The Decline of the PC Market and its Impact on Communication: Microblogging to the Fore?

If one feels homesick for the future Japan seems the country of choice. Now you can witness a trend that might be an indicator of how our way of communicating is going to change. As Newsvine reports the PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles and digital video recorders with terabytes of memory. Writes Newsvine:

Japan's PC market is already shrinking, leading analysts to wonder whether Japan will become the first major market to see a decline in personal computer use some 25 years after it revolutionized household electronics — and whether this could be the picture of things to come in other countries.

One of the reasons for the decline of the PC market is the increasing popularity of sophisticated mobile devices such as cell phones. According to a study conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs more than 50 percent of Japanese send e-mail and browse the Internet from their mobile phones. The increased use of cell phones to access the internet obviously affects the websites itself. From the Newsvine piece:

The fastest growing social networking site here, Mobagay Town, is designed exclusively for cell phones. Other networking sites like mixi, Facebook and MySpace can all be accessed and updated from handsets, as can the video-sharing site YouTube.

If this really is the picture of things to come of course one has to ask how this affects blogging and its use for political campaigns. Content will have to comply to the nature of cell-phones with small screens and users used to short messages due to the lack of a keyboard. Consequently this makes a rise of microblogging likely. Already used by John Edwards and Barack Obama to inform their followers what they are up to at pretty much any given time and post quick event updates it also, as Asbjørn Sørensen Poulsen points out, "does seem to give the debate an edge when you are forced to express yourself in 140 characters".

While microblogging seems certainly seems a good way of keeping one's devotees up to date and very quickly reacting to new developments I think it might be problematic in the way that it adds to a shallowness of the process. It's not really based on exchange. To be forced to express oneself in 140 characters also comprises the danger of reducing politics to even emptier slogans and phrases, simplifying a complicated world.

As a complementary communication tool, microblogging certainly seems like a good idea. Tanding by itself though there are issues and challenges that need to be addressed if we really are following Japan in our communication habits.

(If that's ever going happen. As Parker reminded me by sending me this link to Deep Jive Interests the whole wireless-infrastructure of Japan is way more sophisticated than in North America or Europe and there's no sign – or demand for that matter – that this is going to change anytime soon. At least the "tremendous heritage in other technologies such as console gaming" is gaining foothold with consoles having overtaken PCs as the favorite gaming platforms).

-Jens

The Rise and Fall of The Wiki Empire

Is Wikipedia just about done? My answer for you is no, despite what the statistical decline might lead you to believe.

For years, it seems that the online repository of information has had exponential growth. Now that this has slowed, people are starting to wonder why. I think that it is fairly obvious that those growth rates wouldn't continue, because there is only so much information in the world. A great deal of what people were interested in learning about and teaching others about has already been added to the site.  As has been shown, the site is reliable enough and probably has more content than any other reference site out there (besides the internet at large).  I think that the site will continue to be popular, and will be updated and maintained as necessary. This decline in growth is not, as a commenter on TechCrunch thinks (second comment after the post), a sign of the end of Web 2.0.

For me, the site will continue to be useful. While preparing for a recent presentation that I gave on RSS Feeds, I discovered that it is possible to subscribe to a Wiki page via RSS. This will let you know anytime updates are made to a particular page, and can be particularly useful for companies or people wanting to monitor what is being said about themselves or their products and services. To access this feature, click on the History tab in a Wiki page, and then in the toolbox on the right hand side there will be a link to the RSS feed.

During that same presentation, I asked the audience (about 40 people) if any of them used Wikipedia. Every single person raised their hand.

This made me think: With all this talk about Wikis, how many people actually use a wiki besides Wikipedia? I use one at work, and find it to be quite helpful for all of the obvious reasons (document collaboration, etc). But none of my friends use them at their jobs, and I haven't heard a lot of stories about the use of wikis catching on anywhere else.

-Parker

Blatchford Bitchslaps Blogs

In the recent weekend edition of the Globe and Mail, columnist Christie Blatchford had a few nasty things to say about blogs and the people who write them (subscription required*). I'd like to quote directly from her article, but it seems that I've forgotten that section at the restaurant I was at this morning. Her main point was that bloggers, like many writers, are in need of an editor. I certainly agree with this, especially because my own duties at BlogCampaigning involve editing posts by Jens and Espen, and I know that my own posts would certainly benefit from some editorial advice (if you've got any, give it freely in the comments). However, I feel that she was unnecessarily harsh and dismissive of blogs and their contents. After telling us that not everyone is cut out to be a writer (placing herself on a pedestal), she says that someone taking up blogging is akin to her taking up surgery or engineering without any training.

This is where I disagree. Blogging is the training. Learning to write publicly is part of the process of becoming a writer. The end result is that some blogs are written by people whose talents far exceed those of anyone working at the Globe and Mail. Had Christie done a few minutes worth of research, she would have quickly discovered one.

-Parker

*On a side note, I'm pretty pissed of that I can't view the full article on the Globe and Mail site. I paid for a copy of the paper, so why can't I also view the same content, at essentially no cost to the Globe and Mail, freely online? Jens pointed me to the website http://whybugme.com that sometimes works for getting around things like this.

Between Paranoia and Discrimination: Racism in Videogames

Via Gamepolitics I came across this piece on the liberal website Alternet. It seems that not only is the upcoming Resident Evil 5 is causing controversy due to being set in some Haitian village where the player has to gun down hordes of black zombies, but now also the almost three year old predecessor is stirring politically correct minds. Writing about the latest movie installment of the game – Resident Evil: Extinction – author Roberto Lovato explains:

As they pack into theaters to watch the blockbuster Resident Evil: Extinction this weekend, moviegoers may first want to play one of the many blockbuster video games on which the film is based. Those that do will likely enter a world… increasingly populated with very dangerous depictions of non-whites.

…last year’s smash-hit Resident Evil 4… places players in the position of fighting parasitically-controlled Spaniards (called “Los Ganados” or “the cattle”) with stereotypical Mexican accents…

And, in what looks like it could be a training video for a white supremacist race war… players of the soon-to-be-released Resident Evil 5 video game are placed in what could be an African country or Haiti as they blow up armies of black zombies.

Where to begin? With the fact that the game was developed in Asia (minorities suppressing minorities – how postmodern!)? That the majority of enemies of the entire franchise are actually white? Etc Etc. Stuff like this is the reason why San Francisco one day will disappear up its own asshole.

On the other hand one shouldn't trifle with the study Lovato cites. While being the only one of this kind, which just shows the inadequate data situation, it nevertheless reveals some interesting facts:

– More than half (56%) of all human characters in this study were white – Nearly every video game hero was white (87%)
– 83% of African American males were cast as competitors in sports-oriented games while most African American females were non-action characters – African American characters were least likely to have realistic responses to violence, only a fraction (15%) exhibited both pain and physical harm – African American characters used the most verbal aggression, screaming, ridicule and insults – In sports games African Americans were most likely to display aggressive behaviours. Nearly eight out of ten African Americans competitors engaged in physical and verbal aggression. African American competitors were the only racial group to use verbal aggression on the field (Glaubke et al., 2001: 25-26).

While stereotypical representation might be problematic I think that messages conveyed via game rules are more troublesome. Think of GTA San Andreas for example. C.J. is at no point forced to engage in a life of crime, but he might as well become a taxi driver to satisfy his everyday needs in forms of food or undertake other adventures such as firefighting, exploring the city by riding his bicycle or just working out at the beach. Though if the player wants to enjoy all the features of the game and explore every bit of its vast landscapes, there‘s no alternative to the mission structure of the overarching plot, seeing the rise of C.J. and his gang through violent means in an environment that doesn‘t offer any alternative to a criminal biography and seems like the fantasy of a white suburban middleclass, where underprivileged blacks lead a far more exciting life due to their “high-risk social status as endangered species“ (Perry).

But then again the GTA-series is also a good example of postmodern enlightenment. Even though it doesn't have any immediate goal or agenda it still shows the individual his place in a totalitarian world. There's always a critical attitude shining through and everything is held together by an anti-authoritarian streak – kind of like the popular, critical social science the Simpsons were committed to before Homer became some sort of crash test dummy.

Also every videogame, or every game for that matter, involves some sort of artificial conflict. Without it there wouldn't be a game and CJ has to necessarily engage in it. If he rose through the ranks of society respectively to the end of the "game" without any sort of (exciting) conflict we would have the world's most boring "entertainment" product at our hands.

So: If minorities are the protagonists of a game the nature of a game itself can easily lend itself to racism (through an artificial conflict and the rules to solve it which is supposed to make an entertaining product), if they're not their representations might be labelled racist (just by the fact that they are depicted as victims) and if they're not in the game at all it's also racist since the composition of society isn't reflected and certain discourses are left out.

Of course they're still more nuances to this problem, e.g. black sport stars swearing more in games etc. which just shows the complexity of the issue. Whatever possible solutions look like it would be desirable to see more diversity in games in the future and more minorities involved in the production of games – which lean themselves trough their simulation nature towards enlightenment about social issues and suppression.

On The Life and Times of Young Social Media

Chris Clarke has been under a bit of fire lately for a less-than-inflammatory post about the recent breakup of Joseph Jaffe's Crayon. In recent post on PR Works, David Jones wonders if

"younger bloggers in the PR and Marketing space (are) doing themselves and their reputations harm by taking their 1-3 years of experience in the working world, running it through their "everyone’s entitled to their opinion" filter, and writing about things on their blogs they can’t possibly have developed the sophistication of thought to opine on credibly."

Reflecting on that and the whole brouhaha surrounding Chris' post about Crayon and I'm reminded about a few posts I wrote a few weeks ago that were fairly critical of both Shel Holtz and MyRagan.

Everyone will make mistakes along the way. I could have certainly been more tactful about my choice of wording, and Chris Clarke has also reconsidered his original words (while providing some excellent advice).

However, I'm slightly disappointed at the suggestion that young folk like us shouldn't speak up at all. While we might overstep our boundaries as we learn along the way, I like to think that we are also able to provide a unique perspective that is otherwise lacking amongst those with years of agency and blogging experience. I feel similarly about those new to blogging and social media. While their etiquette might not be up to standards, the ability to provide an outsider (or youthful) point of view is valuable enough to warrant their inclusion in the conversation. As David Jones writes, I too worry "that this space can be a little too self-congratulatory/back-slapping/up-with-people Utopia where everyone’s a winner."

For more on this, Paull Young has an interesting post rounding up some of the links discussing these issues.

Cheers,

-Parker

Going To War

Well, Buzz Canuck has drawn the battle lines in the sand. The cybersand of the interwebs, that is. We here at BlogCampaigning look forward to competing against the unlinkable Brendan Hodgson and Phillip Jeffrey.

Darren Barefoot, not so much. I'm pretty sure I'd have a way better chance in this tournament if he hadn't gotten me hooked on this game.

Damn you, Darren.

-Parker

Trolls, John Howard and the Over-Manipulation of Reality

I wanted to write about this for ages but packing my stuff, filling out fascist custom forms and trying to read every book I can get a hold on before I leave Australia next week kept me quite busy.The article Espen points out, It's not the blogs I hate, it's their fans, reminded me of a piece I read on the Age website the other day: Cyberspace: It's the new toilet wall. What both pieces eventually come down to is the issue of trolling: a problem that persists since my German forefathers used their steam powered internets to order the weekly sausage supply. A claim isn't necessarily false if it get's repeated on a regular basis for decades and indeed trolling is a problem – without mutual respect there's no debate – but what makes the Age's piece interesting is linking the seedy orcus of the net with John Howard's Youtube speech on global warming. As Andrew Campbell, a psychologist at the University of Sydney points out in the Age piece:

"Whoever advised the Prime Minister to do it was probably ill-informed on the sort of responses he'd get. I don't think … whoever put that video together realised that forum is extraordinarily public and uncensored.. I think politically it was a huge mistake. Especially at this stage, in the lead-up to an election, this is not the medium you use for the first time without knowing the consequences and the demographic."

On the one hand John Howard's image is quite a conservative one, so maybe his advisors thought that by using the technology of the day he could appeal to a younger demographic who just knew him as the dude with the eyebrows. Fair enough. But then again: John Howard rightfully earned the image of a conservative, especially when it comes to the cause of advancing technology. It was his government after all that didn't do anything about the catastrophic broadband conditions. Also the troubles the Liberals had in utilizing Myspace are representative for the incoherent handling of these platforms (e.g. the Youtube video didn't appear on Howard's Myspace profile). All this would probably have worked better if Howard showed his affection for new forms of communications (new for him anyways) by starting his own blog. Through careful moderation he could have set the standards for conversations; it would have offered him a platform in which he could have embedded his Youtube videos which then could have been debated in a calmer tone. Or his campaigners could at least have employed some supporters to counter the nasty attacks (albeit in a subtle manner; letting people sign up a day before his video appeared without having posted a video or at least some comments elsewhere would probably have caused too much suspicion) – although another, bigger problem might lie in here. As “the doctor of spin” Steve Stockwell points out in his book “Political Campaign Strategy” the Liberal's spin over the years caused a over-manipulation of reality that comes with it's costs. For a while the government was no longer comfortable talking to its constituents who were all spun out: "This is the danger of too much spin. There comes a time when it is too easy for your opponents to put out the spin that all your pronouncements are spin. There will never be a return to a time without spin because because politics is always about spin, but as the public become more media savvy the observation of spin and criticism, not only of its techniques but also its contents will become a media staple as journalists and citizens learn to create democracy from within the information flow” It seems that the media-savvy demographic “spins” back, respectively expresses its anger over the spin it had to endure over the years – in a crass language that was born out of a medium with a short attention span.

Let's Move On

I was pretty happy about Jeremiah Owyang's recent post about how he was invited to give a talk about social media to a large company. Rather than focus on the why and the what of the social media universe, Jeremiah says that he will focus on the 'how' in the talk. (However, I'm not a fan about the way he measures his own success. People might get talking and brain-storming, but that doesn't mean that upper-management is going to shoot their ideas down.)

And the how is exactly what I think is missing from nearly every social media guide I've read, and nearly every conference, talk or, event about social media and web 2.0 that I've been to.

I'm pretty sure that if I hear about how great the conversation is one more time, I'm going to resign from this blog. I want some solid facts, some actual stories about how social media has been successfully integrated into corporate culture, a marketing campaign, anything. We all know that it's great, that's why we're here. Let's stop patting ourselves on the back, and let's start talking tactics, specifics, details. Its good to know that despite the endless self-congratulating about how great the conversation is, there are still a few people with their heads on their shoulders like Jeremiah. People who know that we need to move on from this endless talking about "what" and "why" we have this brand new web, people who talk about the "how."

At BlogCampaigning, we aspire to talk about the how. I try and throw out concrete ideas as often as possible with the hope that someone can add to them. Espen puts out consistent statistics about politics, pulled from a ton of sources, and Jens' posts on video games are light years ahead of what any y'all are doing.

-Parker

Blog Campaigning: Introduction

Introduction

“We’re entering a different era of political communication, and no one is an expert at it yet. The velocity of change is extraordinary. Everyone is experimenting online, because we don’t know yet what will work” (Rosenberg in Mussenden 2007)

The landscape of political communication is changing rapidly. “Technology has changed the way people interact with one another” (Simmons 2005, p. 1) and “the creation of an electronic media has revolutionized the way information is gathered and transmitted” (Simmons 2005, p. 1). Since 2004, the world has experienced an enormous growth in online political activity. The emergence of social media and social networking sites has given room for a new political era. People can now engage in political activities via a computer as long as they have access to the Internet. This new form of political engagement has created a new and attractive market of voters for politicians to target. In an effort to optimize their reach to this new segment of voters, a growing number of politicians have started embracing some of the technologies that have emerged from the social media scene, including them in their overall political strategy. One of the latest and fastest growing technological developments to emerge from the social media scene that has been adapted by political parties and candidates in their overall communication strategy is the weblog – more often referred to as the blog. In the 2004 U.S. presidential election blogs were for the first time added by political candidates to their bag of campaign tricks (Lawson-Border & Kirk 2005, p. 1, Trammell 2005, p. 2). Few claimed then that the tool had a significant impact on the election. Three years later, facing the 2008 U.S. presidential election, “political bloggers say that their trade is becoming more influential than standard election techniques” (The University Daily Kansan News 14 February 2007). Even experts claim blogs play a larger part in the political campaigning process than traditional ways of informing the public. According to new-media expert Sean Mussenden (2007) of Media General News Service, this election’s (the 2008 U.S. presidential election) candidates are helping redefine online politics:

“Candidates are speaking directly to voters through text and video blogs displayed on their increasingly sophisticated Web pages. They also are lobbying influential political bloggers for endorsements -- and in some cases putting them on the payroll” (Mussenden 2007).

But just how effective has this new online communication instrument become as a campaign tool? Julie Barko Germany, deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, claimed recently that: “The race to the White House in 2008 will be all about how candidates talk to people online” (in Havenstein 2007). Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004 and was the most profiled of the online-oriented campaign managers during the campaign, told Agence France-Presse that:

“The Web will be playing a bigger role than ever in the 2008 campaign, so much so that for the first time, it will actually change the outcome of the election” (in Zablit 2007).

Trippi’s statement might be sensational, even simplistic. But it raises an interesting question: What impact does an online communication tool like a blog have on the democratic election process? In an effort to reach a better understanding of this issue, this paper will analyse the following research questions:

• How do political parties and candidates use blogs? • Does electioneering via blogs influence political campaigns? • How do we measure the impact blogs have on the outcome of an election?

To answer these questions the paper will examine how political parties and candidates have used blogs as a campaigning instrument in elections to date, locate situations where blogs might have helped a campaign produce an upset election outcome, and debate how we can measure a blog’s ability to affect voting decisions.

Blog Campaigning: 4. Literature review

Literature Review

“There is no doubt that, increasingly, a perception exists that blogs are heavily involved in the political sphere, as participants in agenda setting, in launching critiques of public policies, in interfacing with election campaigns, in influencing political debate and events and in sparking activism” (Bahnisch in Bruns and Jacobs 2003, p. 139).

Whilst this paper will focus mainly on the use and impact of what here is defined as candidate blogs or party blogs, it is essential that we also know of the existence and role of the other types of campaign blogs as well. Supporter blogs and political commentator blogs serve as important contributors, resources and springboards for official campaign blogs, and not surprisingly, many of the bloggers that today are engaged by official campaigns have a background from either a supporter blog or a political commentary blog.

There are two ways of addressing the impact of campaign blogs on political campaigns; one is to examine how the nature of blogs and the structures within the blogosphere potentially present an opportunity for politicians to influence voter decisions; another is to locate specific circumstances where blogs helped a campaign swing voters and produce an upset election outcome. This chapter will analyse how scholars to date have addressed these approaches.

The chapter will be divided into four sections; the first reviewing previous attempts to measure how web based campaigns have affected voting behaviour; the second examining how previous literature perceives the potential impact of blogs on the election process; the third examining how campaigns have utilized the medium as an electioneering tool to date; and the fourth discussing if, and how, the uses of blogs have impacted the direction of a campaign or the outcome of an election.

News Feed: YouTube and MySpace campaign for political positions

From  LATimes.com:

The Internet battle over the presidential campaign is ratcheting up following announcements by social-networking site MySpace and video-sharing hub YouTube that they plan live webcasts of town hall meetings and candidate debates leading up to the primaries.

Continues:

In a measure of the growing significance of online politics, key executives from major Web companies — including Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt — took part Friday in the fourth annual Personal Democracy Forum in New York, a gathering of people trying to find new ways of inspiring political action via the Internet.

The potential pool is huge. More than 21 million people had viewed online political videos as of February, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, told the conference. And, he said, more than 24 million have participated in organized online lobbying campaigns.

Still, those numbers represent a relatively narrow slice of the electorate. In the last presidential election, about 122 million votes were cast.

Read the full story here.

via e.politics

Mesh MADNESS!

So, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the entire mesh event. I'm still reeling from all the great people I met and things I heard. It was also probably the busiest week of my life, and I'll try and recap it all. On Monday night, I had the good fortune to attend the Canadian New Media Awards at Toronto's Carlu. The awards themselves were mostly memorable due to the fact that I met the Pure Pwnage crew. If you don't know what they are about, check their site out and start watching. At 5 million views per episode, it has to be one of the most popular Canadian television shows of all time. The fact that it is done entirely by a couple of guys (and one girl) with a video camera and a website proves that their is a better business model for television than the traditional broadcast system. I also ran into Eli Singer at the awards, and had a good chat with him about, among other things, his Tongan domain name. Being new to Toronto (I moved into my apartment in March..can I still say I'm new?), I hadn't heard about CaseCamp before but look forward to checking it out.

On Tuesday, I attended the Third Tuesday meetup. (Disclosure: my company sponsored this event) The mesh guys (Mark Evans,Mathew Ingram, Michael McDerment, Rob Hyndman, and Stuart MacDonald) were the speakers of the evening, and have grown skilled at weaving the myth of their event's creation. I didn't have a chance to ask them about the ridiculous idea of using a lower-case 'm' for the mesh branding, but I did have a short conversation with Lionel Menchaca, Dell's blogger. He is a great guy to talk to, and his take on the story of why Dell started shipping Linux machines was new to me. As a Dell user, I promised him that I'd let him know which direction I went with my next laptop. Of course, it is always great to see the Thornley-Fallis headliners and Chris at these events. Joe Thornley has really done a great job of organizing Third Tuesdays, and like a James Brown for the digital age, he seems to be the hardest live-blogging man in PR business. Scotty Mac was also in attendance, soaking up all the Web 2.0/PR goodness that a little East Coaster can.

Tuesday and Wednesday were mesh (another disclosure: my company was also a mesh sponsor), the real deal. I haven't been to very many tech conferences, but I was very impressed with this one. Techcrunch's Michael Arrington was my favourite speaker of the day, and people other than me have made some great posts about what he had to say. I also had the good luck (whoa, name-drop alert) to sit next to Techdirt's Mike Masnick at dinner on Wednesday. He is every bit the intelligent man that I thought he would be, and I also enjoyed hearing him speak at a panel discussion on Thursday. (name-drop alert, part two) Rachel Sklar was also at the dinner, and she seemed (at the very least) vaguely interested in Espen's upcoming thesis.

While some of the actual talks, panel discussions, and workshops tended to blur together and might have been a bit more basic than many wished, I really enjoyed talking to people during the aptly-named 'mesh breaks.' One of the highlights for me was hearing the wonderful geek humour of Mark Relph and his Microsoft crew at lunch. Wikipedia's third (fourth?) most prolific editor and article author was also at the table that day, although I can't remember his name (but I'll never forget these stats: over 92,000 edits and more than 3,000 articles to his credit). Another highlight was Mark McKay's mesh video. He is one wacky dude, and I can't wait to see him again.

I also got to meet Aaron Brazell of B5 and Technosailor Really nice guy, and I would have liked to talk to him longer about Wordpress (damn, that CSS).

I'm sure that there is a lot that I'm forgetting about the conference. Like, how tall is Jim Buckmaster? Seriously, he asked me where the water bottles were and all I could see was this enormous expanse of purple shirt.

Well this post is getting a bit long, but before I end it I would like to thank Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Michael McDerment, Rob Hyndman, and Stuart MacDonald again for putting together something awesome. Hopefully, I'll be here next year for mesh08. Actually, I'd rather be living in Hawaii surfing, but mesh08 is a close second.

(also check this shit out: someone took a picture of me at the conference and posted it on Flickr)

Espen's Thesis

As many of you may or may not know, BlogCampaigning was originally created almost a year ago as part of Espen Skoland's thesis on politics and blogging for his Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications (Honours) at Griffith University, Australia. This site has served as a way for Espen to interact with the online community as he developed his thoughts on the topic of blogs and political campaigning. While it has since grown to include my view points on the PR industry, Web 2.0, and other miscellany as well as the video game theory of Jens, and the work of a few other contributors, the essential goal of the site has remained the same.

Espen is currently putting the finishing touches on the thesis, and he will be making it available online both as a pdf and as a series of posts her on BlogCampaigning.

We are planning on posting the thesis in reverse order (with the last part of the paper posted chronologically first, the first section of the paper published chronologically last). This will, it will show up in the right order when read online and via a feed reader. If anyone has a better suggestion, we are very open to hearing it (please leave a comment, or e-mail me).

As the BlogCampaigning site manager, I'm very excited about this, because I think that this is the first time that a major academic paper has been published in this manner. If anyone wants to prove me wrong on this point, I'll buy them a drink if they come to the Toronto area.

This won't be the end of BlogCampaigning, either. Jens, Espen, and I have discussed how much we enjoy working on the site that we want it go on.

So thank you for checking us out now and then, and we hope you continue to do so even after this online publication of Espen's thesis.

-Parker, BlogCampaigning Site Manager

More on the impact of the web on the 2008 election

“Whether announcing their candidacy online or rueing the release of revealing video clips, no contender for the White House in 2008 can ignore the power of the internet”, writes, Laura Smith-Spark of BBC. “Barely a week goes by without a political story breaking on a blog or social networking site like YouTube and MySpace”.

We know this by now, but here comes the interesting claim:

“...according to conservative bloggers who met at the Washington Times last week, the battle is already as good as won - and not by them.

The battle of the Internet, that is.

A bit early to make that claim I would say. No need to be too negative early in the campaign. But I want to continue quoting Laura Smith-Spark, because she is really asking some interesting questions in her article…. Unfortunately without providing good answers. But hey, at least she is trying. They are some fairly complex questions to answer in 500 words.

Conservative bloggers claim, according to Smith-Spark, that:

…their rivals on the left of the political spectrum - and the Democrats they are backing - have the edge in organisation, message and clout. And that, they say, that could cost the Republicans dear in 2008. So has the left really won the battle of the web? And if so, what influence - if any - will that have on the outcome of the presidential race?

So…what’s her answer to this?

Observers explain the gap by arguing that bloggers on the left are united in one aim - getting a Democrat into the White House in 2008 - whereas the right is more fragmented. The left has also rallied to the cause of ending the war in Iraq. In addition, blogging emerged at a time when the Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House - and was embraced by the left as the ideal platform for grassroots, bottom-up activism. On the other hand conservatives, who have traditionally dominated talk radio with high-profile presenters like Rush Limbaugh, have tended to use their blogs for commentary and to pass on the top-down party message, observers say. Now, with many liberal bloggers collaborating to push the Democratic agenda - so giving the news they promote greater prominence and attracting more mainstream media attention - the more fragmented right risks losing influence.

Jon Henke, new media director for the Republican Communication Office and contributor of the QuandO blog, argues that blogs are not directly responsible for deciding elections. What they do is shape the media coverage, writes Smith-Spark.

Well, they do more than that, and I know that Henke knows that too, because I am quoting him on this in my thesis dealing exactly with the questions asked by Smith-Spark.

Trying to answer her well-formulated questions, Smith-Spark uses Jeff Jarvis, a media professor who blogs at Prezvid.com to balance the answer of her article. Jarvis claims that:

"The Democrats are doing better, but slightly - the truth is, they are all behind," he told the BBC News website.

And then he says something unsurprising, but still very interesting:

What I am seeing is the poorer the candidate, the smarter their use of the internet. Others are relying on big money, thinking it's still going to be fought on television.

Jarvis also claims that:

He would like to see all the contenders - Democrat and Republican - treat the internet as another way to get "face-to-face" with potential voters, by going online to answer questions and posting responses on blogs that criticise them.

I guess the reason why I find this article so interesting is that I am handing in my Masters Thesis dealing exactly with the questions asked in the BBC article. I plan to release the thesis in it’s full on the blog. So if you are in for a more detailed answer of the questions discussed throughout this post, check in on the site again next Monday – And we will provide you more insight…exclusively.

Update:

More news on this: Democrats Have an Early Lead ... in the Web 2.0 Race

- Espen

Facebook is blowin' up

How big do I think the launch of the Facebook developer platform is? As Jay-Z might have once said, Orca big. It's going to be huge. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read a bit more about it here. The basic premise, though, is that Facebook is allowing third party developers access to its API. This will allow them to develop new applications, widgets, and who knows what for the social media site. Even amateurs are getting hip the game.

I don't know what the exact statistics are (and measurement tools seem to be constantly shifting), but no matter which way you look at it Facebook is already one of the biggest sites out there. Do you know anyone that doesn't know about it if, by the odd chance, they aren't already a user? How often do you walk by someone's computer at work, in a coffee shop, or anywhere, to see the familiar blue and white of Facebook? How often do you check your own account?

Exactly.

Allowing developers to create new applications will do nothing but drive more traffic to the site. While I'm sure that Facebook doesn't actually care if people use their photo-sharing app or a third-party one, this isn't where the real weight of the developer platform is. It isn't in the increased advertising revenue Facebook will probably receive either.

Its the fact that it will probably change the way we use personal computers, and its one step closer to the social media aggregator that I've been gagging for for so long.

Even though Mark Zonkberg and his team have probably been tossing this idea around for a while (explaining why he turned down $1 billion from Yahoo!), I'm sure they don't even know what the full potential of their creation is. With their recent announcements, Project Agape and Obama's campaign are really just taking the first foamy sips of beer at what is going to be the social media keg party of the year. (MyRagan will be like the AV club that didn't get invited, MySpace will be like your friend's slutty little sister that you'll hit on if you're around but don't really care about in the long run because she isn't very smart).

Forget donating for political campaigns and humanitarian causes (not that there is anything wrong with the latter), I want to be able to do my online money-managing through my banks Facebook application. If I have a problem, I'll be able to have one of the bank's employees on my friend list. Transparency will be an issue, it's true, but it will go a long way towards bringing the social part of social media to the corporations.

Forget the fact that new phones come complete with web browsers. The next gen will have Facebook browsers with functions that will update your location (via GPS) in real time on your newsfeed (whoa...stalkerlicious). Click on a friends profile, and you'll be able to get directions to their house or current location from wherever you are (or not, depending on their privacy settings. Phew!).

And as I said, that is just the start of it. We'll probably wake up from this Facebook party in a year or two with dim memories of the crazy stuff that went down. But then, as we're having a big greasy breakfast, slightly hungover and talking about how the bubble has burst again, we'll get a text message on our phone. The next great thing will be here, and someone else will be having a party. Of course, we won't want to miss out, will we?

I'd love to hear what others have to say about all this, and I'm really hoping that some of it is discussed at Toronto's mesh conference(disclosure: the company that I work for is a mesh sponsor). If you're there, try and find me to say hello!

-Parker

Thanks, IPDI

Thanks for acknowledging us, IPDI! We look forward to reading more from you in the future!

-The BlogCampaigning Team

Blogs vs Wikis

Using Google Trends and its ability to limit searches by region, Tama Leaver tested the comparative popularity of ‘blog’ versus ‘wiki’ and found something unexpected:

Cumulatively, global searchers are still typing in ‘blog’ more, but in Australia, ‘wiki’ is a more popular term, and has been since the end of the first quarter of 2006.

And guess what – this also seems to be the case in Norway. As Jill Walker points out:

Obviously I had to try the same for Norway, and lo and behold, Norway’s like Australia, not like the world. While wikis are more popular (well, in google searches) than blogs throughout Norway, the two major cities, Bergen and Oslo, show less of a difference

As Jill points out in the comment section, maybe blogs have simply become so ubiquitous we no longer have to search for them. We know where to find them and we treat them as a trustworthy and reliable source. So maybe the curious sounding result of this Google search is that blogs grew up to become an integral component of our everyday media habits.

-Jens

MyRagan? Not really My bag.

So I joined MyRagan a few weeks ago. Some of you might even be my friends on it. Some of you might not want to be. The thing is, I'm still not sold on it. I mean, I know that there are some real bandwagon jumpers out there, but I'm going to wait a bit. I agree with Canuckflack that MyRagan is the kind of thing that the IABC, PRSA, and whatever other PR/Communication-type feel-good groups that are out there should have done years ago.

But to be honest, Facebook beat all y'all to the game. If there is anything that MyRagan can do, I'm willing to bet that Facebook can do it just as well, and probably more easily. Want to make a group just for Canadian Communicators? I bet there are a ton on Facebook, and that the discussion boards are a hell of a lot better than just internal group e-mail.

But come on. I'm willing to listen. If you're on MyRagan, add me as a friend and prove me wrong. Or if you're on Facebook, add me there and prove me right. Or both.

Ontario politicians close the book on Facebook

(This is a post by BlogCampaigning's special correspondent and man-about-town) Facebook has arrived in Canada.

The online social networking platform has been around for some time, but it made front page headlines in Toronto this past month.

Employees of the Ontario province's majority liberal party were blocked from accessing Facebook on their workstation computers. Staffers were spending too much time on the site during working hours, according to those behind the move.

Some commentators lamented the transition on the site, from body shots in bars to body bags in Afghanistan. Others cited privacy concerns, while noting the importance of the medium in reaching the under 25 age demographic.

March 2007 was the highest usage of Facebook among Canadians ever. And the country is Facebook's fastest growing demographic. Over half a million users are found in Toronto, the provincial capital. No surprise then that City Hall soon experienced a similar ban for their staff.

Special Session on Social Media

The Legislative Library, housed at Queen's Park (where the Provincial government sits), had a session on the role of social media in political campaigns for those working within the political machine.

CBC’s Sean Mullen shared how the major uses of social media in politics have been on YouTube. And since Facebook conveniently allows sharing of videos with multiple users, it has become the perfect platform for disseminating YouTube political videos. Still, 56% of voters use television of their primary source of information. But most of these examples took place in the U.S., and not in Canada.

Dr. Tamara Small of Mt. Allison University explained how the numbers are slightly lower for internet use in politics in Canada. But Facebook might be the exception. This may have been due to a scheduled upcoming Ontario provincial election in October. Candidates of all parties were rushing to gain supporters through virtual 'friends.' Groups were formed to engage in dialogue on topical issues raised in the legislature. And the political junkies posted notes to snowball this trend, momentarily displacing the more common relationship type self-questionnaires.

Led Dieu Tran from the Legislative Assembly of Ontario commented that one of the greatest limitations of online media in politics is that it is a pull medium; participants must already be involved in the subject matter. Voters are not glued to their channel, waiting for the game to start. If they have no interest, there is a low likelihood they will be exposed at all.

And although all major political parties are represented on Facebook, including current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, and NDP leader Jack Layton, few are actively involved. Most accounts are obviously maintained by staffers. Some, such as Liberal MP candidate Michael Ignatieff’s profile, even contained biographical errors until users pointed it out.

Notable Exceptions

However, as I pointed out during the session, there are exceptions to this trend. Some Canadian politicians use Facebook for more than issuing media releases and television advertisements that have been uploaded to YouTube. Notably, MP’s Carolyn Bennett, Omar Alghabra, and Mark Holland, all use Facebook to create intimate political discussions with Canadians from the comfort of their office, or the convenience of their Blackberry when on the road.

Historical use of political social media before Facebook suggests that it plays its most important role in organizing and mobilization. And the events feature of Facebook demonstrated that it was being used quite frequently specifically for this purpose. Campaign strategies and fundraising events featured prominently among the political circles on Facebook.

One interesting example is the Canadian Federation of Students campaign against tuition hikes. The Ryerson University students created a series of video spoofs off Capital One’s “Hands in my Pockets” ads that attracted national attention. (You can see one of the Ryerons student videos here.)

And considering that many of the staffers at Queen’s Park were using Facebook specifically for this purpose during an election year, it appears puzzling that the site would be blocked for political staffers working on a campaign. It’s likely that those behind the move did not themselves have accounts, or understand its political utility. Even more interesting is that provincial opposition parties were not automatically affected, because they are on a different computer system. Stranger still, other social media sites with far more limited practical use such as MySpace are not targeted.

Fighting Back

There are ways to still access Facebook despite the controls. Some staff members, suffering from withdrawal of virtual political interaction, devised some creative solutions to tricking security firewalls:

1) Change your network and log in directly from there. Facebook is based on networks of academic, geographic, and workplace groupings, each which has its own url. For example, while the main log-in site (www.facebook.com) and Toronto (Toronto.facebook.com) networks are blocked, the University of Toronto (utoronto.facebook.com) or Hamilton City (Hamilton.facebook.com) are not.

2) Use Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. Firefox has internal proxies that help obscure your IP address. If the Mozilla site is blocked, downloads from home can be brought in. However, Firefox by itself usually is not enough to subvert advanced firewalls.

3) Log on using an anonymizer, which goes a step further and effectively accesses Facebook from another server entirely, and not the government one that is firewalled. However, depending on the construction of the proxy there are various levels of effectiveness with this method, and some may allow read-only access or limit access to certain features. (ed. note: Hellz yeah, I love that cypherpunk shit)

Although these specific techniques have never been publicized before, knowledge of them by IT staff at Queen’s Park might not have a significant effect. There are countless networks in place, and there is nothing stopping users from changing networks to Kalamazoo, MI, or Dubai, UAE. All networks cannot easily be blocked. Similarly, anonymizers are not new to IT security staff, and many sites hosting free services are already blocked. But there are far more new ones created literally every day than can be identified regularly.

A more realistic expectation would be of responsible usage, limited to political research when warranted by job duties, rather than rating photos of potential partners.

Mullen had also emphasized the importance of the demographic divide. People under 30 are increasingly using the Internet to obtain their information and educate themselves on political issues. But this demographic is also the least likely to vote, and most in need of active participation in the political process.

Facebook is here to stay, and by limiting political involvement politicians risk further alienating the electorate by not attending the equivalent of the modern town hall.

The author of this article is a PR practitioner who operates his own independent consulting company. He also currently works by Queen’s Park behind a firewall that officially does not allow Facebook access. You can add him on Facebook by searching his name – he changes his networks so there is no stable link (please specify this blog when adding him).

Dear Institute For Politics Democracy & The Internet

We at BlogCampaigning have long been fans of your blog. Some of our team members read your posts quite regularly, and we have admired your writing and insights. That is why it comes as a terrible shock to find that you have totally ripped off a post from BlogCampaigning and attempted to attribute parts of our team member's writing as your own.

While we realize that a lot of blogging is derivative, where one blogger links to another's thoughts or quotes another writer, credit is always given to the original author.

In the case of the post in question, we did exactly that to you. Our team member, Espen, quoted directly from one of your posts but credited you with the writing and linked back to your site.

It hurts us that you would not respond in kind. The fact that it happened a few months ago (and that we've only realized now) lessens the sting slightly, but doesn't erase it totally. Perhaps it was indeed an honest mistake. These things happen. If this is the case, we will accept an apology and offer one back to you for this post of ours.

Of course, it would have been much better if we could have simply posted a reply on your blog. However, by not allowing comments, you've made this rather difficult (and certainly not very democratic).

Thanks for your time,

-The BlogCampaigning Team