The Web on the Candidates

• Jeff Jarvis posts a great video on PrezVid grading most of the candidates on their use of YouTube, and showing us some of the best and worst moments from their videos.  John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich both get a 'B,' the highest grade Jarvis hands out.  Edwards is "the best of the bunch" with a video of a speech to a labor convention.  "He's passionate and the video is well-organized," Jarvis says.  The Kucinich video actually stars his British-born wife, and Jarvis likes it: " Best candidate spouse accent. Best candidate spouse hair. She’s quick, newsy, and charming. What’s not to like?"  Most of the others were average at best.  Obama "keeps making Sally Field videos: They love him, they really love him," and Giuliani is "pathetic" for putting up audio of Steve Forbes' endorsement, paired with a photo of Forbes.  Check out Jarvis' video for the report card.
• The Hotline's Blogometer notes a growing frustration with Barack Obama among the netroots community.  Linking to the Daily Kos and MyDD,  the Blogometer says that "Obama has not done enough to separate himself from the Dem establishment on netroots bread and butter issues like the war and economic populism."  
• TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that MySpace will be holding a presidential primary next January.  As Arrington points out, "MySpace has more registered members than the population of Mexico. If it was a country it would be the 11th largest in the world," so holding a primary there makes some sense.  Arrington thinks it might be more interesting to do this at Facebook instead, since "Facebook’s user accounts are each tied to an email address or cell phone, resulting in far fewer fake or duplicate accounts. Given the low quality of the MySpace user base (multiple accounts, no identity check,etc.) it would be relatively easy for a campaign to create a significant number of fake accounts to stuff the ballot box in their favor."    

The Candidates on the Web

• Joe Biden has launched a new site called Head-to-Head '08, in which videos of the Delaware Senator discussing the issues are pitted against videos from other candidates.  This morning the only issue represented was the war in Iraq, with Biden facing off with Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson.  For now Biden's been fair with the videos he's chosen, but if this process is left up to a candidate whose goal is to win -- and not necessarily to be fair -- won't that create a question of fairness and neutrality? Hotline On Call agrees: "The campaign says they choose the specific YouTube videos by judging the best presentation of the candidates' position -- either an official video, a video from a supporter or media appearance in which the candidate addresses his or her policy on Iraq directly. Nonetheless, picking and putting other candidates' words in their mouths could leave the door open for a potential problem."

In Case You Missed It...

Looking at Voter-Generated Presence on Candidate Websites
As candidates cede authority over their web presence to supporters, allowing the posting of voter-generated content to campaign sites, there are bound to be some interesting and unexpected consequences.  Fred Stutzman decided to explore the presence of voter-generated content on candidate sites and its effect on the site's rank.

Site Review: Tommy2008 And Thoughts To Guide Your Online Campaign
Tommy Thompson jumped into the race yesterday with a big bag of hope and a poorly conceived website. The short version of this review is this: "If Rudy's site, and Tancredo's site spent a wild drunk night together, Tommy's page would be the illegitimate offspring."

Bling, Bling
The first quarter 2008 money is rolling into the campaign coffers in record numbers.