The Intersection of Online and Offline

At the request of my pal and blogger extraordinaire, David Wescott (wow - I’m not one line into this post and already I have used five French words - touche!) I wanted to offer some thoughts and open up a discussion thread for how the Obama administration may change “things.” I have put “things” in quotes because I want to keep the floor open for comments and ideas.  Since I get to go first, here’s my thinking:

Social media, social media, social media.

Am I clear?  Good.

Just last week, I did a Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable on “the First Internet Election,” and while we are several months away from getting hard numbers, one can draw a dotted line (in pencil) to social media and voter turnout.  Don’t put it in pen, yet because we don’t have any hard numbers yet. This morning’s Boston Globe reported that voter turnout was NOT at an all time high:

Turnout in last week’s election increased from four years ago but fell far short of some forecasts largely because many Republican voters either stayed home or left blank the presidential section of their ballots.”

So what will change?  Well, by now, we have all seen Change.gov, “..for the Office of the President-elect and Office of the Vice President-elect, as recognized by the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended (3 USC 102 note).  There’s a first and an indication that President-elect Obama will turn more to delivering information to an increasingly Internet-savvy populace via social media.  Cool.  But here’s what I wonder.  You can’t just go and register a political site (let alone build it) in a day, so someone was working on this puppy for a long time.  Within the government, because that is the only way that you can get a .gov domain.

Quick bipartisan note:  The Republicans have a site, too: Republican for a Reason.

Second,  the Wall Street Journal reported in November on how President-elect Obama made tremendous use of many social media tools during the election, including Twitter, Facebook and email and text alerts.  As someone who draws a paycheck from Uncle Sam, this is harder to do from within government, but I think that President-elect Obama at least grasps the concept that government can be more efficient by delivering information to the populace via social media tools.

Well, memes are supposed to be short, so I’ll stop here and leave it to other, smarter minds to continue to conversation.  So consider yourself tagged:

• David Wescott of “It’s Not a Lecture“
• Jenn Zingsheim of Custom Scoop
• Geoff Livingston of the “Buzz Bin”
• Cheryl Contee of “Jack and Jill Politics”

Start memming, folks.  And the one, super-smart guy who I left off of my list is my pal, Jason Falls, who last time I tagged him for a meme, wrote “My Hatred of the Memes is Overcome Only by my Liking the Memer.“  Lesson learned, Jason.  One bitch-slap is all I need to get the message.

C’est bon!

Mark

I have a love-hate relationship with politics, and I get jazzed about social media.  In the Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable I did last week, all of us predicted that we won’t have solid analysis for probably a few months in terms of the “youth vote” - what so many people are attributing to the rise of social media.

I have been watching the tea leaves a little, and thanks to Neville Hobson’s Tweet today, discovered that according to Valleywag, Obama’s Twitter account has gone silent since Election Day.  So before you guys start jumping all over me about transition, etc., don’t think for a minute that President-elect Obama was himself tweeting over a cup of joe (the plumber?) in the morning.  Valleywag says:

He didn’t even use Twitter to announce his transition website, change.gov — and what is Twitter for, really, if not spamming your friends with your latest URL? There’s no better sign that his 127,196 followers have been pumped and dumped.”

What I found equally interesting is that Newt Gingrich now has a Twitter account.  By all accounts in the use of social media, the political Left is WAY ahead of the political Right, but the next two years are going to be interesting.

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Mark

Like many other people who are my peeps, I start my day off with some online news, peruse a couple of blogs, check Twitter (my tweeps), and sometimes even jump over to Facebook.

But I think that I am going to opt out of social media for the next month or so.  For me, it’s pretty simple.

I am hatin’ the hatin’.

Believe me, I am a First Amendment guy.  Most of the free world does not enjoy the freedoms that we do (read: China) when it comes to expressing individual opinion, especially via a vehicle that is targeted for mass distribution, like blogs, Twitter or Facebook.  But for me, it’s depressing as hell to open up social media tools and see so much venom spewed regarding the upcoming elections.  Again, see above — I am a First Amendment guy — but I am so tired of reading what are supposed to be either pithy or downright mean-spirited comments from both sides of the political aisle.  It’s a depressing way to start the day.

For example?

• “If I was [sic] John McCain, I would have insisted that the debates not be shot in HD.”
• “All of the McCain-Palin signs have gone missing from my neighborhood. And I thought Obama transcended politics.”
• “My neighbor got a new McCain-Palin sign. In fact, now he has two. Take that Obama sign stealers.”
• “Example #4980 why Congress is broken: The bailout vote was technically on the “Paul Wellstone Mental Health & Addiction Equity Act of 2007.”
• “Is the economy fixed yet?”
• “Is there anything about McC that you find NOT hypocritical lately?”

All of these represent Tweets or status updates that I have seen in the last week - hence, my decision to try to Opt Out of Ugliness.  You see, I have lived and worked in the nation’s capital since 1987 and have never — ever– seen such venom on both sides of the political aisle.  I am pretty sure that it was always there, it is just that the social-media-Hyde-Park-Speaker’s-Corner-Soap-Boxes did not yet exist.

So for all of you out there who are exercising your constitutionally-given right to express your political views, have at it.

But I can’t believe that I would EVER quote him — but of all of people, Howard Stern often said “if you don’t like what you are hearing, turn the radio dial.”  So for a while, I am out of the ugliness.

Mark

Wrote an article for my pals at Media Bullseye today, questioning if the political conventions are any indications if social media will be game changing or just red meat for the right and the left.

And yes, I know I am going to get hate mail on this calling me either a right-wing fascist or a lefty commie pinko.  But here’s the article:

#RNC08 #DNC08 - Does it Really Matter?

This is the year. Everything changes. The Internet will make a difference in political races. I have blogged in the past that I do, indeed, think that the Internet will finally have the long-predicted impact on the presidential race this year, getting people to cross over from the online to the offline world and get off their duffs and meet up in the “first life.” Maybe.

I still need to be convinced, however, that the plethora of social media tools surrounding this year’s political conventions do anything except provide red meat for the people who really care anyway.

Text messaging

I am not on Obama’s text message list. I am not on anyone’s text message list, hopefully because it costs me ten cents every time someone sends me one (and thanks to my friends texting me from bars at all hours of the night). But to “walk the walk,” Obama announced some time ago that he was going to announce his choice for running mate FIRST via text message. This is a cool concept. It bet it got a lot of people signed up for Obama’s text list.

But, like other predictions that “the Internet is going to change everything!” The story broke before that Obama had chosen Joe Biden before he could send out his text message. Was this a real victory in convincing a whole heck of a lot of people to sign up for Obama’s text, to feel “in the loop?” Sure. Was it a great tactic to connect with younger voters (who have not shown up for the Dems in numbers that they would like in the last few elections) in a way that suits them? You bet your bippy (there goes that archaic comment from my last article again).

But was this “game changing?” No way. I live and work in Washington and have for more than 20 years and this place leaks like a sieve. If Obama thought that he would keep the secret before his announcement, he was naïve. If he and his advisers saw it as an opportunity to connect with potential voters is what will be a tight race, he was dead on.

Twitter

This has been the Twitter Week From Hell for me. I am fortunate enough to have friends on both sides of the political aisle (including far left and far right) and have seen WAY too many breathless posts directed to #dnc08 (for the Democratic convention and Obama supporters), #rnc08 (for the Republican convention and McCain supporters). Reading some of the Tweets, you would think that there were two different Obama acceptance speeches that took place on Thursday night. Here are a few of my favorite tweets (leaving them anonymous):

• “Just filed my last #dnc08 dispatch via Blackberry en route to the airport. What a night! I was lucky to be at Invesco.”
• “This is why McCain wanted to wait. Less than 12 hours after Obama’s speech, the cable networks are focused on the veepstakes. #rnc08″
• “Eight is enough! . #dnc08″
• “C-SPAN caller says Obama is a socialist. Says he didn’t spend his life fighting communism to watch America go down this path. #dnc08″
• “Drudge now showing picture of McCain and Lieberman. That would be cruel. #rnc08″

Let’s think about Twitter and the conventions right now. Most of the tweets for the Dems were coming from folks on the ground in Denver and were being read by people who are interested in the knowing what’s going on on the ground in Denver. Good for them.

Most of the #rn08 tweets were either slamming Obama’s speech or talking up McCain’s “Veepstakes.” Good for them too. (Ed. note: This article was written prior to McCain’s announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.)

My main point is for this to be the year in which the Internet does actually have an impact on the elections, it needs to be more than feeding red meat to your supporters. It’s great to have a bunch of echo chambers for each party as well as extra vehicles to rally supporters and increase voter turnout, but my political instincts tell me that what really matters is the middle - the people who have yet to decide in the states that are toss-ups. According to Real Clear Politics’ delegate count, there are 125 electoral votes up for grabs.

Are those people tweeting? Are those people texting? Maybe. But traditionally, most voters make up their minds in the last few weeks of the elections largely through a barrage of earned and paid media as well as presidential debates.

This year may be different, but I can’t wait to get my Twitter back and return to the serious business of who went out where last night and who forgot to feed their cat.

Mark

No comments

My Georgetown colleague, author and all-around good guy, Garrett Graff this week wrote a blog posting in the online version of Washingtonian magazine entitled “McCain and the Internet: Why It Matters.”  I respect the points put forth, but Garrett, you are wrong, wrong, wrong — and I am here to help you see the light.

I encourage everyone to read the article, but the point is basically that McCain doesn’t get the Internet, so it is a metaphor for his larger cluelessness, and it should “give us pause:”

The fact that John McCain hasn’t yet learned how to use the Internet himself puts him not just at odds with most of the rest of the nation but, in fact, with many people in his own age bracket. More than a third of Americans 65 and older use the Internet, according to the May 2008 numbers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Work by Forrester Research, which uses different age brackets, shows that more than a third of Americans over 55 regularly read blogs and online forums, watch videos, or listen to podcasts. This “Internet thing” isn’t some crazy person’s niche; it will be the driving force behind the next half-century of America’s economic growth. That John McCain isn’t part of that group of “wired seniors” should give us all pause coming into this fall.”

I love a good debate, so here goes.

1. There is,  without a doubt, a WIDE gap among online activists and enthusiasts in the Obama and McCain camps.  Before penning this (old school reference), I consulted a friend of mine who, for a while, worked in McCain’s online shop.  He basically confirmed what we can agree upon, and that is that Obama and the Dems do it better.  “McCain Space” was embarrassing.  But McCain, like any president before him, is going to leave the blogs and Twitter accounts up to other people. I doubt that Obama wakes up every morning and checks the Technorati ranking on his campaign Web site.
2. I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that the Internet is such as powerful force, that not even the dumbest of politicians can kill it.  The recent flap between the Dems and Repubs about “blocking” You Tube and Ted Stevens’ 2006 comment (presumably about “Net Neutrality”) -  “the Internet…is a series of tubes..” doesn’t scare me at all.  Not even Congress can kill this. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in Media Bullseye - Rubes, Tubes and Boobs.
3. Once whomever the new president is steps foot into the Oval Office, I doubt that he will have time to touch a computer.  The Internet is all about getting to the White House, but you can pretty much forget about it when you’re there.  Unless you are Al Gore.  And I concede, and wrote a couple of weeks ago, that this will be the first presidential race in which the online activism will truly cross over into offline.
4. To hell with online.  I want a president who is a Man With a Plan about the economy, the war on Islamic fundamentalists and other critical issues, not someone who is Tweeting with his pals.  I am fine that McCain is “clueless,” just so long as he gets the big issues.  Or Obama.  My point is that understanding the Internet does not crack my Top Ten List for what I care about in a presidential candidate.
5. To your larger point, “…what kind of president would he be in a world where just as much commerce travels over fiber optics as over interstate highways? What kind of president would he be in a world where, for the first time this year, there are now more users of the Internet in China than in the United States? What kind of president will he be in a world where the greatest force for Iranian democracy today is its thriving Persian blog community?” – you need to think past the Beltway.  Washington, DC is the most active social networking city in the nation.  I would bet that there are a lot of people who don’t care about the Internet (Columbia, SC, St. Louis and Chicago round out the bottom), but about other pressing issues as well.

My final point is about the line”…John McCain seems to have missed this [Internet] movement—an oversight that may have profound implications both for his campaign and the entire nation if he is to become president.”  Propeller-heads like us care.  A farmer in Nebraska probably doesn’t.

Campaign?  Yes.

Nation?  Hell, no.

Mark