Last May I wrote a post about how offices on Capitol Hill deal with the barage of emails they constantly receive. Regulatory bodies and similar organizations also must handle similar flows of e-mails. Despite this, it is very important for our country's democratic nature that individuals' voices are heard. Further, some regulatory bodies are legally required to process public feedback during a comment and review period before a change is made. So what can a Congressional office (or a similar organization) do when it receives tens of thousands of e-mails from constituents the day before a key vote? (more…)

A little over a year ago I wrote a post that guessed which emerging technologies would have an impact on the 2008 election cycle. I figured I’d take a quick look back and grade my predictions, as well as list a few new technologies that have emerged since I last covered this ground.

Here are the grades I would give my predictions (original post is here for background):

(1) Ning (Niche Social Networks)

I’d give myself a C on this one. Many of the major Presidential candidates launched niche social networks on their campaign sites, hoping to encourage connections among volunteers. However, none of these niche networks really got that much traction except for Barack Obama’s. And no campaign used the specific service I recommended, Ning (which I think is still worth trying). Ron Paul supporters took the novel approach of trying to turn the entire Internet into a niche social network about Ron Paul, which is another thing entirely. I think there is still something to the idea of niche social networks around campaigns, but most of the action has been taking place on the more established networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc.).

(2) Mozes (Broadcast Text Messaging)

I’d go with a B for this one. The Obama campaign launched a quite aggressive text messaging effort where users are encouraged to text the message “Hope” to 62262 to subscribe to text alerts alerts. Other campaigns have experimented with similar programs. The Obama campaign program works pretty much the exact same way as I described in my post, but no one is using Mozes specifically. It is also really hard to measure the impact of these programs without getting access to subscriber figures.

(more…)

Want further proof of Barack Obama’s popularity online? According to the site Twitterholic, Obama has more followers than any other Twitter user (followers are people who sign up to receive a user’s Twitter updates through the service). Here is a chart showing the top 10 users:

Despite this popularity, Obama’s team doesn’t use the service that aggressively. They have only posted 78 updates. The second most popular user, Robert Scoble, has posted 7,499 updates.

You can visit Obama’s Twitter page here and Twitterholic here.

Update: Twitdir is another great resource for looking at data on top Twitter users.

In 2002 and 2006, we conducted studies that analyzed the features of the campaign websites of folks running for federal office. Our 2002 findings are available here and our 2006 study can be found here.

We are in the planning phases of a 2008 study and are trying to figure out what criteria to check for when reviewing the campaign websites. Below is a list of the criteria we looked at in 2006:

• En Español: Does the website provide a Spanish version?
• News: Does the website provide news and press releases?
• Bio: Does the website provide a biography of the candidate?
• Contacts: Does the website provide adequate contact information?
• Donations: Does the website provide the ability to make donations online?
• Fundraising Campaigns: Does the website provide the ability for voters to organize their own fundraising campaigns?
• Volunteer Forms: Does the website provide a volunteer sign-up form?
• Team Tools: Does the website provide the ability for volunteers to organize and track activity?
• House Parties: Does the website help volunteers set up house parties?
• Downloads: Does the website provide downloadable fliers, web stickers, or other campaign materials?
• Blogs: Does the website offer a blog?
• Podcasts: Does the website offer podcasts?
• Multimedia: Does the website offer audio or video files?
• RSS: Does the website offer an RSS feed?

I think in 2008 we’ll need to look at whether the campaign’s have presences on social networking sites and if they have social networking components on their own sites. We might also need to look at the use of widgets and wikis. We are still very much in the brainstorming phase.

What criteria do you think we should add?

While at the Politics Online Conference yesterday, I attended a rather interesting panel about using cell phones in political and advocacy campaigns.  Some of the panelists represented the One campaign — think Bono — and Rock the Vote.  Since both of these campaigns cater to a younger crowd, they need to use cell phones in connecting with their audiences.

During the panel the representative from Rock the Vote shared an interesting campaign that they just did using text messages.  His organization used their member database to print out voter registration forms and mail them to those people.  All the recipients needed to do was fill in their SSN, sign it, and send it in.  However, Rock the Vote knows that the typical person in their target crowd virtually ignores snail mail.  So they decided to send out a text message to everyone who they sent forms to alerting to them to the fact that the registration form is in their mailbox.  I found that interesting that they would send out something and use another channel as the call to action.  The panelist said that they didn’t have data back yet since they just did this campaign, but I would like to know how effective the text messages were.

Another interesting tidbit from that session was about a health care advocacy group in California that asked people to send it text messages about how they feel about health care as the California State Legislature was debating some new legislation.  This organization then rented out a jumbo-tron and placed it across the street from the legislative chambers.  Thus, when legislators walked outside, they saw text messages about health care from normal citizens on the large screen.

What are some interesting campaigns that you’ve seen involving cell phones?

I'm attending the Politics Online Conference today and tomorrow, and there was an interesting discussion during the opening session titled "Pervasive Politics" that Joe Mansour blogged about at TechRepublican.com. The session focused on how we as individuals will be bombarded with political information everywhere we go — not just online or through traditional media.  Think about political ads on your cell phone… (more…)

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Politics Online conference next Tuesday (register here) on the topic of “Does Good Design Matter” in the context and political/advocacy websites. The panel was put together by Colin Delaney of e-politics and will also feature Margaux O’Malley (Grand Junction Design) and Susan Finkelpearl (Free Range Studios).

In thinking about this topic, one example from our work on the Fred Thompson campaign where good design didn’t matter immediately jumped to mind.

(more…)

As the 2008 Presidential Election progresses here in the United States, scrutiny of Democratic superdelegates grows.  Since Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a tight race for their party’s nomination since they have both earned roughly the same amount of regular delegates who are assigned by their respective state’s primary or caucus popular vote results.  With this tight of a race, many fear that the candidate who wins more of the regular delegates representing the general populous may still lose if enough superdelegates side with the other frontrunner.

With this concern, some people are launching sites to monitor these superdelegates and provide their names and which candidate they support.  In her article “Crowdsourcing Puts Crucial Superdelegates Under a Microscope” from last Friday, Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland profiles a few sites that are tracking superdelegates. 

For instance, bloggers at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch are compiling and updating a detailed list of superdelegates who support Clinton or Obama. The Superdelegate Transparency Project on SourceWatch.org, a collaboration between a variety of organizations, also collects a wide variety of information to hopefully hold the superdelegates accountable to the will of their “constituents.”  It also hopes to enlist the help of citizen journalists who will also keep tabs on these influential delegates.

I personally find it fascinating to see people harness the power of the Internet to keep track of politicos in situation like these.  It’ll be interesting to see if these sites will help influence how superdelegates act.

You election junkies out there should check out this site tonight as you watch the Super Tuesday results roll in. It is a mashup of Google maps and election-related Twitter posts. Right now it is just pulling in relevant posts about Super Tuesday and displaying them based on location (see screengrab below), but the site says it will overlay the results after the polls close.

Check it out.

Now more than ever, presidential candidates are making their respective presences felt online. Mediums such as blogs, YouTube, and social networks like MySpace and Facebook are giving candidates a new platform to utilize. Inspired by TechPresident and the Social Media Index concept, we decided to take an aggregate snapshot at how much buzz the candidates are getting in advance of Super Tuesday. Those making the biggest splashes on the web aren’t necessarily the same ones leading the polls. While pollsters employed by the likes of ABC News and CNN show Hillary Clinton and John McCain as favorites to square-off for the White House in November, the two aren’t their own party’s most popular candidates online.

With over 12,000 links to his official website from Google Blog Search, 350,000 Facebook supporters and more than 15,000,000 people viewing his YouTube channel daily, Barack Obama seems to have the internet race won among Democrats. Compare those numbers to Hillary’s less than 9,000 Google Blog Search links, less than 88,000 Facebook supporters and only 5,693,448 in daily YouTube viewership. Obama also enjoys more support on MySpace, with over 252,000 friends to Clinton’s 171,761, all according to the latest techPresident stats.

As for Republicans, the most popular man online is ironically the same one sitting next to last in the polls. Ron Paul has 14,215 Google Blog Search links to his official site, more Facebook (81,639) and MySpace (125,733) support, and more daily YouTube viewers (12,104,767) than anyone else competing for the Grand Old Party’s ticket. No other Republican comes close to Paul’s online celebrity. Mitt Romney is second on Google Blog Search with 5,905 links. Mike Huckabee has the second most YouTube viewers a day with just over 5,000,000. John McCain is second on MySpace with 44,689 friends, and Huckabee is currently second among Republicans with 47,510 Facebook supporters.

As most of you know, The Bivings Group was a part of the team that built Fred Thompson’s Presidential campaign website. Our main client contact on the project, Michael Turk, has a good post up rounding up the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the online program we all put together. It is worth a read.

In the piece, Turk points out that one of the most successful aspects of the program was the campaign blog, the Fred File. He writes:

As an example of the strength of Thompson’s online effort, look at the Thompson campaign blog and you’ll see something remarkable for GOP candidates - comments. And not just a few comments, but hundreds and even thousands of comments.

Rudy’s blog doesn’t allow comments. Romney’s gets a few per post. Ron Paul just recently launched a blog (despite the fact that blog software is largely free). He currently gets between a handful and a few dozen comments.

I don’t think this indicates a lack of supporter enthusiasm as much as it indicates that the campaigns have created a blog with nothing to say on sites that are so scrubbed of interesting content they’re almost sterile. Most of the posts are rehashed press releases, rehashed campaign e-mails, or occasionally a video so overscripted it becomes almost completely unwatchable.

I think Turk is right on here. With any successful blog, 90% of the battle is producing readable content and engaging with readers. Many, many campaigns want a blog in theory but don’t have the stomach to do the heavy lifting that will make it actually work.  The Thompson campaign, lead by staffers Sean Hackbarth and Austin Walne, deserve the lion’s share of the credit for the success of the Fred File. But I also think there were some small, more technical decisions that were made that helped give the blog a greater chance to succeed. (more…)

The Bivings Group was featured on an NPR segment that discussed Presidential candidates use of the Internet this cycle. Following is the teaser for the piece:

Through ring tones, viral videos and social networking sites, presidential candidates are relying more on the Internet than any of their predecessors. We explore the highlights and examine whether cyber-connectivity translates into votes.

In the interview, I talk about Barack Obama’s web program and Ron Paul’s fundraising ticker.

You can listen to the interview here.

I think the most interesting move a campaign has made this cycle is Ron Paul’s decision to be completely transparent in his fundraising. For the last five or six months the central element of Ron Paul’s homepage has been a counter that tallies how much he has raised during the current quarter. A screen shot of the graphic is below.

In addition to this graphic, the Paul campaign has also published a feed of all its donation data that volunteers can access. This has lead others, such as Ron Paul Graphs, to do mash ups showing donation statistics. If I want to know how much Ron Paul is raising, I can go to any number of sites and get a real time number. This is in stark contrast to most of the other campaigns that, for the most part, keep fundraising information under wraps until they are forced to disclose the information publicly.

(more…)

Since Todd and Tom have recently critiqued Barack Obama's presidential website — apparently in its Blue Period — I was also thinking about the design of 2008 presidential candidate sites.

As someone with a search engine optimization (SEO) background, I probably focus a little bit more on title tags and anchor link text when evaluating a site than a someone who looks at the pretty pictures (or the lack thereof).

Well, I'm not alone.  Li Evans of the Search Marketing Gurus blog does as well, and has done some interesting campaign site evaluations from an SEO's perspective.  You can find them in the Political Internet Marketing category of the blog.

In these posts she discusses various SEO topics like page titles, keyword usage, and the actual content found on a site.  Further, she does look at a campaign's search marketing efforts, if any, and use of social media.  Her posts are worth a read.

So far, here are the candidate (or former ones) sites that she's reviewed:

• Joe Biden
• Chris Dodd
• Duncan Hunter
• Dennis Kucinich
• John McCain
• Barack Obama
• Ron Paul
• Bill Richardson
• Fred Thompson

Disclosure.

Barack Obama’s team has redesigned his website just prior to the Iowa Caucus and, well, I hope you like the color blue. I do.

I also think this redesign puts his web design effort at the top of the heap.

Starting at the top…

The over the top photoshopping of the clouds and lens flare as a background is so dramatically piled-on that you have to give the designers a lot of credit for even submitting it. The fact that it works is a testament to not only the designers but also whoever approved this thing. An extra cloud here, a ray of sunshine there and this effort is a parody. The photo used of the candidate is also pretty gutsy, with him staring into the future or whatever, but again in this new setting works just fine for me. The tone of the site now is one of confidence. No blaring headlines or screaming calls to action. Even the illustration used to announce his victory in Iowa is tasteful.

(more…)