Karl Rove and Max Cleland spoke to over 100 online political consultants today in Washington, DC during Yahoo's The Rise of Citizen 2.0 event. Yahoo's Citizen 2.0 is not much unlike IPDI's Poli-fulentials , Roper's Influentials, or -- as Cleland noted -- the "attentive elites."

They're news-hungry voters with a heightened sense of civic responsibility and a penchant for online discourse. They’re involved in their communities and are the people "who get my friends to pitch in." They're more likely than others to agree with phrases such as "knowing what is going on politically is the responsibility of every citizen" and "the Internet empowers groups of people to get together and act."

For most of us in the audience, the presentation was an elaborately-delivered (think Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia) compilation of overused Pew research points and carefully-selected stock photos.

Clearly, we are not the intended audience. Those who would find this presentation helpful are those who still think internet users are 12-year-old kids in their mother's basement posting visceral blog comments in virtual echo chambers. In other words, Karl Rove and Max Cleland.

techPresident reported yesterday that "a number of participants are going to press Facebook to get rid of its 1000-person cap on email to group members" at the Facebook Political Summit today in Washington, DC. Indeed, about 50 of us packed into the morning session and listened on as Facebook made two big announcements certain to make every group administrator happy.

Messaging to 1,000+ Supporters
Facebook currently prohibits administrators from sending bulk messages once a group reaches more than 1,000 supporters. There have been a few hints that Facebook was about to change this rule, including a recent message to the presidential campaigns stating that they’re "working on allowing politicians to message all their supporters."

Facebook representatives this morning acknowledged a forthcoming "fundamental shift" in policies that will soon render the 1,000-supporter cut-off a thing of the past –- and not just for political candidates, but for other groups, as well. Changes should take place before January.

When you think about YouTube, you probably think young and liberal. Well, if you did, you’d be, um, wrong.

As the Republican presidential candidates mull decisions to pull out of the YouTube/CNN debate, we here at techPresident took a quick look at the demographic breakdown of the YouTube audience and found some very interesting data.

According to comScore, YouTube actually attracts more Republicans than Democrats. Specifically, there are 3.3 million self-identified Republicans on the user-generated video site versus 3.1 million Democrats. (An addition 5 million consider themselves independent.)

Digging a bit deeper...

MediaPost reported last November that online political ad spending hit $40 million according to PQ Media. And then today, The Wall Street Journal pointed to PQ Media in reporting that candidates, political parties and third-party groups will spend $80 million in online ads during the 2008 cycle.

The problem is, PQ Media’s numbers don’t gel with conventional wisdom and competitor data. Interviews with campaign strategists, estimates from TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG (download presentation), data from Nielsen’s AdRelevance (download description), and my personal knowledge as an online political advertising consultant peg online political advertising in 2006 at no more than $5 million...

As more and more candidates declare their intention to run for president in 2008, more and more Americans will turn to search engines like Google and Yahoo! to find their websites.

So, at a minimum, I expected all 17 of the presumed candidates to have purchased keywords. To my chagrin, only six candidates have taken the plunge. And if you take a closer look, it’s the Republicans who are doing a significantly better job of using search to communicate with the electorate...