Daily Kos, the Email Program
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, August 17 2010
Daily Kos, announces proprietor Markos Moulitsas, is channeling the considerable energies and enthusiasms of its active group blog and discussion forum into turning the endeavor into an "activist powerhouse." The medium: email. And the emailer in chief will be Chris Bowers, formerly of MyDD and most recently of OpenLeft, now working for Daily Kos on a full-time basis. Here's Markos:
Email activism is a key weapon in a modern activist organization's arsenal, yet Daily Kos has never jumped in. It was less a matter of will, and more a lack of resources and expertise. Managing a big email list is surprisingly complex, and we've been too small and overworked to do something we should've done a long time ago.
The first email went out today, under the subject, "The Beginning," and it's a bid to petition the Senate to do away with the filibuster. For his part, Bowers says that one characteristics that will define the Daily Kos email program is that the community, now in its eighth year, while help serve as focus group and driver of where the effort's activism is directed. Bowers:
I am not here to tell you what to do. This action email list will be informed by your creativity and insight. I hope to supplement your existing ideas and efforts, and allow them to make a much bigger impact on the national political environment. Also, now that I live in D.C., I will do my best to represent you and your interests on the ground here. Bluntly, I am here to work for you.
Turning to email in a bid to up the engagement factor on a blog-based community might seem like a counter-intuitive evolution, but as we noted recently, many experienced online organizers still regard email as the not-so-secret killer app of online politics.