As part of a broader study we are working on examining the true impact of how politicians use Twitter, we are happy to launch this latest instance of Slurp140 for anyone looking to follow the campaigns online at:
http://www.slurp140.com/dcmayor/

As we have just started tracking tweets referencing “@grayformayor,” “Vince Gray”, “@fenty2010” “Adrian Fenty” and “#dcmayor” the numbers you see reflected in the total number of tweets and total people are reflective of all tweets since 12:00 pm. today.

In looking for Twitter accounts of campaign staffers, the only account that stands out is that of veteran campaign strategist @Mo Elleithee. We will keep looking, but if you know of other senior staffers with Twitter accounts let us know!

Quick facts at a glance:

Note: We are not affiliated with either campaign or Washington D.C. Board of Elections. (Nor am I related to Chairman Gray

I gave the new www.gop.com a mixed review when the RNC first re-launched the site in October 2009.  A few days ago the RNC launched a new version of their flagship site, so I figured I’d take a fresh look at it.  Overall, I think it is a nice improvement, although naturally I find a few things to pick apart.  Following is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the redesign.

The Good

(1) The use of space on the homepage for top stories/headlines is much more logical and cleaner than the previous site.  I particularly like that they removed the giant Facebook fan box that took up way, way too much real estate for a questionable payoff in the old design.

(2) Under the prior navigation structure, there were an overwhelming number of drop down options, which I suspect lead visitors to be confused as to where to go.  The options now are much clearer, and I like the use of primary and secondary navigation elements.

(3) In the previous iteration, users had to click a button in order to sign up for email alerts.  I wrote at the time:

“The main call for users to sign up for email updates is hidden behind a click.  While I appreciate this as a user who is already on their list, as someone who builds sites for a living I would never want a user to have to click more than once to give me their email.  I’m a firmly believer in making the sign up process as simple as possible.”

This has been fixed and you can now sign up without a click.

(4) I like the little take action option that appears on the left side of the page, mostly because it is different.  I do vaguely worry that it is a little too cute and that some users will simply not see it.

(5) I like the idea of having a list of Trending headlines on the homepage.  However, I wonder if these items are handpicked or chosen based on an algorithm given the content featured (links to YouTube videos, external sites, etc.). 

(6) The Volunteer Match tool looks really interesting.  Curious as to whether it works.

The Bad

(1) The Issues section needlessly uses Flash – I presume in a misguided effort to mimic iTunes Coverflow.  It is really clunky, and I think a more traditional presentation would have been much more effective and helped with SEO.  They over though that section. 

(2) The Blog section is also a little too cute.  The RNC has nine different blogs, and in an effort to highlight all of them they developed a layout that is a bit overwhelming.  I think they would be better served aggregating the latest entries and presenting them in a format that actually looks like a blog (basically one blog stream).  A presentation like GigaOm would have been much more effective.  As it is now everything is too compartmentalized.

(3) The RNC’s social network, Our GOP, continues to strike me as not very user friendly and not up the standards of the rest of the site design wise.  It also doesn’t look to have gotten great traction, with around 10,800 users according to this page. 

(4) It has been almost a year since the launch of the original site, and the design didn’t change much until today.  I think the RNC should be iterating and improving constantly instead of holding back from these big release once a year.

The Ugly

(1) The new site allows you to change the background color from red to anything you want using a color picker.  This allowed me to change the background to a sort of fushia/purple and add a pattern.  The result of my artistic expression is below.

This strikes me as silly.  It is the sort of thing that seemed cool back in 2002.   Plus it isn’t implemented very well.  If you change your color, the original color will flash briefly every time you navigate to a new page.

More importantly, if I’m the RNC I’d want to control my brand and present the site as the designers intended.  Team Obama certainly wouldn’t have let me change www.barackobama.com to fuschia.

In the past few days, political media outlets have been abuzz with the news that Gowalla, a location based social networking service, has teamed up with politicians to create politically-themed stamps. Subsequently, Gowalla users are now able to see when politicians check-in at political rallies, fundraising dinners, and town hall meetings. With midterm elections just around the corner, this move aims to make candidates more accessible to their tech-savvy constituency.

 The new move to use GPS-centered online networking is innovative – with less than 10% of smartphone users using applications such as Gowalla and Foursquare. Politicans home to utilize Gowalla as a way to connect with voters while allowing the social network’s users to collect limited-edition campaign-themed  stamps for their virtual passports. Likewise, this continue integrating and connecting with other forms of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. 

Many experts are saying that these forays into social media may portend a greater amount of user interaction during the 2012 presidential campaign season. But with only three months left until the next midterm elections, only time will tell how social media will continue to be used by political candidates.

              .                        

A few paraphrased highlights and the mp3 interview bellow. Next appearance: Tuesday, August 10th at 3:00pm EST.

Q:  At the state and local level, What are some of the interesting patterns you have seen?

• Twitter at the Mayoral Level:  Cory Booker of Newark, NJ: Very active presence, totally engaged, using  it as a way to interact, reach out, ask questions, communicate and be involved in a way you don't (normally) see. Most politicians, (being) risk adverse, tell people what they are doing that day, but are not really engaged on the issues, what people are doing, responding to criticism…
• Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco- From (Speaker Pelosi’s) constituency, has 200x as many followers. Antonio Villaraigosa- Mayor of Los Angeles: 21k followers, Mike Bloomberg, NYC: 22k, Richard Daley, Chicago, 2,400, Picking up the end, Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington DC with less than 1,000. (Gary was being generous, as Mayor Fenty are 325 total followers- TG)

Twitter Followers:

• GB: When your looking at followers, we need to take it with a grain of salt. It’s like the when people based their success on websites and the simple idea of hits. So you have to figure of the million following Booker, they really can't (all) vote or (be) influential.. It is interesting how different folks have different levels of freedom, or feel comfortable using the medium…

Adoption of Twitter and Aversion of Risk:

• GB: You wouldn’t think of Arizona as being Twitter central, both Senators have it, in the House- all 7 members of Congress have it. Arkansas is good, California and Florida are about half. Kentucky is very interesting. (Besides) Rep. Brett Guthrie, nobody seems to be using it.

KJ: We do have the footnote of Rand Paul…

• GB: In the House of Representatives: Of those who Tweet, about 1/3 of Democrats do, and 55% of Republicans tweet, with an average following of 1,500. So when you see Rand Paul with 6,000 followers, that’s not bad, doesn't compare to someone like Sarah Palin.  (For a comprehensive listing, check out TweetCongress)

KJ: How important is a national following to some of these local campaigns?

• GB: It’s hard to pull apart in sense that you have to look at each individual follower to see if they are relevant, because with Twitter,  you can set up anonymous accounts, and a lot of these accounts are not credible or verifiable.
• KJ: What makes a good vs. bad presence?

  GB: One congressperson starts out his tweets with a quote from the scriptures, from the  Old or New Testament. There are some that just start everything with a verb: Stop by historical museum, great groundhog history, I am on TV tonight, etc… Eric Cantor uses it like Cory Booker. (Cantor) is not quite as engaged, but lets you know where he stands on issues, what's going on, some inside baseball, some policy stuff, whereas most use it like a contemporary email.

Other highlights:

The Dark Side of Twitter, Tweet Storms, Andrew Breitbart vs. Shirley Sherrod, NAACP vs. Tea Party…

On Tuesday July 20^th 2010, NDN hosted a speaker panel titled Advancing Internet Freedom: Tackling Barriers to the Global Free Flow of Information. This event featured Daniel Calingaert and Anita Ramasastry two prominent authorities on the topic of internet censorship and the power of online freedom of speech. During their presentations, both presenters discussed topics ranging from mobile economic opportunities abroad to further US government regulation of internet content.

The NDN forum touched heavily upon the groundwork laid by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s January 2010 speech on internet freedom that was lauded as the first of its kind for a foreign policy decision maker.   Clinton spoke about issues of international censorship over the press and individual media publishers, and warned about the “new information curtain” that is cutting off information to developing nations with totalitarian governments.

Both speakers at the “Advancing Internet Freedom” event discussed the role of domestic and foreign government in regulation and expansion of internet services – particularly as they relate to ordinary citizens.  Echoing Secretary Clinton’s remark that “the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it,” Anita Ramasastry discussed the importance advocating for oppressed peoples through greater access to technology and information.  Subsequently, Daniel Calingaert spoke about the rights of citizens and the importance of not accepting censorship in the name of political stability. Both speakers stressed the empowerment of citizens though the creation and sharing of content on social media and internet websites. 

Day two of PdF brought us "Rethinking Media," where the founder and publisher highlighted the buildup to war in 2002, which he called "a difficult, trying time for progressives, akin to treason" for dissent. Moulitsas said that at the time his frame of mind was steeped in frustration. His childhood included a love of news and politics, including pricey subscriptions to local Chicago newspapers at a cost to his hard-working parents.

Moulitsas detailed what he felt was a vacuum of truth and objectivity in traditional news media in the face of declining ratings and advertising shares. He felt empowered paying  $8.95 for a domain name and launching The Daily Kos, a progressive blog. He explained that having the website as an outlet made him and other future bloggers change from passive sideliners to content creators, and much of it was facilitated by low-startup costs.He feels that blogging brings in people from all walks of life, creating new voices, and encouraging a new, collaborative form of media.

Moulitsas cited how even a year ago, the idea of having bloggers ask the President a question was considered unheard of, yet now is a regular occurrence. In his opinion, blogging has changed the landscape of news, where there is no difference between television, newspapers, or blogs. He noted that comments, reporting, and the delivery of video and print are now the same across the board, an amalgamation of content.

In this new era, he sees an emergence of platforms and purpose, as opposed to layout and presentation.

He prides the Daily Kos for committing themselves to polling, commissioning more than any other news organization. He wants to create a culture that doesn't assume to know what the opinion of the American public is, saying the website is moderated by the community itself, who by establishing the culture of the website give the readers ownership of the content.

One interesting fact Moulitsas mentioned: Users of his website stay for 48 minutes on average, versus 1 hour spent on the Drudge Report. He mentioned that those numbers are almost double the average for the traditional media sites.

Video from PDF is streaming live at http://personaldemocracy.com/live .

You can also keep up with the latest Tweets. Check out the PdF Twitterslurp at http://personaldemocracy.com/twitter , powered by The Bivings Group.

Event hashtag is #pdf10.

View full screen and click on the Show Info option to view my notes on each design.

Like Digg, Manor Labs enables people to vote up or down each idea, and the more popular an idea is, the more likely that the town will take action on it if it is reasonable and feasible to do so.  Participants are also given "Innobucks" that they earn by contributing to the site.  They can cash them in at the site’s store for privileges like the opportunity to serve as a honorary mayor for the day (complete with lunch and dinner with the mayor and city manager), a ride with the police chief in his car for an entire shift, and — my favorite — the opportunity for the town to officially name a week after the person through proclamation. It is important to give participants incentives — even if it is an ego boost like getting a week named after you, which comes at very little cost to the town.  Further, I wonder how many boys between between the ages of 3 and 10 years old who are begging their parents for a ride in a police car…  Very clever.

There’s little need to touch upon peddling and purchasing influence since the spirit of the effort is to encourage improving the town for everyone.   Another advantage to this type of crowdsourcing is that it is done in a venue that promotes transparency.

As I have noted before, there are participation inequality issues.  Not everyone has the ability (whether access or competency) nor the desire to participate in such an effort. What happens when the digitally savvy and excited over represent themselves?  That was the case when the Utah State Legislature passed a school voucher bill back in 2007; many pundits attributed some of the success to a discussion about the bill on the Politicopia wiki set up specifically discuss political issues in Utah.  After the bill’s passage, the bill was killed by a voter referendum.  Thus, even though people get excited about an idea online, it does not mean that most of the other affected people agree with the direction of the discussion.

However, it is important not to throw out the baby with the bath water.  Organizations that use social media to gather opinions and feedback from their constituents must acknowledge that their entire constituency likely does not use one channel of communication and participation.  Thus, they must take such feedback and participation in context and solicit feedback through other means to involve a more diverse group of stakeholders.  If Manor, TX does this, it likely will avoid what happened to the Utah State Legislature. 

Most designers take inspiration from great designs like the Obama site, using it as a jumping off point for their own work.  Others simply steal aspects of the design whole, either out of laziness and lack of inspiration, or in a concerted effort to associate their candidate with the Obama brand.  Following are examples of elements of the Obama design that, to varying degrees, have been appropriated by other candidates.  Note the examples mentioned range from some pretty blatant copy jobs to more subtle use of similar colors, fonts and drawing styles.   Thanks to my colleague Kodi Seaton for the accompanying graphics.

(1) Complete Rip Off

Current Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu website is the most blatant Obama rip off I’ve seen.  His site steals the Obama design lock, stock and barrel.

(2) Splash Page

The Obama campaign (and now Organizing for America) used splash pages to great effect as a way of recruiting volunteers.  Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and New York Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio have implemented splash pages on their websites that are remarkably similar in design and layout to the Obama splash page.

(3) Site Header

The Obama site has a unique header, with a logo, quote and email sign up appearing beneath a call to sign up for MyBarackObama.  Colorado Senate candidate Michael Bennet liked it so much he replicated the header pretty much exactly on his website.

(4) Red Donate Button

Obama was certainly not the first candidate to bring attention to his Donate section by making the link to the page red to set it off from the other navigation elements.  But the campaign executed it better than anyone else, and candidates like Blanche Lincoln and Kay Hagan have mimicked the Obama button design.

(5) Site Background

One of the more distinctive elements of the Obama site is its blue background (if you look at the background image directly you’ll get a sense of the detail involved).  Candidates such as John Oxendine and Brian Sandoval have implemented similar blue backgrounds with subtle detail on their sites.

(6) Top Story Style

Another distinct feature of the Obama site is the style of the rotating top story area on the homepage.  The designers behind the site take great care to use consistent drawing styles and fonts for every single item they feature in that space.  Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann mimics this style quite closely on his site.

(7) Sidebar Element Styles

Like the Top Story area, consistent fonts and drawings styles are used for the sidebar graphics on the Obama site.   Current candidates Bradley Byrne, Brian Dubie, Dan Seals, Mark Newmann and Bill Binnie have mimicked the Obama sidebar style to varying degrees on their sites.

(7) Use of Inspirational Stripes

The Obama logo features three red stripes, and the campaign uses the stripes repeatedly on the site to convey inspiration and progress.  A variety of candidates use similar striping on their sites, including Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahan on her splash page.

(8) Home Button

One of the subtle touches of the Obama design is the use of a distinctive home icon to indicate to users how they can get back to the site homepage.  While Obama certainly didn’t invent the home icon, he certainly popularized it.  We’re seeing similar icons pop up on the sites of other candidates, including North Carolina Senator Richard Burr.

In the last few months, I’ve noticed some campaigns creatively using photography and video to really brand the candidate, instead of taking on the look and feel of a normal campaign website.  Below are some examples of this trend (click on images to go to full site).  While I think some of these sites are better done than others, I applaud all of them for trying something different.

Nathan Deal (R-GA)

Karen Diebel (R-FL)

Sean Duffy (R-WI)

Martha Roby

Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Kevin Yoder (R-KS)

Incidentally, all of the examples of this trend I’ve seen are from Republican candidates.