I spent some time this week at two New York events -- Advertising 2.0 and Internet Week -- where several panels were dedicated to the Internet's influence on the 2008 presidential election here in the U.S. of A.
Kicking off one of the panels, Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, noted that "voter-generated
content is the wild card in this election," as it is changing the way we discuss politics and influence one another.
But maybe the real thing to note is that VGC isn't only changing us; it is changing the candidates -- or will going forward.
YouTube has made it virtually impossible to sidestep a previously buried slip of the tongue or career-ending moment in the political campaign -- thus rendering several uncomfortable politico goofs as set in stone. Our ability to capture and spew every moment of candidate bloopers to an audience of billions will have to force the candidates and theirconstituents to think twice before saying -- or singing -- something stupid. This fundamental change in behavior, while critical now, is perhaps something that won't kick in until the 2012 candidates look back at what went wrong in
2008.
"If you
ever heard someone say the Internet never elected anybody, you should talk to George Allen,
because the Internet un-elected him," said Rasiej, referring to the
caught-on-vid moment where Allen referred to a young volunteer of
Indian descent as "macaca." Rasiej explained these career-slaughtering videos will only multiply in numbers, because most people are what he calls "viderate."
"Our entire population around the world is half viderate," Rasiej said
of those who know how to create and use video (we all just love a new buzzword,
don't we?). "The entire
generation coming onto mobile platforms is versed in creating
messages... There's an entirely new skillset appearing on the
landscape that is going to upend politics and communications of all
kinds."
That said, if they aren't careful, candidates will have to spend more time in 2008 recovering from the candid camera shots that creep up on the Internet as early grim reapers. "My guess
is they'll spend a lot of time responding to the 'gotcha' videos and defending
themselves to see if they can make some noise to combat the noise that's
already online," said Sarah Bernard, president of 236.com.
In addition to sidestepping the gotcha moments, or trying their damndest to avoid them, presidential candidates will find that the Internet and its folly aren't just awkward
bystanders in the race anymore -- and ignoring the tech-savvy and viderati, or what have you, can only hurt when ballot season rolls around.
Thus, the Mitt Romneys of the world, for example, will no longer be able to reject things like YouTube debates on account of being too good to be spoken to by a snowman.
"The YouTube
debate is about connecting with real people," said Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube Inc. "At the end of the day, that's something the campaign
can't really ignore in an Internet age."
Nor can We the People ignore such classics as this:
what worries me is that overexposure will result in the spread of "image fatigue". Some authors claimed that the amount of publicity does not necessarily equal with effective response. Bosnia provided the ultimate case in point. The path from seeing, knowing, and taking action is a long and difficult road.
The other point we need to consider is that the immediate characteristic of the visual imagery has the potential to energize people to act for a short-term change, but not to develop an organized effort for a long-term change.
well, in 2002, blogggers destroy senator Lott political career,who could doubt the political power of influence after that?And that was the time when video blogging and youtube and facebook didn't really exist.so considering the power of these "tools" now, if I were a politicain, I would be very very careful !
All good points, Paul. I also think the candidates need to hire the right people on their staff who know the importance of, and how to make the best use of, the Internet. It's pretty evident that Obama has people on his side who know the importance of sites like YouTube -- but the same isn't true for the right. I wonder if a tech-savvy staff and following will give candidates a significant advantage going forward?
Certainly there is no doubt that the internet has seriously alter the political landscape and for would-be politicians or those already in it, it is high time they come to grasp with this truth. Gone are the days when a slippery of the tongue will go unnotice and with a world wide audience in waiting to hear/see even the slightest of mishaps from politicos, the bar of honesty and integrity has been raise very high.
I beleive 21st century politicos will definitely have to re-brand themselves in the light of the advancement in information technology.I certainly don't see any politico succeeding now who dare to ignore the inconvenient truth that even an in-door chat with a close pal can end up on the internet!!! My fear though is for the so call "generation y' who are all over the internet with funny and crazy stuff. Will this come to hurt them in future? certainly yes and what we've seen thus far has thrown the gauntlet to future leaders to be very prudent in their actions!!
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Ahh, the holiday season is upon us: People have begun bargain hunting, department stores are donning premature decorations, turkeys are being shot to death, and email inboxes everywhere are being graced with season-appropriate promotional materials so absurd, one might think they were actually written by the clinically insane.
Considering President Obama went and took the Nobel Peace Prize this year (attention hog, much?), Internet Evolution had to settle for a nomination for the second best prize in the world: a MIN Editorial & Design award. And we're happy to say that we won. Big time.
NEW YORK -- Web 2.0 Expo -- Here at the Javits Center in New York City, several industry innovators have come out to take the stage at the Web 2.0 Expo. But some are having a hard time keeping the audience's attention. The culprit? What else? Twitter.
The debate over whether Google is fairly aggregating newspaper content online has been going on for a while, with Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. leading the discourse. Typically it's followed a consistent pattern: Murdoch complains about Google stealing its content to no real benefit to his company, someone suggests hiding the content from Google, and things get quiet on the News Corp. side of the room.
While Google introduces its new Chrome OS (which I'm hearing will be widely available in one year? Did I mishear that?), IBM announced 10 new products today to help companies using IBM System z mainframe technology.
Smarter Collaboration: How to Thrive in a Challenging Business Environment Market conditions are changing faster than ever, and organizations need to improve their agility and adaptability in order to provide better service and improve processes. The ability to work with customers, business partners, and employees as effectively as possible - while at the same time holding down costs - is a key to success. READ THIS eBOOK
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As enterprises leap into the Web 2.0 world of blogging, commenting, and social networking, just 'being there' won't deliver ROI. You may want a 'Web Evangelist' to systematically harvest the feedback in order to polish your product or service.
The problem with telepresence is that it's not universally accepted, because video calling isn't. While we can all do video calling, we also apparently worry too much about how we look. If we want HD telepresence in our future, we have to dress down, mess up our hair, and dive into our online life.
Evidence shows that you can tweet too much. Sites and services like Twitter and Facebook are a good place to reach your audience, but think quality over quantity.
A digital content market is emerging. Only two things are known about it: the first is that at some point the Internet will primarily become a paid network. The second known factor is that there are innumerable variables in the digital content market that have yet to be worked out. It’s not known, for example, exactly how users will pay for content (micropayments, subscriptions, bartering of farm animals, other).
Routesy is an iPhone application that uses the phone’s GPS to let the user know where and when the next train or bus is coming. The application’s developer, Steven Peterson, talks about why a mobile application makes sense, especially given that this transportation information is already available on the Web.
Bad news! By eliminating the world’s digital divide we’re likely to create a new divide: the information divide, where we end up creating a two-tier Internet where access to 'quality' content is controlled and charged for by mega-corporations, and the gulf between information haves and have-nots is entirely dependent on how much money they have. This is, of course, an almost exact inversion of the current situation on the Internet – where access is expensive and content is free.
Good news! The cost of Internet infrastructure, services, and access devices has been plummeting at an accelerating rate over the last 10 years and will approach a point in the next 20 years where these technologies become so fantastically cheap that ubiquitous, low-cost, high-speed networks, storage, and access devices will effectively eliminate the digital divide for most of the world's population.
The city of San Francisco is on the leading edge of using the Internet to provide government transparency. It is providing WiFi for its have-nots, and its DataSF.org initiative is putting the city's valuable data back in the hands of its citizens, with innovative results.
Industry initiatives and government stimulus funds are giving enterprise software vendors a great opportunity to help build out and manage smart grid technologies.
The problem with telepresence is that it's not universally accepted, because video calling isn't. While we can all do video calling, we also apparently worry too much about how we look. If we want HD telepresence in our future, we have to dress down, mess up our hair, and dive into our online life.
The US loses about $20 billion a year on pirated software, movies, and music. But public policy can help stem the tide of digital theft. For example, France has recently passed a 'three strikes and you’re out' law, whereby if after two warning letters an individual continues to download pirated software then his Internet access will be cut off. US policy makers should consider adopting similar policies.
Financial management planning does not need to include Voodoo economics, but it does help to tap into the knowledge base of your team through some sort of real-time system. We explore your options.
When Reiter gets incensed over incompetent Verizon FiOS order-taking and support, he broadcasts it via Twitter. Did it do any good? How should your company offer Twitter support? Watch this for all the answers.
The successor to the BlackBerry Bold 9000 – the Bold 9700 – will be available soon in the US. Is it worth upgrading? Reiter's got one, and offers advice.
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