Pervert of the Day

24 hour news networks are reaching to fill their coverage. Scott Peterson, runaway brides, the vaseline card in the Jacko case...

Isn't there demand out there for actual news, maybe from a legitimate (and named) primary source or two? The problem with the internet is its vastness. There are too many sites and resources to dig through. A lot of information is bogus. The blending of opinion into news is not restricted to one medium. It is a pervasive trend that subjugates reality in the interest of entertainment.

Because the internet is constantly expanding, it is imperative that surfers be able to sift through the garbage and find reliable and truthful accounts of world events. As British Boy so aptly described in his account of coverage in the DailyKos, the Bloggers who fancy themselves watchdogs of the MSM may be a fox in sheep's clothing.

R U READY

I never really "got" text messaging. Too much work. The concept of m-commerce, though, and the power of reaching individuals anywhere, anytime I can get. I've seen the CrackBerry epidemic ravage Washington, DC. The Capital (and Capitol) is in the throes of addiction. I carry my work BlackBerry and can tell you just how possible it is to be reached anywhere, anytime.

What you see in China, the streets of Cairo and rural South Africa, is the use of SMS to organize, direct and orchestrate activity. The technology and consumer market in the USA allow organizers and advertisers to build on these SMS tactics and dive much deeper into m-commerce.

The convergence of voice, email, SMS, web, and mobile computing onto one simple device makes that particular device indispensable to the individual carrying it. Stands to reason that a corporation or campaign would like to have its product or a Get Out To Vote message get through to that device.

Trust Me

It wouldn't be a New Media if the internet and World Wide Web worked the same way as every other media. The challenges of campaigning in the New Media should be faced with the understanding that the marketing approach for television/radio is largely incongruent with what is necessary to be successful on the internet.

Seth Godin managed to distill the paradigm shift required for success on the internet in his work Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers. Seth was a little overzealous in predicting the speed and depth of the permission marketing impact, but history will prove his concepts prescient.

Marketers and major corporations are fast catching on to the theory of Trust-Based Marketing, as supported by Glen Urban's extensive research. Campaigns are at their essence a marketing exercise, and future successful campaigns will leverage the lessons of corporate e-marketing.

Campaign internet strategy should take advantage of the interactive tools and behavior available only through the New Media, and should leave the sledgehammer of one-way communication to their television and radio ad buys. Howard Dean's Open Source strategy in 2004 demonstrated the power of Trust-Based Marketing to energize and directly engage the electorate. His and other candidates' use of the internet to maintain and foster a base of support through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is another example of corporate e-marketing best practices applied to the political field. (Note to incumbents: A CRM system based on the proprietary data gleaned from your work in office is the strongest present day advantage of incumbency.)

Go to school on the commercial sector. The New Media differs from the Old, and there are plenty of examples of how to use it effectively to spur action, engender loyalty, and better meet the needs of both the candidate and voter.

Keep Your Dirty Toe Out Of My Pristine Pool

Some efforts just don't meet the giggle test. In this spirit, the Federal Election Commission has decided to dip its dirty toe into the freewheeling frontier of political discourse on the internet. Newly proposed regulations seek to apply to the internet many of the same crippling standards that exist for paid electioneering communications and political ads on television and radio.

The American political system, already an indecipherable mass of freedom-stunting, ineffective regulation, now stands on the crest of a new wave of heavy-handed rulemaking. Spurred by court order, the FEC's proposed rules, if formally adopted, will undoubtedly send both regulator and regulated chasing their tails in an attempt to control electioneering activity in a sphere where the sheer size and diffusion of activity make regulation wholly impractical.

An elegantly designed Constitution set forth the most effective form of political regulation 10 score and 18 years ago when it empowered the citizenry as the ultimate arbiters of the behavior and actions of its elected representatives.

Sadly, the Good Government movement has been co-opted not by those who believe in the citizen's market as the best regulator of behavior, but by those who believe that free speech and political activity can and should be limited.

I sure hope this entry isn't construed as an in-kind contribution of over $2K. I wouldn't want to exceed my allotted freedom of expression.

To Stand Aside...

Was the action of prudence as the remover of obstacles sauntered into the blogosphere...