Archive: Year: 2007

Senator Richard Durbin is doing something interesting over at OpenLeft.com this week: he's asking for comments and suggestions to help him draft legislation "that will make the United States more competitive in terms of broadband access." And he's going to post the draft language online for viewing and comment, prior to introducing it in the Senate. "To my knowledge," he writes, "this method of drafting legislation - soliciting public comment, translating it into legislative language, and requesting comments prior to introduction - has never been attempted at the federal level." I think he's right and this is worth paying close attention to. As Durbin writes: I think this is a unique experiment in transparent government and an opportunity to demonstrate the democratic...

One less-remarked result of Monday night's CNN/YouTube debate: Republicans should be very, very afraid of their own YouTube moment, when they debate in St. Petersburg, FL in September. The contrast between the two cultures: the youthful, freewheeling, authentic YouTubers and the stiff, soundbite-practiced world of national politics will be on even greater display there, than it was at the Citadel in South Carolina. John Edwards adviser Joe Trippi makes this point in his candid interview with GOP web consultant (and techPresident blogger) David All. "Do the Republican candidates know what YouTube is?" He also admits that the Edwards campaign, with its 100,000+ donors, is "desperately" trying to figure out how to catch up to the Obama campaign, with its 258,000+ donors,...

TechPresident blogger Spencer Overton has jump-started the conversation with his eight posts while watching the show tonight. Here are my quick thoughts: 1. This debate held my attention more than usual, mostly because I was interested in seeing each voter-generated video question. 2. The candidates seemed more engaged than usual, but too often I felt they really didn't bother responding to the question or even acknowledging the questioner. That was really surprising, given that they'd been warned that some of the questioners would be in the audience. 3. That said, I was disappointed that only two YouTubers were given a chance to ask a live follow-up question, and only one of those managed to do anything with his opportunity. 4. According to the count...

A partisan Democratic blog, Buckeye State, has posted video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shrugging off a voter's question about a picture of him (originally posted by the LA celebrity-tracker site TMZ.com) smiling while holding a supporter's sign that compared Barack Obama and "Chelsea's Moma" to Osama bin Laden. "Lighten up," Romney says, after the questioner, blogger Jerid Kurtz, presses him to explain how he could compare any American to Osama. "I don't particularly have anything to say about a sign someone else was holding." [DailyKos has the item frontpaged here, with a different camera angle that shows Romney's face better but is harder to hear.]] Is this Romney's "Macaca" moment? Not likely, as he's in a Republican primary where Limbaughesque...

Judging from Compete.com's data on web visits to the presidential candidates' sites from January through June 2007, the Democratic field has an overwhelming advantage in terms of voter interest, and inside that field there's a pitched contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, with John Edwards holding a strategic advantage in the first caucus state of Iowa. It's not surprising to see these trends mirroring what we already know about the general trend of the developing election, though I must say it's pretty startling to see how big the attention gap is between the Democratic and Republican fields. In addition to the cumulative data that Compete.com has shared for the first six months of the year, the web analytics firm also...

If visits to a presidential candidate's website are indications of positive voter interest, then there are several things to be learned from some new data that Compete.com, the rapidly growing web analytics company, has just published: -Voter interest in the Democratic field is a magnitude greater than voter interest in the Republican field. A glance at Compete's blog posts, which depict maps of the country with total visits to each candidate's site, the intensity of interest in the Democrats overall is clearly much stronger than in the Republicans. This confirms something we at techPresident been pointing out since January across such measures as blog posts mentioning the candidates by name (where the Ds lead the Rs two-to-one), or the number of...

Al Gore is probably not running for president, but that hasn't stopped some supporters of his from starting a "one-stop news portal for all things Al Gore" that they're calling GoreHub.com. On it you can find: * The latest Al Gore headlines and blog posts, automatically updated continuously. * links to take action for the Draft Gore campaign * tips and resources for starting a Draft Gore group * a Gore Campaign Volunteer signup -- to be given to Al if and when he announces * a combined feed from all Al's official websites * And a complete links list to all the major Gore sites and groups, links to Al Gore in various search engines and social media sites, links to Gore merchandise -- all...

A few days ago, YouTube, the giant videosharing site, unveiled some site upgrades that has a vocal chunk of its user base up in arms. The most important change, from the point of view of YouTube's burgeoning critics, is the removal of social data about videos in all the different categories and its replacement with videos that are being handpicked by the site's editors. As Brave New Films' Jim Gilliam, who alerted me to this, explains, "Before there used to be several pages of 'the most viewed,' 'most discussed,' 'top rated,' 'top favorited,' etc. for each individual category there...

A few days ago, YouTube, the giant videosharing site, unveiled some site upgrades that has a vocal chunk of its user base up in arms. The most important change, from the point of view of YouTube's burgeoning critics, is the removal of social data about videos in all the different categories and its replacement with videos that are being handpicked by the site's editors. As Brave New Films' Jim Gilliam, who alerted me to this, explains, "Before there used to be several pages of 'the most viewed,' 'most discussed,' 'top rated,' 'top favorited,' etc. for each individual category there...

Don't wait til Monday to read Charlie Pierce's "Mud in the Digital Age" article in today's Boston Globe. The title makes it sound like the piece is mainly about dirty tricks online, but it's really more about the way things are now: The Internet, and the exploding technologies it has produced, has transformed everything about American politics in two ways: It’s accelerated the process, and it’s brought in vast and innovative new levels of citizen involvement. Those changes have been enough to break down the barriers between the actual campaign and the virtual campaign in every area, whether it’s the elite political press coping with bloggers, or in the structure of the campaigns themselves. The campaigns are lost in a new...