followers at last count), but the updates have typically been fluffy.  Lots of stuff about President Obama’s travel schedule, what he was eating and the game he was watching at a given moment. 

The last few months things seem to have changed, at least to me.  Team Obama has started playing offense on Twitter.  President Obama did a Twitter-centric town hall back in early July.  The Office of the Vice President joined Twitter.  And most importantly, Team Obama has started using the account to promote his agenda, aggressively.  As you’ll see below, throughout the day today  President Obama has been using Twitter to mobilize followers to pressure specific legislators in key states in support ofa  debt ceiling compromise.  Below is a sample. 

Will it help?  Who knows.  But I think the aggressiveness being shown is a clear sign of how important the debt ceiling negotiation is to President Obama (and the country).  They are attempting to mobilize support using any means necessary. 

Update: Mashable has an article with more details about this.  The Obama campaign ended up sending more than 100 tweets targeting Republicans in all 50 states.  According to Mashable they lost 14,000 followers in the process.  I think it would have been more effective if they had been a bit more targeted.  Sending that many tweets in that short of a timeframe is annoying to followers and comes off as a tad desperate.

Slurp140 Tracking #AskObama Twitter @TownHall

If your interested in seeing a live, completely unfiltered view of all the tweets related to Wednesday’s 2:00 pm EST Twitter TownHall hosted by our friend @Jack Dorsey at the White House we humbly present Slurp140. http://www.slurp140.com/askobama/ 

In addition to following all mentions of #askobama and @townhall, we will be updating the complete archive of all Tweets captured that you see bellow. Following the event, we will turn to the excellent Excel add-on archiveNodeEX to do some further analysis of the data. For more info about the event see Twitter’s blog post.

Updated: AS of 3:12 PM EST we clocked over 153,136 tweets from 59,000+ users!

Download the file here!

Is Cyber Squatting Bad for Politics? ICANN Help!

Earlier this week the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or (ICANN) made a significant announcement that starting in January 2012 they will begin accepting applications for new “generic top-level domains.”  As David Sarno wrote in the LA Times  “ICANN approves open Web domain name rules: .anything is possible" 

“The body that controls the way Internet domain names work, known as ICANN, has voted to open up the naming system so that any established organization with enough cash can apply to create its own version of .com, .org or .gov.

In the for-profit world, that means that instead of going to coke.com or nike.com, you might be able to go to drink.coke or justdoit.nike.  Nonprofit groups could reserve the .school domain…  Cities could consolidate their online presence at .nyc or .losangeles.  And interest groups could stake out their own corner of the Web by offering every auto junkie a .car domain name, every law firm a .law address…”

As Sarno alludes to, beyond having $185,000 to pay for the new domain, organization must also pass a background screening that checks for “general business diligence and criminal history; and history of cyber squatting behavior.”

So where does politics fit into the picture?

As you might have heard, former Ambassador / Utah Governor Jon Huntsman announced he is running for president. While the official campaign site does come up in the first page of a Google search, if you were to type in jonhuntsman.com you would instead be taken to what is clearly a parody site that someone connected to his former boss (President Obama) put up.

While partisans on both sides have increasingly become fond of these types of shenanigans (TimKaine.com redirects the contact page of the Communist Party) for political parties registered with the Federal Elections Committee or by individual states, ICANN should wave their anti-cyber squatting requirement and give political parties their own .top level domain (for instance .gop or .dems) as a place for candidates to host their campaign websites. While very few if any real voters are probably ever fooled by parody sites, having a standard gTLD for candidates would be especially helpful at the local and state level where resources are scarce.

techPresident has more on another one of this year’s more comprehensive  parody sites targeting former congressional candidate Jane Corwin.

You can read ICANN’s entire 352 page application guide here.

Are 2012 Presidential Candidates Embracing Mobile? Not So Much

We’ve all seen the stats about the explosion of the mobile web.

There are four billion mobile phones in use globally.  One billion of these are smart phones.  By 2014, more people globally will access the Internet from a mobile device than a desktop computer. 

Depending on who you talk to, mobile is either the next big thing or the big thing right now. 

Given all this, I’ve fully expected the 2012 Presidential candidates to break some ground in their use of mobile.  It is still really, really early -  many candidates haven’t launched version one of their full websites yet and mobile is a technology that lends itself to the ground game.  The cool stuff will come later. 

But taking an early look at the state of things, the situation is pretty bleak, with most candidates not even doing the basics well at this point. 

I analyzed the mobile programs of the fourteen candidates who have either formally announced or launched formal exploratory committees.  Here are the key takeaways:

• Only three of fifteen candidates (Newt Gingrich, Roy Moore and Barack Obama) have a version of their website that is optimized for mobile.  And frankly the Roy Moore mobile site is so poorly done they would have been better off not doing it (screenshot at the bottom of the page).
• Only four of fifteen candidates (Gary Johnson, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) offer ways for users to sign up to receive updates via text message. 
• Only one candidate (Barack Obama) has built an official campaign app that is available for the iPhone. 
• Barack Obama is the only candidate deploying all three of these strategies.  No other candidate is using more than one. 
• On the Republican side I expected the well funded candidate to have much more robust mobile strategies than the long shots.  This isn’t the case at this point, as none of them are really doing that much at this point.

Below is a full table showing all the relevant data, as of June 20, 2011.

*Michelle Bachmann has an app for her most recent Congressional race.
**Various candidates had apps created for them by supporters or companies seeking to capitalize on their popularity. 

Like I said, it could be too early to be looking at this stuff.  Great things may be on the horizon. 

But at this point it is hard not be underwhelmed by the strategies being deployed by every candidate, with the notable exception of Barack Obama. 

Note: If I missed anything, please let me know in the comments.  I’ll update the table periodically as new candidates announce and new versions of the sites are launched.

Continue reading “Are 2012 Presidential Candidates Embracing Mobile? Not So Much” »

Social Media and the #Four26DC City Council Election

As Washington D.C. looks to further establish itself as a center for technological innovation, isn’t it fair to ask that our candidates and elected officials maintain a professional online presence? In reviewing the websites and social media accounts of candidates for the vacant at-large seat on the Washington D.C. City Council, is there anything you see (or don’t see) that sways your vote one way or another?

Alan Page: http://alanpagedc.blogspot.com/

The only Blogspot site of the candidates, the site is very basic but it gets by with clear navigation and good content. Donation button links off-site to Paypal.

Twitter:  @AlanPageDC 1,970 Tweets, 287 Followers
Facebook: Unknown

Brian Weaver: http://bryanweaverdc.com/

A clean and concise WordPress site with simple navigation and plenty of content. Donation links off-site to Act Blue. Twitter feed is featured on the site but no link to Facebook. Bonus points being the only candidate I have seen who is running Google Ads for his own name as well as his competitors!  

Facebook: 604 Fans (Most of any candidate)
Twitter: @BryanWeaverDC 1,811 Tweets, 1,017 Followers (Most of any candidate)

Dorothy Douglas: http://www.dorothydouglas.com/

This might be by far, the worst candidate website I have ever seen. Although   campaigns for local office are by nature low-budget operations, you can still have something that looks professional and is informative without spending a great deal. As local governments increasingly turn to offering services online, anyone who votes for Ms. Douglas should be very concerned that according to this website:  “our company” is located at  123 Main St, Anytown, MA.” Continue reading “Social Media and the #Four26DC City Council Election” »