Campaign? What campaign?

Just catching up on news feeds and came across a great post by Seth Godin about the “Nearly infinite” options online.

“…infinite is everywhere.

“There’s an infinite number of books at Barnes and Noble…

“There’s certainly, for all intents and purposes, an infinite number of web pages. And even Facebook, just a small subset of the web, has an infinite number of friends for you to make.”

This is a trend we’ve talked about before, and the answers aren’t easy. As the blogosphere began to take off prior to the 2004 election, becoming a promintent blogger was pretty straightforward - blog a lot, build an audience, and contribute to the conversation. Today, Technorati tracks over 112.8 million blogs, a literal infinity to anyone who might attempt to read them all.

So with the established trend of nearly infinite material online, there are two ways to try to find what you want. Seth Godin discusses the pros and cons of the first, which is search:

“Search makes the infinite finite (at least for a while). With search, we turn the infinite selection on Amazon into a nearly manageable finite selection. Except search (no matter where you look) is pretty lame, and it doesn’t really turn infinite collections into manageable choices.”

The other trend is aggregation. Large communities have formed around blogs that have taken the best of what they read and then put up links to their favorite slice of the blogosphere. For a reader daunted by the infinite options to read, such aggregator serves a very important role.

For a blogger, authority (and traffic) can come through the simple act of directing readers to other blogs. By taking on this function, the aggregator becomes a hub of traffic and influence. Once other bloggers begin to see traffic spikes from a noteworth link from the aggregator, they might begin to write for the aggregator.

This concept is not new. It’s the same concept as a magazine’s “Best of” issue or a summer reading list. It’s why we watch award shows. By going to that one place, we get to see what we want, as chosen by someone whom we respect.

But aggregation suffers from the same problem as the original content itself. If there is nearly an infinite number of blogs out there, mathmatically, there also could be a nearly infinite number of aggregators. In the face of this possibility, it seems then that the online properties best poised to capture this trend of aggregation are the very properties who have taken a leadership role in the current blogosphere. Only if they fail to adapt to this new trend of user-generated content will they be able to keep their leadership. The one exception I would make here are old media newspapers going online. If these papers would be willing to add links to their favorite blog posts alongside their own articles (beyond the current “who links here” footnote), their traffic would increase dramatically. People who get their news online read blogs, and if newspapers refuse to link to blogs via their own websites, they are missing a huge opportunity for eyeballs and ad revenue.

For the political campaign, capitalizing on this trend isn’t hard. Hillary Clinton’s campaign did it with their Hillary Hub. By aggregating all of the stories about their candidate — at least the positive ones — the Clinton campaign made their site a de facto source for information. Campaigns will often resist putting information online because they believe it provides “opposition research” to their opponents. I have news for you — your oppenents already have all the research they need. Instead, there are two audiences a Hillary Hub attracts: supporters and undecideds. And who doesn’t want to reach them?

So as talk of Web 3.0 builds, and the search mechanisms that will accompany it, aggregation needs to be a key part of the conversation as an evolving trend in online communications.

Who offers the best political campaign coverage? Which networks and anchors bring us the in-depth news and interviews to give political junkies an angle on the inside workings of their candidate, or their opponents? Some would argue CNN or Fox. Others would clamour for ABC or NBC. Few, obviously, would make a pitch for Katie Couric.

But The Fix, a Washington Post blog written by longtime DC reporter Chris Cillizza (which is itself an addicting read), recently discussed the difference in two of the most powerful political news programs on television: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colber Report with Stephen Colbert.

“Forget the ongoing primary fight between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.). The primary that really matters is the one between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for the hearts, minds and, yes, even the eyeballs of America…

“So, who’s better? A new poll conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics gives us some answers about how the young set — ages 18-24 — come down on that very question…

“Stewart led the way as the preference of 30 percent of those tested while Colbert checked in at 26 percent. Roughly three in ten chose neither while a shocking 16 percent said they had never heard of Colbert and Stewart. Who are these people?”

Read the full post here.

(Cross-posted at PolicyMedia.com)

If you need advanced notice that the internet’s importance will continue to grow in campaigning, here it is. AdAge, the well-known magazine that reports analysis of marketing and media, completed a study that found the internet has passed TV as an information source for voters under 30.

While many political strategists dismiss youth vote trends, due in large part to their historically low turnout, those young voters will carry the internet with them over the years. Not only that, but as with other studies on Internet usage, the Web moves quickly across age brackets.

For instance, AdAge reports that 26% of all voters — regardless of age — have viewed a political candidate’s profile on a social networking site. This is an indication that the trend is already expanding beyond the 30 and under crowd. The need for a strong web presence may be a lesson that becomes more clear in coming election cycles.

Seth Godin inspires my upmost respect as a marketing thinker. So it’s been interesting to watch him turn his attention to politics lately. But when he tried to refute legendary former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, I had to take another look.

In a recent post about an intensive online grassroots lobbying effort in Canada, Godin included this line: “Because as readership grows and issues start attracting loyal readers, what this proves is that Tip O’Neill was wrong. All politics isn’t local. All politics is about permission.”

While that may be a complementary statement to O’Neill’s timeless observation, it certainly doens’t refute the former Speaker.

Online political activism has not replaced local politics, but merely redefined what is local. On Facebook, you can have friends all over the world, but you can reach them quickly through one message, wall post, or group invite. Likewise, you can walk across the street and ask your neighbor to sign a petition or discuss your favorite candidates with a fellow church-goer.

Both sets of friends are your “local.”

O’Neill’s lasting legacy is the recognition that we learn, communicate, and act in a political context with that which is familiar. Godin’s attempt to replace this veritable law of political activism with the new media jargon of “permission” is inaccurate.

Do we give permission to candidates to communicate with us the minute we turn on our TV in the instance we might see a political ad? Except for a very few political junkies most people do not turn on their TV to watch political or any other sorts of ads. They tune in to watch the programs which those ads support.

Reading a blog or joining a Facebook group carries that same sort of coincidental permission. I’m on Facebook, and I’m friends with Jim. So when Jim sends me a Causes invite, I’m likely to join even if I don’t necessarily care about the Cause. Jim may also knock on my door and ask me to sign a petition or donate to his favorite candidate. I am influenced by Jim not because I gave him permission but because he is part of my “local.”

And a word of caution to those who think online activism is the new political silver bullet: just ask former presidential candidate Howard Dean how he fared in Iowa without a traditional, local ground game. It was a disaster.

So while Mr. Godin may think he sees “the new politics” the reality is that new technologies have not altered the fundamental way we react to political influencers, even if they have exploded the potential size of our sphere of influence. I hope that as he continues to look at politics through his marketing lens, he’ll try harder to bring the same thoughtful, eye-opening ideas to this industry as he has to so many others.

The Washington Post today has an article on the impact of the Internet on the 2008 presidential campaign. In short: for good and bad, it is having a huge impact.

In many ways, the Web is more effective than television advertising and direct mail, the traditional methods campaigns and independent groups have used to try to define their opponents, political analysts say. It’s cheaper, and it spreads information more quickly. But so far, anyway, its potential for affecting a presidential campaign is relatively untested.

At Flat Creek, we recognize that the Web isn’t the only tool that should be used by a campaign, but it is a powerful tool that should be given more respect. With numbers like the ones we pointed to yesterday, we have to ask a simple question - are you paying attention?

National Journal has a great article today about a new process for drafting legislation:

“The standard method for writing a bill would have had [Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.] and his aides calling in consumer groups, telecommunications lobbyists, and technology experts to hash out the details. Instead, Durbin reached out to the editors of two online political blogs so that he could hear directly from their readers.”

While the article (found here) is an interesting anecdote about the impact of the Internet on Capitol Hill, there are several deeper questions that come to mind from my perspective as a digital PR practitioner. How did Durbin and his staff decide which blogs to reach out to? Who was posting comments to his posts? Did any organizations with a stake in rural broadband access get wind of his efforts and e-mail their supporters to get involved with the conversation?

If Members of Congress are reaching out to Internet users directly, how is your organization positioned to have a prominent voice in the virtual policy debates of the future?

There are several options, most of which begin with active monitoring of the blogosphere and having the ability to mobilize supporters quickly. Contact us and we can talk more about positioning your clients, organization, or message in order to be a part of the online legislative process.

We have so many political clients, that I couldn’t help but post this rather unusual tidbit.

Politics may not take a brain surgeon, but analyzing why people are conservative or liberal takes neuroscience.

According to a study released Sunday that actually compared the brainwaves of conservatives and liberals, “Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.”

The study goes on to suggest that:

“Whether that is good or bad, of course, depends on one’s perspective: one could interpret the results to mean that liberals are nimble-minded and conservatives rigid and stubborn.

“Or one could, with equal justice, conclude that wishy-washy liberals don’t stick to their guns, while conservatives and steadfast and loyal.”

This is last minute notice, but I’ve been asked by M.E. Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News to join an online panel of debate analysts tonight for the Fox News presidential campaign. You can join in the fun here.

The RNC is getting into the interactive game trend, which is really smart on their part. See how well you know the Democratic candidates!

http://www.gop.com/ShowOfHands