Archive: Year: 2006

Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer of New York has gotten some attention for launching a "Transition: New York" website, but the New York Times report on his online venture missed the real story. It's not that the site makes it easy for would-be job-seekers to submit their resumes directly through the site; what's really interesting is that the site is also soliciting suggestions from New Yorkers for ideas for "bringing hope and opportunity back to New York." The system for submitting ideas is fairly simple--and it appears that submissions are being screened before being posted and Spitzer is collecting names and zipcodes in the process (handy, huh?). His team has already posted a healthy number of submitted ideas, and they range the gamut...

It seems as if everyone is rolling out interesting bits of political technology as Election Day approaches. Here are some of the more intriguing examples I've come across in the last few days; feel free to add your own to the list by adding a comment. --First up is VoterStory.org, a distributed web “widget” to help record and gather individual voter problems experienced on Election Day. Anyone can add this tool to their website by adding a bit of code to their header, and all information they collect will be automatically referred to voter protection organizations for investigation. It was developed by Rob Stuart and his company, EvolveStrategies, with funding from the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute....

Having discovered Evoca through Sherrod Brown's use of the service to enable campaign supporters to post audio endorsements on his website, I emailed the company's CEO and co-founder Murem Sharpe to find out more. She is a technology entrepreneur and former Fortune 500 executive who worked on Capitol Hill during college and post-college. PDF: Does it cost anything to use this service? Evoca offers a free account with up to 60 minutes of recording. If someone has more to say, for $4.99 per month, we offer up to 200 minutes of recording time. We also offer transcriptions and translations through a simple click and order. Pricing varies by language. Members also can sell and purchase premium recordings. PDF: Where are the audio...

Sherrod Brown's campaign is doing something cool: they're inviting supporters to post audio recordings explaining why they support his campaign for the U.S. Senate, using a web service called Evoca. It's a smart way to get ordinary people involved in a campaign. And given that we all respond better to unscripted human voices than to scripted pitches, it may be a great way for the campaign to discover new sources of creativity and support. Right now, the Brown campaign is going for the simple approach. A supporter can record a message using a microphone on their computer, or by calling a local phone number. The campaign is asking them to give their name, city of residence and profession, and then editing...

You can't miss the impact of one well-networked blogger, Chris Bowers of MyDD.com, on the final weeks of the election. About a week ago he had a brainstorm: if the DNC was going to borrow $10 million to try to support Democratic challengers in races that might be breaking their way, why not try to pressure the 70 Democratic House incumbents who are cruising to victory because they face no meaningful opponent to part with, say, 30% of the approximately $50 million in excess campaign funds they're hoarding? Within days, MoveOn's leaders decided to up the ante, sending emails to their members in all the districts Bowers highlighted, urging that they call their reps. So far, it looks like Bowers' "Use...

For a harsh and hilarious review of HotSoup, the new political social networking site led by a raft of Beltway big-feet, read Blog P.I.'s take. Mike Turk says "it may be the most poorly conceived idea since Kevin Federline." Ouch! Technorati Tags: HotSoup...

My head is still spinning pleasantly as I come down off the last few days spent up in Camden, Maine at the 10th annual PopTech conference. This was my first time at this seminal gathering of technologists, creatives, visionaries and analysts, but it won't be the last. I've been to a lot of conferences over the last few years, and while I am still searching for my personal sweet spot amid the scenes at ETech, Web 2.0, PC Forum, Politics Online, Wikimania, and of course Personal Democracy Forum. there were many moments where PopTech definitely hit the spot for me. The theme of the conference was "Dangerous Ideas." Sometimes I think that came out more as "Dangerous Questions," but since so...

Want to get a look at the innards of HotSoup--the soon-to-be-launched new entry in the social-networking sweepstakes? While the site's homepage will turn you away, just go to any of these links--HotIssues, About, Press, or Contacts and you're in. They've also left open links to several of their "Opinion Drivers"--famous people from the worlds of politics, business, religion, and popular culture who presumably are going to blog brilliantly for the site, which aims to focus heavily on politics. Looking forward to the deep thoughts of cyclist Lance Armstrong, lobbyist Ed Gillespie, veterans activist Bobby Muller, or "political diva" (that's her online handle on the site) Donna Brazile? You can check them out too. It's obviously not fair to judge a site...

That's the provocative premise of Robert Cox, president of the nonpartisan Media Bloggers Association and a blogger who was made famous by the New York Times' idiotic decision to sue him for posting a parody of its Corrections page. Writing in the Washington Examiner (which itself is rapidly earning attention as a smart new site for conservative online news and opinion), Cox takes as his jumping off point YouTube's recent decision to delete some videos posted by rightwing blogger Michele Malkin after they were flagged by users as "offensive," and to terminate her account. He says he has talked to top Internet specialists on the right, including folks from the Bush-Cheney campaign, top officials at the RNC and the White House...

The Bivings Report says that it appears the folks at ThinkProgress, a prolific and well-written blog connected to the Center for American Progress, have been trying to artificially pump up their stories on Digg, Netscape and Reddit. has the story. This blogger adds lots of details. Judd Legum of ThinkProgress disputes the charge. Whichever is true, read Jason Calacanis on the episode and take his advice on how to play fair on social news sites. (Legum#039s response is in Calacanis' comment threads.) Technorati Tags: Digg, Netscape, puppy...