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RSS"This was a decision I made, with the campaign's reluctant support, because my remaining the focus of sustained ideological attacks was inevitably making me a liability to the campaign, and making me increasingly uncomfortable with my and my family's level of exposure," she wrote on her personal blog, Shakespeare's Sister.
Her former colleague, blogger Amanda Marcotte, resigned Monday in the face of pressure from Catholic League president Bill Donohue.
The whole debacle seems to indicate that politicos like Edwards haven't quite figured out how to use online media in their campaigns. Yes, Edwards and other candidates have released videos on YouTube, bought ads on blogs, and have otherwise tried to garner support via the Internet. But whether they have a sophisticated enough understanding of the Web to use it to garner voters remains in doubt.
Consider, Hillary Clinton misfired with a blog ads buy a few weeks ago. She angered several voices in the blogosphere by purchasing ads on conservative blogs, like Powerline, HughHewitt.com, Wizbang.com, and Captain's Quarters. Then, after determining that the ad buy was a mistake, her campaign asked to pull the ads while continuing to pay for the space; in other words, she paid the blogs to not run ads for her.
Additionally, the candidates don't appear to be using paid search. Political consultant Michael Bassik writes on the new blog TechPresident.com that only five of 17 candidates currently are buying search ads on Yahoo and Google.
While a few candidates -- like Howard Dean or Ned Lamont -- have in the past been able to raise funds or awareness online, the current crop of presidential candidates so far aren't showing much Internet savvy.
RSS FEEDS
I think a lot of the continuing political controversy over the Internet is just the latest example of continuing political controversy that arises when a new medium arrives. Go back and read about the New New Thing when it was TV, then before that, radio. The first few years were filled with howling, then things settled down into a routine. We're dealing with extremely basic principles when we talk about politics, so it is easy to offend when change arises. Once the Internet becomes a mature medium that is fully integrated into our society, these issues won't be issues anymore.
I'd think that a smart political operative would go back and read a little early history on TV and radio to find the hotspots and go from there. Unless of course the Internet is really, truly, and ultimately a special case that is Like Nothing That Has Gone On Before.
Right.
Then again, a savvy marketer will come along, find the value, pick up the pieces and the politicians will try their hand at it once again...
D.Cross - Spirited Maverick Media Co. LLC
justin@blogads.com
The Clinton campaign advertised on a broad spectrum of blogs: liberal, feminist, local... as well as a few conservative blogs. She was using the ads to promote her video webcast. She took questions online, and answered them online over the course of three days. Because of the way that we sell blogads, the "minimum" advertising period is one week. Thus, after the webcast had run and the ads were no longer relevant, we expired them from the conservative blogs.
justin@blogads.com
My simple net out on this stuff is that it is about two things: bread crumbs and conversations.
Bread crumbs are the content, usually in some "sound bite" sized form that lead the consumer back to other content, usually in longer form, or call to actions, like DONATE.
By contrast, conversations build buzz and connect like minds with one another, extending the reach of the effort. Conversations are the king in new media models.
Just as Kennedy beat Nixon back in the 60s because he was primed for the medium of television and looked good on TV, changing the relationship between media and elections, one of these days a candidate is gonna nail it, and re-write the playbook again.
Regards,
Mark Sigal vSocial: Say it with Video www.vsocial.com