techPresident - voter-generated content - Comments

Hello from London

Rob Blackie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:53:49 -0400

As a long time reader of TechPresident it would be good to catch up with you guys at the conference - I'll be one of the blokes with spiky hair. In the corporate world this normally puts me in a group of one - I suspect that at an internet conference it will make me part of a slightly larger group!

All the best,

Rob.

Voter Generated Content

Chris L — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:57:37 -0500

Thanks for the info on Voter Vision. You are right about campaigns harnessing voter creativity (I would add: with no cost) while maintaining some control. We're witnessing the emergence of large-scale, user-generated, unofficial yet sanctioned campaign promotions.

I think there's another benefit here for the campaigns. By getting involved in the user-generated process they (at least Obama) are creating a feedback loop for themselves. The more interactive their online campaigns become, the more feedback they get. They can learn a lot from user-generated content about their points which are hitting home and the ones that aren't. The more they encourage, the more input they'll get and the more they'll be able to learn about their voters desires. It's like free polling.

Voter-Generated Content Already Being Tapped

sarahw222 — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:14:42 -0500

Actually, the idea of officially utilizing voter-generated content is already in use by a new online program called Voter Vision (http://votervision.us). Every campaign that uses Voter Vision gets a public Web 2.0 site that supporters can use to create their own multimedia messages to send out. They just register as a supporter, upload their own videos, mp3 files, and documents (or choose from prestocked file libraries) to create their own messages. The campaign decides whether or not to officially sanction the message by approving the uploaded components before they can actually be emailed out to anyone. It is just this sort of program that fosters useful voter-generated collaborations like the "Yes We Can" video. Campaigns can tap into voter creativity while maintaining a modicum of control over the image projected on the web - thereby creating that interesting new "kinda official" status.