techPresident - MyBarackObama.com - Comments

Of course, they ask for $$

shimanepdf — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:13:15 -0500

Couldn't resist. They end the survey with a call to contribute.

Kind of ruined it for me.

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Shaun Dakin – CEO & Founder
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
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Thanks for posting this!

Freedomfighter — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:40:52 -0400

Contrary to what people think, the Obama campaign is censoring postings and unsubscribing from their email lists, the negative commentators.

Local Politics

Justine Lam — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:58:08 -0400

Thanks for highlighting that article by Chuck Raasch. The next phase in politics and technology will be utilizing internet/mobile tools to bring back civic participation in our local communities wherever we live.

As former eCampaign Director for Ron Paul's presidential campaign, I learned how key it was for our supporters to be involved on the local level of politics and government. If we had a larger base of political support, we could have done better in primaries than we did otherwise. Our supporters would've understood the rules of the game in every state.

Local politics is the vision that our Republic was founded upon, local community control, individuals organizing to make decisions about their communities & their lives, not a strong centralized federal government in Washington, DC making our decisions.

Currently, I work at Politicker.com an online political news site which is dedicated to covering the very local to state level politics in all 50 states (we have 15 states thus far). Our journalists on-the-ground in each state cover the political news and our anonymous "Wally Edge" gives us insider coverage.

Hopefully, we can help to educate and inform a politically passionate citizenry to become more engaged with politics in their different localities -- which will then trickle up in the political system.

Justine Lam
Director of Online Marketing
http://www.politicker.com

power of a network

conservstudent — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:54:04 -0500

The power of a network will far surpass that of a simple email list... always. The thing you don't get with an email list is investment. With a social network, people will invest themselves in it, nobody cares about an email list.

The candidates don't even need to build a social network, they can just use existing ones. Social networks are the future.

***
http://republican.konnects.com

network building isn't that hard

Dan Ancona — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:50:52 -0500

You just have to invest in the right toolset up front. Obama did exactly that; I can't understand the conventional wisdom saying that Ron Paul is the only people-powered candidate this cycle. Obama's just the first people-powered candidate to have a network that's getting big enough that it's starting to maybe (BIG maybe actually) translate into actual votes. It's going to be an interesting 3 1/2 weeks.

Yes and #2...

gibson_stevens — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:33:25 -0500

The network is part of the story, but the conversation is another. Lists of people aren't enough. Homegrown networks aren't enough either. Candidates must engage in the conversation to cut through and grab attention. Think about what interaction / communication / persuasion is outside the reach of the campaign? Certainly more than what is inside...

More of my musings...

Yes, and

Micah L. Sifry — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:57:25 -0500

Colin--

Yes, it's big network and big list. Oh, and by the way, a strong message and a strong messenger.

I just don't see much in the way of Clinton's organizing network, other than the pre-Internet networks she and Bill have, plus the unions. Neither of which reach young people.

Micah

How many people are on Obama's list?

Colin Delany — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:51:24 -0500

Micah--

Without know how big Barack's email list is, drawing a conclusion this strong is suspect -- you can't separate out your variables. At worst, I bet he doesn't have many fewer list members than Hillary does, and if he has 500,000 donors (essentially all of whom end up on his list), he's likely to have MORE people on his email list than she does. If you have hard numbers about email subscribers from his campaign, I'd like to see them.

Basically, I think you're drawing a misleading distinction -- the best thing is to have both a big list AND a big network. It isn't network vs. top-down, it's network AND top-down -- just as a campaign has both grassroots activists AND television commercials. Without encouragement from the top (the people who provided the networking tools in the first place), it's hard for a candidate-support network to form and thrive (if it were easy, we'd have lot of Ron Paul/Howard Dean candidates running around, and we don't). For example, a good question to ask is how many started those blogs and those fundraising campaigns because they received an email encouraging them to do so.

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

All fair points, but

Micah L. Sifry — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:37:20 -0500

Luigi--

Yes, lists look easier to build than networks. But my point was to try to illustrate something about how the different approaches Clinton and Obama have taken to internet-based organizing are now playing out.

Micah

The graphic

Luigi Montanez — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:19:34 -0500

Oh also, I know Zephyr has a really good graphic similar to the one above, but this one shows that in a network, the center can be removed (the P), but communication is still possible among the C's.

To be fair to the Clinton campaign

Luigi Montanez — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:12:44 -0500

The Clinton campaign also has an Action Center, which has many of the same features as My.BarackObama.com.

I think it comes down to ROI. Building a network is much more resource intensive than building a list. Also, a list is a concrete asset with real value, that can be swapped or even (gasp!) sold. A network cannot.

Joining a network is a tougher "ask". Filling in your email address and zip code on a splash page is one thing. Filling in your name and providing a password to create an account is another. Joining a list is anonymous to everyone but the campaign, joining a network makes you findable to anyone else on the network.

Being a national Presidential campaign is a huge soapbox to have, something smaller campaigns and most advocacy orgs can't benefit from. I doubt most activists on My.BarackObama.com would join up to a similar network set up by a Senate campaign or a non-profit, even if they supported those causes just as much.