techPresident - Hillary Clinton - Comments

Liberal logic

Freedomfighter — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:23:54 -0400

Sorry, what ticks me off about Tech President is your so bias in your opinions you have taken on the approach of liberal logic. No matter what McCain does, you will see it in the negative. Puts out a bad blog? He is not tech savvy. Puts out a great blog? He is wasting his resources. Such bias ruins the credibility of this site.

Obama Blog

alexhwilliams — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:39:13 -0400

One thing about Obama - he is not taking many risks. It reflects in his blog. McCain has nothing to lose. He has to try everything to capture the American people's imagination. Obama already did that. And he doesn't have to do it again.

design choice

Todd Zeigler — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:32:22 -0400

I don't think the Obama-inspired graphic is a design rip off so much as a deliberate attempt to reference the Obama brand. The piece the graphic supports, the Decision Center, is a point/counterpoint contrasting the positions of McCain and Obama. I think the McCain campaign used a graphic that references the Obama brand because it is a contrast piece about the different ways the candidates hope to achive change. "McCain's real solutions vs. Obama's pie in the sky rhetoric." Or something like that?

http://www.johnmccain.com/decisioncenter/

I think other aspects of the McCain site were clearly inspired by the Obama site (detailed blue background, campaign staring steely eyed into the future, etc.).

http://www.bivingsreport.com

fontPresident

Nancy Scola — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:16:56 -0400

Ha. Sounds like a fantastic idea to me. ;) Maybe we shouldn't go so niche, though. DesignPresident?

Typography

Rob Cottingham — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:34:37 -0400

Yep, that's good ol' Trebuchet MS.

So can we expect a fontPresident spin-off site? :-)

---
Rob Cottingham
http://www.socialsignal.com
http://www.robcottingham.com

The feedback won't be that different, but the outcome may be.

Sarah Granger — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:03:12 -0400

She'll receive a lot of messages from people telling her to stay in, and she'll receive a lot of messages asking her to step down, and she'll receive a lot of inflammatory notes that go straight into the trash. I doubt much of it will be too different than what she's been receiving the past month or so. (As Gary Hart's online director, I was privy to his inbox when he was deciding whether to run in '04... the email gets predictable pretty quickly.)

She'll raise some money, and it looks like there are some campaigns pushing her as VP choice for Obama. She might receive suggestions as to whether she should stay in the Senate, go for a different post in the administration, take a hiatus, etc.

The real question is how much the campaign is actually listening vs. just doing this to buy time. They started out with an online announcement suggesting the campaign would be a "conversation", so how does that conversation end? James Carville noted on CNN last night that it takes time to figure these things out.

A chunk

Joshua Levy — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:26:14 -0400

You're right - it wasn't "much" of Paul's money, it was more of a "chunk" of his money. As for reporting on Paul's vote totals, there are other good sites that focus on those things. We're more concerned with the effect of the web on politics, and since Paul raised the vast majority of his money online -- which made him very popular on this site for many months -- we felt this item was appropriate.

Ron Paul

marksstc — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:31:52 -0400

You wrote: "Much of the money Ron Paul raised for his campaign via record-breaking money bombs is going to his family members..."

Interesting definition of "much" -- in this case "much" equals less than one-half of one percent of the money Paul raised. Shocking!

How about reporting on Paul's 24% vote total in Idaho and the six delegates he picked up there. You know -- actual news.

nader

paulcanning — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:47:33 -0400

Ralph Nader is an ignoramus - that's a technical term.

He's never heard of Jody Williams [http://tinyurl.com/4we3ns]

www.paulcanning.me.uk
web stuff and other ramblings
~~~~~~~~~~~

Actually Hillary has sent emails asking people to travel...

plange — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:52:25 -0400

"Obama for America is going one step further. The Senator's campaign is asking diehards via e-mail to trek to Oregon and knock on doors."

Actually Hillary has also done this, so Obama is not unique in doing this. Here is an email I got on 5/1 entitled "Help Hillary in North Carolina" sent by "Ace Smith, Hillary Clinton for President"

Dear Angela,

Hillary's victory in Pennsylvania provided big momentum for our campaign, and we're seeing the results on the ground here in North Carolina. There is a lot of excitement, a lot of support, and a lot of people working hard for Hillary.

But with just a few days left before North Carolina voters go to the polls on May 6, we need your help getting every last vote out for Hillary. Would you consider traveling to North Carolina sometime in the next few days to help our campaign?

Hillary needs your help, and there's no better way to do it than to come and help us make sure we get the vote out! If you'd like to help here in North Carolina, please contact our travel coordinator Naz Durakoglu at (919) 758-4368 or ndurakoglu@hillaryclinton.com.

Thank you so much for everything you are doing for Hillary. I hope to see you on the campaign trail!

Sincerely,

Ace Smith
State Director
Hillary Clinton for President

I also remember a big push before Texas to get folks to travel there and I've heard they're getting Californians to travel to Oregon.

Google hits vs. viral e-mail

EyeblastTV — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:14:42 -0400

Josh: I've been on vacation for a few days, but it occurred to me that your conspiritorial thinking about Eyeblast stats is based on the flawed assumption that Google links are the only true gauge of viral video traffic. You couldn't be more wrong.

I made clear early on that the first viral video at Eyeblast is the result of the social-networking tools built into our site -- specifically the ability to e-mail links for videos to friends. Most of the traffic for "A Video Portrait Of Barack Hussein Obama" is coming from e-mail links, according to (oh, the irony) Google Analytics. I also mentioned the Facebook groups dedicated to this video, the discussions on bulletin boards, etc.

In other words, this is a truly viral video -- one that gained a viewership primarily by links forwarded via e-mail and, to a lesser extent, posted on bulletin boards, etc. That explains the discrepancy in Google links that, for whatever reason, led you to envision and unprofessionally spread rumors of an imagined conspiracy without any evidence to support your fantasy.

Danny Glover, Executive Producer
Eyeblast TV

Josh, You're better

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:05:25 -0400

Josh,

You're better qualified than me to analyze the numbers. Yes, I was the editor of Tech Daily, but I must admit that I don't have the technical skills for that kind of task. :)))

I only know what Google Analytics tells me, and the 1 million-plus views (and still rising rapidly -- watch for yourself by going to our home page and hitting the refresh button every few minutes) isn't fictitious. We have indeed had that many visits to the video page about Obama.

I don't think the numbers are suspicious, either. I understand where you're coming from in terms of comparison, but Eyeblast launched only a month ago and isn't owned by Google. I'm not sure how sound it is to compare us with YouTube in that sense.

Frankly, I was surprised to see the number for the Obama video so low on YouTube. I wish I knew what was making this video spread like wildfire via Eyeblast instead of YouTube because I'd love to be able to make it happen again rather than just watch it happen on its own.

Danny

Explain the views!

Joshua Levy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:55:23 -0400

Danny, I simply jabbed at Eyeblast for promoting a negative attack video. There's obviously debate on the site about it, which is great. And it made for great techPres fodder.

But Eyeblast and YouTube are not fruit from the same tree. Despite conservatives' complaints about bias on YouTube, it advertises itself as nonpartisan (its practices are another thing). Eyeblast does not, which is fine. But that means that Eyeblast needs to be viewed, and critiqued, differently than YouTube -- as a online partisan platform -- just as Townhall is a different kind of news entity than CNN, for example.

I'll ask again: explain those discrepancies in Google hits.

Josh, Here's what I wrote in

EyeblastTV — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:44:55 -0400

Josh,

Here's what I wrote in my note to you yesterday:

"It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it videos. The people who love it are determined to spread the word via the social-networking tools on our Web site and elsewhere, and the people who hate it are ranting against it in the comments. I thought you might be interested in the video purely from the Web 2.0 perspective, regardless of what you think of the subject matter and how it is handled in the production."

That paragraph was designed to put this video in some perspective for you even before you watched it and also to make clear that I wasn't promoting the video per se, just the news that Eyeblast had become a forum where a presidential video had gained some traction with part of the electorate -- and angered another part. Again, that seemed like "news" for a site like techPresident.

As for Eyeblast being part of the Media Research Center, that's no secret. You've noted it here before, and it's on our "about" page. Furthermore, while the MRC built Eyeblast for the conservative movement and our goal is to spread the conservative message to the next generation, it is an open forum. Your suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous in light of the fact that I specifically told you about the battle in the comments over the video in question.

Your suggestion that YouTube is "neutral" also is off the mark. Yes, conservatives can post video at YouTube (just as liberals who want to engage in reasoned debate can upload to Eyeblast) ... but conservatives also are the only ones who get content yanked from YouTube for political reasons (sometimes under the guise of copyright law even when "fair use" is at play). Ask Michelle Malkin, the American Life League and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to name a few. YouTube reserved itself on the recent American Life League controversy invoving its criticism of Planned Parenthood, but the fact remains that those episodes always involve YouTube deleting the content of conservatives.

We built Eyeblast in part because of the liberal bias and favoritism at YouTube -- turning over its entire featured video section to environmentalists on Earth Day, for instance, without featuring any videos that raise questions about the environmental agenda. I don't necessarily think YouTube executives send orders from on high for the staff to promote liberalism, but the liberal slant at the site rears its ugly head fairly regularly.

Danny

techPresident - Hillary Clinton - Comments

Liberal logic

Obama Blog

design choice

fontPresident

Typography

See also - voteboth.com

The feedback won't be that different, but the outcome may be.

A chunk

Ron Paul

nader

Actually Hillary has sent emails asking people to travel...

Google hits vs. viral e-mail

Josh, You're better

Explain the views!

Josh, Here's what I wrote in