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.

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!

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.

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.

Barack Obama Mobile Site

The Obama mobile site is the best of the bunch, by far. 

Roy Moore Mobile Site

This site is even harder to read and weird looking on the phone itself.

Newt Gingrich Mobile Site

A solid start by the Newt folks.

Update: This post was edited on 6/21/2011 to reflect Jon Huntsman’s entry into the race and on 6/27 to reflect a new version of Michelle Bachman’s website..

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.”

Arkan Hale: http://www.arkanfordccouncil.com/

A good looking, simple WordPress site. Problem is that the blog has not been updated since March 5th. Not even a reminder that today is election day!

Facebook: 157 Fans
Twitter: @ArkanHaileforDC  23 Tweets, 38 Followers

Joshua Lopez: http://joshualopez2011.com/

Would be a decent WordPress site if not for the numerous coding errors and cumbersome 2nd level navigation on the issues, donation and volunteer pages. Last update was posted April 21st. Donation form uses both PayPal and a custom page powered that is ruined by errors in how the form is displaying fields.

Facebook: 150 Fans
Twitter: @JoshuaLopez2011 1,143 Tweets, 476 Followers

Patrick Mara: http://patrickmara.com/

As the sole Republican in the election, Mr. Mara represents his party well with a busy, but functional and professional website. Donations are handled by a customized Piryx page, links to social media channels are abundant and  there is plenty of content. Mara is one of only three candidates with an email signup box prominently displayed on the site.

Facebook: 437 Fans. Bonus points for having a custom landing tab!
Twitter: @patmara 1,108 Tweets, 824 Followers.

Sekou Biddle: http://sekoubiddle.com/atlarge/

One of the more advanced WordPress sites of the bunch, includes a custom template from Pagelines. The only site I have noticed that includes an RSS feed.  Although there is a form to volunteer, I could not locate a way to subscribe to emails. Donations are sent off-site to Paypal.

Facebook: 292 Fans
Twitter: @sekoubiddle 265 Tweets, 592 Followers

Tom Brown: http://www.whytombrown.com/

Overall a good site site and only the 3rd one I have seen with an email signup box on the homepage. Donations also link off-site to Paypal.

Facebook: Like Mr. Orange, the campaign decided to create a group instead of a page, however Mr. Brown does have a respectable 378 members.
Twitter: @tombrownyes 169 Tweets, 55 Followers

Vincent Orange: http://www.orangeatlarge.com/

Powered by Salsa, Mr. Orange has the best campaign site of all the candidates. All the features work well and the site has a clean design that is content rich and easy to navigate. Also to his credit, Mr. Orange has the longest and most detailed “Issues” section of any candidate in the race.

However in the campaign flyer I received today,  Mr. Orange’s campaign highlights his Washington Post Endorsement- from the 2010 election. While this is an interesting tactical choice, the obvious intent is to confuse voters into thinking that  the Washington Post has endorsed Mr. Orange for this election, when in fact they endorsed Patrick Mara.

Facebook: Using an “old-school” Facebook group, the campaign is posting lots of content but getting very little engagement. 343 total members.
Twitter: Although there is not a link on the website, it appears Mr. Orange does have a Twitter account @VincentOrangeDC which has sent 138 Tweets and has 235 Followers.

Barack Obama’s 2008 web program is widely regarded as the most successful online campaign that has ever been run.  And the campaign site design is probably the most ripped off in history as well. 

People forget that the Obama campaign didn’t nail their site design right out of the gate.  It took them a while to get there.  See the screenshots below of www.barackobama.com in October 2007 and October 2008. 

Obama Site October 2007

Obama Site October 2008

As you’ll see, in October 2007 the Obama website design was kind of mediocre.  It was super cluttered.  There was no photo of the candidate.  The eye has no idea where to go. 

The Obama team took a look at their site and saw some things that weren’t working so they made changes, despite the fact their site had been up for less than a year.  They iterated and improved based on how people were actually using their site.  And eventually they nailed it.

This is a good reminder that a good website is never done.   There are always ways to make it better if you are paying attention.

I have been watching the mobile space carefully the last few months, so as candidates have announced their interest in running for President  I’ve paid close attention to their mobile strategies.   So far, there really hasn’t been much to see as far as I can tell.

Enter Barack Obama, who announced his candidacy for President and launched version one of his campaign website yesterday. Obama’s new website is purposefully spartan, focusing exclusively on building his email list, Facebook fan page and campaign war chest.   I have no doubt Team Obama will be rolling out a robust new toolset for the website in the coming weeks and months.  Based on this early version of the site, it is clear mobile is going to be a big part of the 2012 strategy.

If you visit www.barackobama.com on a mobile phone or iPad you are automatically taken to a version of his site optimized for mobile use.  You can access the site directly from your browser at www.barackobama.com/m.

Beyond simply working well on a phone, a number of other steps have been taken to make the site mobile-friendly:

• In an effort to make it easy for folks to give and get involved, the Donation and Volunteer forms have been optimized to fill out on a mobile device.
• On the main website the campaign encourages people to sign up via email and Facebook.  On the mobile site you are encouraged to sign up for text message updates instead.
• The Events area of the mobile site automatically detects your location and serves up events near you.  Note this was a bit buggy for me as the site had trouble detecting my location initially.

While this may not seem terribly groundbreaking, I think it is really smart of the Obama campaign to create an optimized mobile experience for users this time around (I don’t believe they had a mobile site in 2008 but could be wrong on that).  The mobile web is exploding, and I would guess that by the end of 2011 over 10% of visitors to www.barackobama.com will come from mobile users.   Further, the way people use the web on their mobile phones is fundamentally different than the way they browse from a desktop.  You can’t just send users to your regular website and expect to see the kind of conversation rates and stickiness you see for regular desktop users.

Optimizing for mobile is just good strategy at this point.

Screenshots from the mobile site below.

Update: One small criticism.  If you access the site on an iPad, you are taken to the mobile site and there is no obvious link to skip to the main site.  Given how robust the browsing experience is on an iPad, I would direct iPad users to the main site or give them a way to get to it at the very minimum.

In case you somehow missed the flurry of Facebook wall postings, President Obama launched his re-election campaign today with a remarkably scaled down, almost Spartan website and a introductory video that is remarkably similar to another much hyped launch….for Windows7?

To be fair, in the email announcement the President writes “We’re doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas…”

Mission accomplished?

This report from Edelman on the attitudes of Capitol Hill staffers in the U.S. and Europe is worth reading.

One statistic that jumped out at me: 32% of Members use Twitter and 62% use Facebook.  I’m surprised these numbers aren’t higher.

As better writers than I have already turned out excellent work on the tech policy discussion sponsored by Politico’s @morningtech writers and Qualcomm,  I wanted to draw some attention to what Politico, as a news organization has been doing over the last several months as compared to DC’s other news outlets. (By news outlets, I mean published in print and online.) While newspapers have come a long way since  our 2008 report on the Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers, Politico stands out in several important regards.

1. Organizing off-line events to generate unique content and drive traffic

In the last three weeks Politico has organized two events with great speakers that attracted a significant amount of earned media. The October 25th “Political Campaigns and Social Media” panel discussion hosted at GWU was covered live by CSPAN and attended by a capacity crowd. Likewise today’s “#NextinTech” event was attended by a capacity crowd and featured discussions with US CTO Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Senators @MarkWarner and @JohnEnsign, Representatives @AnnaEshoo, ITIF’s Rob Atkinson, Google’s Pablo Chavez and Dell’s Frank Muehleman. So far it has generated at least 715 tweets by 301 influential people and several dozen high impact blog postings. (Not to mention an unknown amount of potential new subscribers for Politico Pro.)

2. Making their reporters available off-line

Outside of online Q&A sessions and their own book signings, few reporters from other news organizations make public appearances. (Local TV station and online newspaper TBD, which is also a subsidiary of Allbritton Communications being a notable exception.) I intend to do additional research to document this, but from a brief survey of colleagues in the know, similar efforts by other outlets are hard to find. For instance, the Washington Post’s website lists nothing in the way of future or past events. There are just certain things you will hear from reporters in person that you won’t online, such as that Politico’s Ben Smith is often frustrated by the trolling and off-topic comments on his blog. Things like this are objectively true, yet not something really worth him writing or complaining about.

3. Adapting 50-Cent’s Business Model

Don’t let the ‘Biblical Strategies’ title scare you, Michael Holmes does a great job of summarizing how 50-Cent used a mixture of ambition, hustling, finding a way to stand out, having testers and turning adversity into opportunity and achieve success. A lot of these theories have been applied in some manner or fashion by Politico, such as how Mike Allen’s Playbook endeared itself to a unique and powerful audience, which in turn generated a NYT profile, that generated even more subscribers and  has at least given Politico’s new paid content- Politico Pro a chance at succeeding where others pay-walls have not.

Recommend write-ups:

Grant Gross at PCWorld: “Some Tech Issues May Move Forward in Congress.”

“ From 1994 to 2000, Republicans controlled Congress and a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president, yet several major pieces of tech-related bills passed during that time, Atkinson…Legislation passing during that period included the Telecommunications Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Electronic Signature Act, and Congress passed new high-skill immigration rules and significantly increased money for tech-related research.”

Alex Howard at gov20.govfresh: “US CTO Chopra on what’s next in tech: open government, spectrum policy, HIT, learning IT.”

”First, it’s clear that Chopra and the Obama administration is thinking about online privacy, with the recently announced Internet privacy committee. There are open questions about how much portfolio, budget, subpoena power or other authority any new position would hold, but it’s an area to watch. Chopra said that he had met with Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and had found him supportive of privacy policy.”