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Romney 2012

The Republican primary of 2011-2012 is more than a battle for the privilege to take on the incumbent, President Barack Obama. It's also a test-bed for Republican political-tech consultants and activists alike, who are all trying a mix of old and new tactics to attract support, engage volunteers and win over voters and donors. As we did with the presidential contest four years ago, we're tracking all the candidates and their online operations, along with the efforts of citizen activists to use the web to move the election their way.

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

Personal Democracy Media is thankful to Microsoft for its support of techPresident's 2012 presidential election coverage.

Romney Online, By the Numbers

BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, January 9 2012

The stats in Mitt Romney's newly released infographic are impressive-looking, but they're actually not that big a deal. A little reverse-engineering of the math embedded in that statement suggests that people are spending about 42 seconds per page view on the Romney site. This is respectable but not particularly high. Jim Pugh, the former director of analytics and development for Organizing for America, told me that "a time of 40 seconds is pretty average for political sites." Read More

Santorum Campaign Using Fundly.com to Crowd-Source $-Raising

BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, January 9 2012

While Rick Santorum's campaign may have left some money on the table on the night of their Iowa caucus near-victory, they're trying to recoup with a "money-bomb" that is leaning heavily on the social fundraising platform Fundly.com. As of now they have almost 2,600 people raising money through the site, and they've collectively brought in almost $240,000. Read More

Jon Huntsman Throws A Hail Mary Pass On Twitter

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, January 5 2012

Jon Huntsman's campaign has been running a social media initiative that encourages supporters to send out canned campaign messages with specific hash tags on behalf of their candidate. The goal is to have supporters send out at least a thousand tweets a day containing the terms "@JonHuntsman," "Jon Huntsman," "#Jon2012," and "#JointheHunt." Is he asking supporters to scream into the wind, or growing his profile in a meaningful way? Read More

Santorum's Campaign Chokes Online As Site Is Overwhelmed By Traffic

BY Sarah Lai Stirland and Nick Judd | Wednesday, January 4 2012

Rick Santorum in Iowa Tuesday night. YouTube

The results of Iowa Republicans' presidential nominating caucuses were not yet final when Rick Santorum took the podium to deliver a response, but one thing was clear: a vastly outspent, out-organized candidate had fought Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, almost to a draw. But just when Santorum's campaign could have made the most out of its online presence, his site began to malfunction. Read More

Headed Into Iowa Caucus, Santorum Jockeys for Position Online

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, January 3 2012

Rick Santorum Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Just hours away from the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign is looking online to make the most of his sudden rise to prominence. Read More

From YouTube to Facebook, New Digital Targeting Helps Romney Campaign Reach Voters

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, December 22 2011

Mitt Romney's preroll ad on a Bloomberg clip playing on YouTube in Iowa

Mitt Romney's campaign team has carefully planned a digital ad blitz over the year as it hunts for voters in every virtual nook and cranny in the emerging post-live television world, and is now blanketing Iowa in targeted online ads that use just about every new trick in the Internet marketing playbook. Read More

The Ron Paul Paradox

BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, December 21 2011

With poll numbers putting Ron Paul in the lead in Iowa very close to the first Republican caucus, the lens of national attention will put the congressman from Texas in sharp focus. We know his campaign, much more disciplined now than it was in 2008, is preparing for what's to come. But how will his famously zealous online supporters handle the scrutiny of their chosen candidate? Read More

Ron Paul Rebellion Breaks Out On Reddit

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Friday, December 16 2011

Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Rep. Ron Paul's vociferous supporters have a long history of organization on the web. Going back to the 2008 election and beyond, the Republican of Texas has always found a loud bloc of support online. On the link-sharing site Reddit, though, Paul supporters' ability to act in concert has ruffled some feathers. Fed up, some redditors are organizing a counter-insurgency against the Ron Paul Revolution. Read More

Gingrich Savvy On Facebook, Says Company's Political Team

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Monday, December 12 2011

Current Republican presidential race frontrunner Newt Gingrich's Facebook's page is "a great example of providing many ways for supporters to get involved," according to Facebook's political team. Read More

Newt Gingrich's Online Surge: Will It Be Enough to Win?

BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, November 22 2011

A little more than half a year ago, at the beginning of March, I took a look at Newt Gingrich's presence online. As one of the longest-serving politicians in the presidential race, and a self-described geek, Newt had a ... Read More

Iowans Are Watching Rick Perry's 'Oops' Moment, YouTube Says

BY Nick Judd | Friday, November 11 2011

Rick Perry's "Oops" is being widely viewed in the swing states, YouTube's Ramya Raghavan writes: Footage of the "oops" moment was viewed over half a million times in the twelve hours following the debate, and that number ... Read More

[BackChannel] Don't Confuse Number of Facebook Fans with Success: Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Rick Perry

BY Alan Rosenblatt | Tuesday, October 11 2011

Editor's note: With Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and the rest of the Republican field set to meet tonight for the Bloomberg/Washington Post debate, now is the perfect time to inaugurate Backchannel, what we hope ... Read More

What Do Michele Bachmann and Ozzy Osbourne Have In Common?

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, July 20 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Ozzy Osbourne are both riding the crazy train straight to the bank, political science professor Justin Buchler suggests in a new article in "The Forum," a Berkeley Electronic Press ... Read More

The Bachmann Announcement Bump, Twitter Edition

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, June 28 2011

Michele Bachmann at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, La., on June 17. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr Rep. Michele Bachmann's "announcement bump" of Twitter followers after her official campaign launch ... Read More

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Chilean Anti-Corruption Resource: A Crowdsourced Database of Social and Political Connections

In countries where a small minority of social circles have a majority of the political and economic power, personal relationships can affect major decision-making, a serious concern of anti-corruption activists. A new web platform stores personal profiles of key players in Chilean business and politics, complete with biographies and personal and professional connections through family, education, social circles, employers and coworkers, to make tracking social relationships and conflict-of-interest easier. Called Poderopedia (from the Spanish word for power), the project sounds kind of like LinkedIn, but the creation and management of profiles is being crowdsourced out to journalists, activists and concerned citizens.

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Middle Eastern Telecom Accused of Working With Saudi Arabia to Spy on Citizens

Mobily, an arm of the state-owned Middle Eastern telecom giant Etihad Etisalat, has been accused of working with Saudi Arabia to develop software that would allow the government to bypass protections for social media users. The exposé comes from Moxie Marlinspike (neé Matthew Rosenfield), an expert in a certain type of malicious Internet attack called MITM (man-in-the-middle), whereby attackers intercept and secretly alter private messages exchanged via email and other social media platforms. GO

Saudi Religious Leader Warns Twitter Users of Consequences in the Afterlife

In late March, Saudi Arabia's top religious cleric said Twitter was for clowns and corrupters. Earlier this week, he said anyone using social media, in particular Twitter, “has lost this world and the afterlife.” His comments might be laughable, if they did not come at a time when the Saudi government is looking into monitoring or blocking social media sites and eliminating user anonymity.

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thursday >

What The Other Silicon Valley Immigration Group Is Doing This Month

A bipartisan coalition of political advocacy, business and tech groups are moving ahead to launch a social media blitz next week designed to persuade members of the Senate to vote in favor of immigration reform legislation supported in Silicon Valley. "We're going to create a virtual digital storm," said Jeremy Robbins in a Wednesday ... GO

The New Yorker Hopes "Strongbox" Is a Wiretap-Proof Sieve for Leaks

The New Yorker yesterday became the first outlet to implement DeadDrop, a new system for sources to submit information to journalists online in a more secure and anonymous way than, for example, email. GO

Female Organizer of Pakistan's First Hackathon Stresses Collaboration Over Competition

After Pakistan banned Valentine's Day this year, Sabeen Mahmud started an online protest in which people uploaded photos to mock the government ban. In the weeks following she received death threats and menacing phone calls, and early on she had to stay home from work. That did nothing, however, to keep her from further organizing. Last month, the café she started in Karachi hosted Pakistan's first ever hackathon, which tackled problems including sanitation, crime, disaster management, and education. She even invited a government representative to observe the initial conversations, tackling sensitive areas like government inefficiency and elections.

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wednesday >

White House Innovation Fellows Project Spins Off Into A Business

Clay Johnson and Adam Becker joined the Presidential Innovation Fellows program to help the White House fix the way government does business. Now they're turning that mission into a business themselves. GO

Fighting Fires With Data, New York City Launches New Safety Inspection System

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that New York City has implemented city-wide a new risk based inspection system focused on fire safety that is driven by analytics from multiple city agencies. GO

Chinese Netizens Use Digital Initiative to Gain Media Attention for Unsolved Poisoning Case

Last month a medical science student at a Shanghai university died from poisoning, allegedly murdered by his roommate. The specifics of the crime echoed a case from the mid-1990s, in which a 19-year-old student was poisoned with thallium. That case has once again been thrown into the media spotlight, but after 18 years the media has changed and the spotlight means a trending hashtag on Sina Weibo or an online petition to the U.S. President.

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PDF France 2013: “Au Code, Citoyens!”

This year PDF France will take place in Paris on June 13, with the theme "Au Code, Citoyens!" ("To Code, Citizens!") The speakers' lineup includes some of the continent's leaders in the digital revolution. GO

tuesday >

Website Imitation is Flattery in New York City Council Race

A New York City Council candidate who had made his name as a technology consultant and spearheaded an open government initiative several years ago found parts of his website copied by another City Council candidate in a different borough, as Politicker first reported. GO

Mike Honda Locks Up Establishment Support, But Challenger Has Ear of the Silicon Valley Elite

Some of Silicon Valley's most influential business people will hold a fundraiser in San Francisco this Thursday for Ro Khanna, the 36-year-old lawyer who's challenging 71-year-old California Democrat Mike Honda for his 17th Congressional District seat. The names at the top of the invite: Ron Conway and Sean Parker. They're apparently forming a committee to help Khanna build his campaign. The other bold-face names who are listed as part of the 'committee in formation' include Salesforce.com's Founder and CEO Marc Benioff, Benchmark Capital General Partners' Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton, tech entrepreneur Shawn Fanning, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, her big data venture investor husband Zach Bogue, and Conway's SV Angel colleague, Founder and Managing Partner David Lee. GO

Tools to Keep Independent Media Online in Hostile Environments

Websites and media outlets in developing countries or countries with corrupt or repressive regimes struggle daily to fend off hacker attacks, some from their own government — like the Malaysian news portal Sarawak Report, which techPresident reported was taken down in April by sustained denial-of-service attacks. The negative attention controversial reporting draws can scare local advertisers away as well, making it difficult for a media company to support itself. Media Frontiers offers two services to websites dealing with either of those problems.

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monday >

Ahead of September Elections, German Pirate Party Picks Its Platform

The German Pirate Party held its election year convention over the weekend and approved its party platform, following lengthy debate over the role that online decision-making should have within the party, as German news sources reported and the party outlined on its own web platforms. GO

Peruvians Petition their President to Stick Up for their Digital Rights

Peru’s civil society advocacy groups have started an online petition outlining their ‘non-negotiable’ demands for digital rights and freedom of speech. The campaign was prompted by the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Lima, Peru, will soon host the 17th round of secretive TPP trade talks, which will take place from May 15 – 24.

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Gun Control Advocates Take Aim At LivingSocial for Promoting Guns and Alcohol

A coalition of advocacy groups is launching a new campaign this week against the promotion of American gun culture. The campaign focuses on the daily deals site Living Social, which hasn't stopped promoting social events Hunter S. Thompson would have loved (they promote shooting off guns and letting off steam and drinking.) GO

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