There was an interesting piece in the New York Times on Sunday about eBay’s lobbying tactics, “How eBay Makes Regulations Disappear“. Here is the relevant quote that describes what eBay is up to online:

“EBay combines its politics-as-usual approach with more creative grass-roots tactics. It keeps its membership informed about regulatory issues as soon as they crop up, using mass e-mail messages and a year-old Web-based initiative called ‘eBay Main Street,’ which sends out ‘legislative alerts’ and provides letters that users can send to government officials. Bowing to the traditions of ward politicos adept at turning out the vote, eBay routinely summons its sellers and sends them on personal visits to statehouses around the country to meet with legislators.”

From my reading of the story, it is unclear to me whether eBay is mobilizing their full member database or just people who opt in to their eBay Main Street program. I would guess they are mostly sending emails to Main Street members. But if they get into a real fight and mobilize their full membership, look out. eBay has a massive grassroots database at its disposal that rivals the databases of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Here’s a breakdown:

First, I hadn’t really thought much about how massive eBay really is. According to the Times, at any one time there are 89 million items being sold on eBay and the site has 193 million registered users. 193 million registered users! To put that in perspective, 122 million people voted in the last U.S. Presidential election.

Second, when you register for eBay you are required to give them your full address and phone number, in addition to your email address. This information allows eBay to easily get sophisticated demographic data about each user: they know your state, your Congressional District, your county, and even your State Legislative District. In addition, eBay has access to your account history. They know how many items you’ve bought and sold, and how much money you’ve made or spent on EBay. eBay knows where you live and exactly how you use their service. And they have this information for ever single member.

So, if you combine points #1 and #2, you’ve got a massive and targeted database of users that can mobilized when regulation threatens eBay.

I don’t think the size and potential power of eBay’s database can be overstated. The eBay database rivals anything the Democrat or Republican Parties possess in terms of pure numbers (the press has estimated the size of the Dem and GOP databases at around 170 million Americans each). And having an email address for every member is huge.

Regulate eBay at your own peril.

So, it looks like we have example #1,211 of a politician (or more aptly, their staff) abusing Wikipedia for political gain. This time Morton Brilliant, the campaign manager for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox, edited the entry of opponent Mark Taylor to include a reference to Taylor’s son’s DUI arrest. The campaign manager has resigned, and the typical media feeding frenzy is gearing up now.  You can view a version of the entry with the DUI information here. 

To play on an old saying: Don’t make any edits to Wikipedia that you wouldn’t want printed on the front page of the New York Times.

You can read more on Wikipedia here.

In a post a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that organizations post their videos to viral sites like YouTube as a way of reaching a larger audience. Well, the advocacy group Public Knowledge has done just that, posting a video on the net neutrality issue currently before Congress.

It seems to have worked, too. So far the video has been viewed 43,000 times and ranks 39th on this week’s list of YouTube’s most watched videos. Just as importantly, the video has created a pretty good conversation on YouTube about net neutrality, with thirty four comments so far.

Here’s the video, for those interested:

Some of my colleagues and friends have called me ‘paranoid,’ ‘crazy,’ and ‘apocalyptic,’ but I continue to stick to my guns on the issue of America’s intellectual decay. Our economic and cultural dominance has always stemmed from our ability to attract and retain the best-of-the-best intellectuals from around the globe, and our ability to nurture and grow our own base of talent. Our military dominance is also clearly predicated on our economic and intellectual superiority. In short, we can out spend and out gun all others because during the Twentieth Century we built the world’s greatest base of knowledge and talent.

Quite some time ago our ability to cultivate our own internal talent began to fade (witness the poor state of our primary and secondary educational systems), and over time (especially since 9/11) we have failed to garner the rest of the world’s best, largely due to immigration regulations. We are just starting to see the effects that this will have on our competitive advantage in the global marketplace. If nothing changes, we will see a rapid and painful descent into economic mediocrity and a marked decrease in the average standard of living. (more…)

I got an email from a colleague pointing me to the MySpace page of Allan Lichtman, a Democrat running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. This is the first politican I’ve seen with a MySpace profile, although I haven’t looked that hard. With 250,000 new users signing up every day and 66 million total users, I’d look for more politicians to try to tap in to the MySpace phenomenon.

Note: Lichtman (or one of his staffers) was actually logged on to MySpace when I visited and took the screenshot below.

Update: I got an email from a reader and there is another Senate candidate with a MySpace page. Meet Pete Ashdown, who is running against Senator Orin Hatch in Utah.

Update #2 (May 8, 2006): I came across another one. Check out California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides on MySpace.  There is a San Francisco Examiner article about this candidates My Space.

Leave a comment if you know of more.

This morning on public radio WAMU’s (88.5 FM) Marketplace Morning Report, Andreas Kluth, a commentator from The Economist, argued that ‘old media’ needs to become more like an exchange — much like Yahoo and Google, where content, in whatever form, is bought, sold, and bartered. Gave the impression that ‘old media,’ I’m guessing he meant newspapers, TV and radio, should even get out of the content-creating business. What he wants is for such companies to emulate Google, and become the infrastructure for finding and trading content, in this case news.

I don’t see this working anytime soon. So The Washington Post is going to become a site where I can find wire stories, blogs, video and the like of news about D.C., the federal government, the world at large, local sports scores, etc.? And where I can buy and sell such news content? Great. Can’t wait to buy content from the Department of Such-and-Such, and to have a directory of blogs, individuals doing the work of the newspaper. Already have that, via Memeorandum. But the vast majority of the news there is from the ‘old media.’ That’s because blogs don’t create news (except for a handful); they comment on it.

Don’t hold your breathe. Blogs won’t be doing in-depth stories and investigative pieces anytime soon, like those we find in today’s major newspapers. Because it’s not free — content costs real money and takes real resources and talent.

There’s a much better piece about the future of newpapers over at The New Yorker by James Surowiecki.

As a whole, Washington-based trade associations aren’t known for their innovative Internet strategies. The big secret about trade associations is that they have a lot to offer the Internet community - most have great stockpiles of content and staffers who are genuine experts in their fields. And a big part of a trade association’s mission is to serve as an information resource on their industry.

With Web 2.0 hitting Newsweek this week, I figured it would be a good time to develop a quick tip sheet on how trade associations can incorporate some new media tactics into their web strategy. So here’s a David Letterman style Top 10 list:

(1) Create an RSS feed of your press releases. Open up a rapid distribution mechanism to bloggers and reporters who prefer to get information via RSS. RSS is the next iteration of the traditional blast fax or email.

(2) Allow reporters and interested bloggers to comment on your press releases in your site’s Newsroom. Open up the process of media relations and have an open discussion with your site visitors about the information you are highlighting.

(more…)

Recently, NPR’s Story of the Day podcast (Empowered by Technology, Indians Fight Government Corruption) featured how SMS technology effectively gave middle class Indians the ability to launch large scale protests against a legal system that is notorious for protecting the interests of the elite class. Fashion model Jessica Lal was shot and killed at an exclusive nightclub/bar in Dehli nearly 7 years ago, allegedly by Manu Sharma, the son of a wealthy Indian politician. A month ago, Sharma was acquitted of all charges after evidence related to the case mysteriously disappeared. Witnesses became uncooperative. The acquittal came on the official basis of insufficient evidence. It is believed that bribery and corruption were key to the outcome of this case.

India’s middle class was largely angered by this latest demonstration of the Indian legal system’s incompetence. As a response to the verdict, Indian news broadcast station NDTV launched a “Justice for Jessica” protest campaign and asked their viewers (mostly composed of middle class citizens with cell phones) to text in their signatures for a petition to reopen the Jessica Lal murder case. According to NDTV broadcast journalist Barkha Dutt, the lines were open for only 3 days but the yielded over 200,000 messages in support of the campaign. All responses were registered as votes. An impromptu rally was also held in the capital after students text messaged each other of their plans and forwarded this new age call to action to their friends. Again, there was an unbelievable turnout. The NDTV petition was forward to India’s most influential political leaders and the case has since been re-opened, with support for Jessica coming from political elites such as Sonia Gandhi, as well as the prime minister and the president.

(more…)

Saw a story in last week’s PRWeek that mentioned the “State of the Media Report” by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The project is an institute affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and funded by the Pew Charitable Trust.

Didn’t know what to expect, but it seems well-researched and exhaustive. It’s a long read, lots about newspapers; national, cable, and local TV; radio; magazines and the web. Here’s one quote regarding blogging:

“With only about a quarter of the population having ever read one, blogs remain a relatively unfamiliar platform for much of the public. In February 2005, only 26% of Internet users said they were “very familiar” or “somewhat familiar” with blogs, according to a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll.

And who makes up this minority of Americans who consume blogs? Research suggests they are more likely to be younger and male. And ironically, the most fervid blog readers are journalists — the group perhaps that feels most threatened by them.^“

Here’s an interesting graph showing where Internet users go online for news:

Well Yahoo repackages news from other sources, such as the news wires; AOL and CNN are owed by Time Warner; and MSNBC is owned by NBC (a part of GE) and Microsoft. Most everyone gets there news from the mainstream media.

Now look at this chart on trust:

Overall, blogs don’t fare too well. Yes, there are some very credible blogs in certain sectors: tech comes to mind. But to the average American, blogs aren’t that believable. Again it’s the mainstream media that is most trustworthy — contrary to many claims otherwise.

When I first read about Wal-Mart’s blogger relations campaign in the NYT, I immediately assumed that the goal of the campaign was to improve Wal-Mart’s overall corporate image. Change the perception of Wal-Mart in the blogosphere and ultimately win the general public’s hearts and minds. That assumption led me to think the whole campaign just seemed off. Wal-Mart should have their own blog (or blogs), and perhaps launch an internal evangelist program. Engage in a conversation with their customers. A Wal-Mart version of Microsoft’s Channel 9. That would be an interesting program and I believe it is something worth pursuing.

But that’s not what Wal-Mart was up to. In terms of the online component, this is a public affairs campaign, not a PR effort. There’s a difference. The goal was to mobilize allies around issues Wal-Mart cares about, not to generally improve public perception.

• Visit the site they have built around this effort, Wal-Mart Facts. This site is issue oriented and not aimed at the general public. It is for journalists, policy makers, investors and, well, anyone really engaged in Wal-Mart and its issues.
• The blogger relations effort is being run out of Edelman’s DC office and is headed by conservative bloggers with political backgrounds. Its leader, Mike Krempasky, was the man behind RatherGate and is one of the folks behind RedState. These are political/public affairs pros, not PR folks.
• The blogger outreach focused on political bloggers. And if you read the correspondence between an Edelman executive and one of the bloggers, it is an ideological pitch that is being made. The language being spoken is one that people who have only done PR work may not be used to or comfortable with. This effort has more in common with a political campaign than an effort to pitch bloggers on products.

I’ve personally done more online public affairs work than PR work, and I judged the campaign based on the wrong criteria. I think others are making the same mistake - judging a public affairs campaign as if it were a PR effort. It may seem obvious, but I think its an important distinction to make.

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