Daily Digest: 'Tube Pong
BY Joshua Sherman | Tuesday, August 12 2008
The Candidates on the Web
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The Clash Continues: The McCain campaign hits Obama with another video called “Fan Club” which rehashes the same themes as “Celebrity,” “The One,” and “Family.” Released a day after Obama’s response “Embrace,” the new McCain spot is already doing 30,000 views better on YouTube (“Embrace" was not released on YouTube for BarackObama.com). Meanwhile the Obama campaign has also released a video specifically for Ohio called "We're In It Together." It’s two minutes long and appears to be made specifically for the web. The video is part of a call-to-action to have Obama supporters in rural America paint their barns with the Obama logo, just as the people in this video did for Obama back in July 2008. So while it has not had many views yet (just over 8,000 as of this post), it looks like it has no intention of going viral (but then again, who doesn't want to go viral?). #
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Wiki-policy?? CQ Politics’s Taegan Goddard reports on similarities between a speech made by Sen. John McCain yesterday and a Wikipedia article on the country Georgia. Look at it this way, if it is discovered that McCain lifted the material himself, at least we would know he’s using the internet! #
The Web on the Candidates
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Paris? Pink? Perfect! (Porridge, too!) TechRepublican’s David All is impressed by McCain’s online advertising campaign featuring Paris and Britney. He is struck not only by the celebrities but the “pink and purple.” Always a riot, he deems the ad worthy of a helping of porridge to Team McCain. #
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Digg. Bury. Repeat if necessary. The Los Angeles Times's Web Scout reports that "in the last 30 days, at least 28 stories critical of GOP Sen. John McCain have been mysteriously "buried" — meaning enough Digg users have voted against a story that the submission may no longer appear on the site's high-traffic front page." While on Digg this story is flagged as possibly inaccurate, this comes on the heels of McCain's Points-for-Comments story published in the Washington Post last week. According to the LA Times, Digg CEO Jay Adelson said his team had checked the stories in question and was not concerned by any organized burying trends. We will make sure to keep you updated on this story. #
TechCongress and Beyond
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Moneybombs make Strangebedfellows: ActBlue reports that Accountability Now PAC has done well straight out of the gate. Led by Jane Hamsher of firedoglake and Trevor Lyman of Ron Paul’s moneybomb campaigns, the organization is a left-right coalition that is an outgrowth of the FISA fight. On August 8th Accountability Now organized a “Strangebedfellows” moneybomb and raised more than $150,000 in 24 hours. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, a supporter of the PAC, writes about the campaign here. We’ll be sure to follow how they intend to use to money to “hold Washington accountable.”#
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Don't Leave... but #dontGo: The Next Right’s Soren Dayton reports on the three things that make him think the #dontGo campaign may be on to something. Dayton is pleased to see that not only is the campaign raising money for the GOP but it is also “changing Democratic minds,” such as a top Democratic House candidate calling for a special session of Congress to convene. #
In Case You Haven't Noticed...
McCain is spending more on search engine advertising and Google creates an "elections and issue advocacy" team. #