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10Questions.com Update 10/18/07

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, October 18 2007

10Questions.com had a very successful launch yesterday.

At least 20 of our co-sponsors posted about the launch, generating nearly 5,500 unique visits in the first 24 hours (more than half coming between the hours of 7pm and 10pm!). The average visit time was 2.5 minutes and visitors averaged about 2.5 pages per visit. So far we’ve logged about 5,200 votes from about 1,700 voters, from every state, and the rate of multiple vote attempts is down at just 3% of that.

We also got some strong and positive pick-ups in online media, including Jose Vargas on the WashPost's Trail blog, Ben Smith’s Politico blog and Danny Glover’s Beltway Blogroll. Smith wrote:

The smart site TechPresident just launched, in cooperation with the New York Times edit board and MSNBC.com, what will be, in a sense, the first real online presidential forum. That is, it's a presidential forum molded to fit the Internet; not a television show with added webby bells and whistles….It seems like this is the real promise of online politics -- a looser, more open forum.

(And he wrote all of this before Politico confirmed that it wanted to be a cosponsor. Now it’s put the 10questions button on the top of its two presidential campaign blogs, by Smith and by Jonathan Martin.) Also, take a look at Susan Crawford’s write-up. She’s a law professor who will be teaching at Yale this spring and a member of the ICANN board. And she really gets what this is all about.

Two groups with large email lists also chimed in. RightMarch sent an email blast to 300,000 members, and Color of Change put the 10Questions button up on their home page.

Here’s the linkage so far:

Afro-Netizen, http://www.afro-netizen.com/2007/10/afro-netizen-pr.html

Air America, http://www.airamerica.com/node/5546

Air Congress, http://www.aircongress.com/2007/10/17/a-blog-inspired-dose-of-democratic-debate/

BlackProf.com, http://www.blackprof.com/archives/2007/10/go_to_10_questions_for_preside.html

Buzzmachine, http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/10/17/another-debate/

Crooks and Liars, http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/10-questions-allows-you-to-choose-what-will-be-asked-of-the-candidates/

E-Democracy.org, http://e-democracy.org/e-debates/

HotAir, http://hotair.com/archives/2007/10/17/10-questions-launches-today/

Hugh Hewitt/Patrick Ruffini, http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/faccfa50-8e36-4017-85c1-e98ee933d707

Instapundit, http://instapundit.com/archives2/010584.php

Latino Pundit, http://www.latinopundit.com/2007/10/your-chance-to-ask-presidentia.html

Michelle Malkin, http://michellemalkin.com/2007/10/17/introducing-10-questions/

MyDD, http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/10/17/132641/59

Pam’s House Blend, http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3332

Pajamas Media, http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/10questions_launches_ask_the_c.php

Racialicious, http://www.racialicious.com/2007/10/17/got-a-burning-question-for-the-presidential-candidates/

Raw Story, http://rawstory.com/news/2007/MSM_online_orgs_team_up_to_1018.html

Smart Mobs, http://www.smartmobs.com/2007/10/17/new-10questions-project-for-you-to-youtube-candidates/

TalkingPointsMemo, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/056231.php

techRepublican, http://techrepublican.com/blog/10questions-com-launches-citizens-smile

Treehugger, http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/ask_10_question.php

The New Homemaker, http://www.thenewhomemaker.com/node/72067

VivirLatino, http://vivirlatino.com/2007/10/17/got-10-questions-for-the-presidential-wannabes.php

Some additional pick-ups of note:

Mashable, http://mashable.com/2007/10/17/10questions/

(jeff)isageek, http://jeffisageek.net/post/16000119

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

"Power Politics in the Age of Google"

TechPresident's editorial director, Micah Sifry, will be speaking this afternoon on a panel at Harvard University called "Power Politics in the Age of Google," alongside Susan Crawford, Nicco Mele, Elaine Kamarck and Alexis Ohanian. The panel will be moderated by Harvard Shorenstein Center Director Alex Jones, and will be live-streamed here. GO

House Republicans Get a Jump on the Budget

Via Politico's Mike Allen, the House Republicans are out with a video — this one attributed to Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — getting the drop on President Barack Obama's next federal budget, expected Monday. GO

Mittbucks.com Lets Voters Compare Their Paychecks With Romney's

What would it take for Mitt Romney to be able to relate to the average American's daily economic life? He'd have to pay $1,208.09 for a gallon of gas, according to Mittbucks.com, a web site recently created by Adam Rosenscruggs and his wife Danielle in Washington, D.C. The eye-popping figure results from an annual income that I plugged in ... GO

What Twitter Won't Tell You About the Election

A new study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Tuesday offers the opportunity to get real about what the political conversation on Twitter and Facebook can — or can't — tell you about the progression of the 2012 political campaign. Pew has found that even among users of Twitter and Facebook, a paltry percentage of people use social networks to get news about politics: Only 24 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 25 percent of Facebook users said they "sometimes" got campaign news through that network, while a full 40 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 46 percent of other social media users reported "never" getting campaign news through either Twitter or Facebook. GO

Navigating New York's "Road Map for the Digital City," One Year In

In May 2011, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "Road Map for the Digital City," a plan to use technology to make city government more and participatory, and to leverage the city's tech sector for economic and civic gains.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne will join our editorial director, Micah Sifry, on a conference call this Friday afternoon to discuss the progress on that road map so far. The call is free and open to anyone to join. You can sign up here.

GO

tuesday >

Pete Hoekstra's Campaign Website's "Offensive" Source Code Changed After Outcry

As if "chop suey fonts" and obvious graphic allusions to the stereotype of the Chinese as the Yellow Peril weren't controversial enough, the group that created an incendiary microsite for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's campaign has managed to further fan the flames with what it's calling a mistake in its code. GO

Fidel Castro Loves the Internet

“The Internet is a revolutionary instrument that permits the receiving and transmission of ideas, in both directions, that is something we should know how to use,” Fidel Castro told a crowd of supporters on Feb. 4, according to the state-owned Cuban newspaper Granma International. Castro, who made his first public appearance since April 2011, launched his two-volume memoir, “Guerilla of Time,” and took the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to him. Earlier this week, Miranda Neubauer reported that one of these topics was the need for the Internet. Castro has been a proponent of the Internet as a tool for the exchange of ideas since 2003, but the average Cuban citizen faces great difficulty getting online. GO

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

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