Filed under: 2008 Elections, Google, Google Applications, Google Apps, Google Reader, Political Blogs, Political Strategy, presidential election

Google’s come up with a great idea.  They’ve apparently reached out to several leading political journalists and bloggers to include their shared Google reader feeds on political stories for “Power Readers in Politics”, a service that people can catch what some of their favorite political prognosticators are following.

The service includes the Readers from the McCain and the Obama campaigns.  But what I like about it best is that they don’t go after the same standard DC media crowd (that’s if they even know what Google Reader is).  Instead, they’ve turned to guys like Patrick Ruffini, one of the founders of The Next Right.

After a while, I’ve gotten sick of the same old go to folks that are nothing more than fallback personalities because assignment editors or producers haven’t bothered to take the time to learn about anyone new.  This changes that.

Check it out.

No Comments » Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: 2008 Elections, Blog Messaging, Blog of Personality, Blogger Influence, Blogging, Blogging Policies, Blogosphere, Blowback, Cult of Personality, Political Blogs

Throughout this past week, I’ve been thinking much about how America was founded. There’s plenty of articles written lately on patriotism, on liberty. From Time Magazine’s cover piece to essays on Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.

If you read the great documents such as the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers, you get a sense that these men were perhaps America’s real “Greatest Generation”. They not only understood the beauty of the philosophies of Locke and Voltaire and Rousseau, but were able to translate them into action, establishing a new nation based upon freedom and liberty.

They were also amongst the most elite of their time. The wealthiest, the most educated, the most “connected”.

A study put out this week by George Washington University’s Henry Farrell, John Sides, and Eric Lawrence bring out to the surface an issue that I think is problematic for American politics and culture: the polarization of the political blogosphere. This had become more evident over the past few years as the country’s political dialogue has grown ever more coarse.

The study finds that those that participate in the political blogosphere are more likely to be further to the right or further to the left, more rigid in their beliefs, less likely to engage in discussions across political ideologies and (as I have personally discovered in my own involvement on blogs) less tolerant opposing views.

I find this troublesome because their study also shows that those whose views are more tolerant, less rigid, and less idealogical are less likely to be politically involved as those who take an active participation in the blogosphere. That’s not good. Here’s why…

Read more…

1 Comment » Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: 2008 Elections, Abraham Harrison LLC, Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Election Strategy, Facebook, Google, Google AdSense, Google AdWords, Online Strategy, Political Blogs, Political Strategy, Yahoo!

I’ve blogged about this before.

The internet can be, in my strongly held opinion, a very effective marketing vehicle for persuasive outreach. Most political media consultants don’t believe this or understand this or want to believe or understand this. Many of them get their consulting fees by putting together television and/or radio commercials and buying media time. They view the internet as a fundraising and grassroots organizing medium.

WebGuild has come up with some telling numbers. So far, in 2008:

Barack Obama has spent $1,000,000 on Google ads.
Hillary Clinton has spent $67,000.

Obama spent $99,341 on Yahoo Web Ads.
Clinton has spent $9,186.

Obama spent $58,000 on Yahoo search ads.
Clinton $0.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zippo.

Obama spent $4,900 on Facebook advertising.
Clinton $0.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zippo.Oh, and on Twitter (this one’s on me):

Barack Obama has 24,188 followers. Barack Obama is following 24, 258 people.
Hillary Clinton has 3078 followers. Hillary Clinton is following 0 people.

WebGuild then goes on to point out that the Clinton didn’t pay internet related firms a penny for February ‘08.  Don’t know if that’s because they didn’t have any scheduled payments or they just didn’t fork over any payments period.  IN that same time , the Obama campaign paid internet consultants $93, 162.

But wait!  Her campaign ended up paying her ad consultants $997,000 and her media consultants $2,540,000.

Joe Trippi is right.  Hillary Clinton’s campaign is the last campaign of the 20th century.  Hopefully.

No Comments » Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: 2008 Elections, A-List Bloggers, Abraham Harrison LLC, Activating Bloggers, Blog Messaging, Blog Strategy, Blogads Advertising, Blogger Activation, Blogger Effect, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogosphere, Blowback, Election Strategy, Online Polling, Online Strategy, Political Blogs, Political Strategy, Polling Data, Popular Culture

I don’t understand how certain story submissions pass the smell test.

In a release yesterday, Reuters reports, in an article written by Ellen Wulfhorst, that “Most Americans Don’t Read Political Blogs”. No shit. There is so much wrong with this article that I barely know where to start.

The story was based on a poll by Harris Interactive that found “Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly, meaning several times a month or more, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive.”

First of all, it attempts to frame the story right in headline. I think most people, or perhaps more importantly, most online political types would not be surprised of the fact that most adults don’t read political blogs. I don’t know of one legitimate consultant who has said otherwise.

It then says “only” 22 percent of American adults regularly political blogs - meaning several times per month. I don’t know why the word “only” is used. It creates bias, making the number appear to be paltry.

You then have to go the second page of the article to find that this was strictly an online poll. That means the whole spin of the poll is skewed. It’s not about “most adult Americans”, it’s “most online adult Americans”…making that 22% actually SMALLER. And an online poll is self-selected, which skews it even further. In what direction is anybody’s guess.

But if we stick with what we’ve got - that 22% of online adults who responded to this poll regularly read political blogs, we’re looking at an impressive figure. More than 1 in 5 of these Americans get at least part of their political information from blogs. Blogs that are conversational. Blogs that are opinionated. Nothing to sneeze at.

No Comments » Posted on March 12th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: 2008 Elections, Cult of Personality, Election Strategy, Political Blogs, Political Strategy, Polling Data, Polling Strategy, Popular Culture, YouTube, YouTube Marketing, Youth Market

techPresident’s got a potentially telling compilation of stats regarding overall internet activity involving John McCain’s candidacy. In short, it doesn’t bode well for the Republican frontrunner. These stats were taken before the ridiculous NYTimes story that caused an uproar.Candidate Website Traffic

Presumably, website visits show the level of interest that people have in learning more about a candidate, their background, and their stances on issues. I’d say a candidate’s site serves as the anchor of the entire online operation. Hitwise tallied the total number of visits to the three remaining GOP candidates - McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul - and divided them up percentage wise. Here’s what they got:

Huckabee 50%
McCain 26%
Paul 25%

Now let’s take a look at the how all the candidates of both parties stack up against one another:

Barack Obama 44%
Hillary Clinton 26%
Mike Huckabee 16%
Ron Paul 8%
John McCain 8%
Mike Gravel 1%

McCain has gotten half of what his now leading primary opponent is getting. He’s getting less that one-third of what Hillary Clinton is getting. And Barack Obama, his likely opponent in the general election, is getting over 500% more visits.

Read more…

2 Comments » Posted on February 25th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

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