The most popular political weblogs have been able to support their publishers through an intermediary called Blogads. As this election season heated up, most of the top sites saw extreme traffic spikes and have been able to set lucrative- but- competitive prices for ad views (not clickthrough) on their sites.

Echoditto, one of the new Internet strategy firms that rose from the ashes of the Howard Dean campaign, has posted a handy list of "best practices and tips for online fundraising."<!--first--> The firm also has a pretty interesting blog.

The good folks at EchoDitto have posted another in their series of "best practices" documents, this one offering basic advice on good online organizing. The hardest steps, in my humble opinion, are the first ones they list:

"Think strategically and take the plunge

* Ask: How do your audience’s goals fit with your organizational priorities?

* Identify the goals that your supporters will help achieve.

* Integrate your internet strategy into your overall organizing plan.

* Organizational buy-in: agree to fully support this effort (staff time, technology) and trust the community with what you’re asking."

Given that lots of organizations are hardly ready to make that leap, this is no small set of challenges. As the writers at Network-Centric Advocacy and Movement as Network have been arguing, a whole culture shift is implied in these questions. Hey, EchoDitto-heads, how do you convince the groups you work with to get over this hump?

In a post called Ethics, Kos addresses the recent Zephyr / Dean / WSJ / Armstrong-Williams-equivalency flap:

So to recap, if I write about something in which I hold a financial stake, I will disclose it. If I don't, then it's nobody's business. If other bloggers follow that rule, then great. If they don't, then great. If they have their own rules, then great. I could care less. This talk about ethics bores me, so I'm done discussing it.

As for the academic weenies -- I've told them to go to hell, I've given them a middle finger... that should do the trick. For now.

Washington, DC is often called “Hollywood for ugly people.” This reference came into full light yesterday at the 2005 Annual Pollie Awards ceremony.

The Pollies are the equivalent of the Emmy Awards for political consultants. The event featured an hour long reception, followed by a Hollywood-style formal dinner. Despite the blizzard, hundreds of consultants were in attendance, many forced to watch the events unfold on televisions in “overflow rooms” after the main ballroom filled beyond capacity.

Hosted by the America Association of Political Consultants, the awards honor the best consulting work of the previous election cycle. There are awards for everything from “Best Presidential Television Ad” to “International Political Consultant of the Year.” Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards are presented to winners in most categories.

I had the pleasure of attending the Pollies in 2002, but tonight’s awards ceremony was of particular significance. It marked the first time that the AAPC included a full range of awards for Internet campaigning. Categories went beyond the standard “Best Congressional Candidate Website” to include awards for “Most Innovative Use of Technology” and “Best Use of Humor in a Banner Ad.”

Stuart Rothenberg, one of the two most respected political handicappers in the business (the other is Charlie Cook), has a tough column out today in Roll Call entited "House Race Bloggers: So Little Knowledge, So Much Hot Air." In it, he goes after Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Chris Bowers of MyDD with a skewer. Unfortunately, Roll Call has hidden the full text of the column behind its pay wall. (PDF blogger Brian Reich read the piece this morning and a few minutes ago posted it in full, which I'm not sure Roll Call's publishers would appreciate.) But in the interests of public debate, I give you the high points here.

Rothenberg cuts straight to the chase:

After spending much of 2004 pummeling the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, liberal bloggers have now turned their keen analytical skills to 2006. Contributors to two of the better known political blogs, Daily Kos and MyDD, seem to believe that they know more about House campaigns than do the professionals who have spent years actually working on races and running campaign committees. The first rule of blogging apparently is “All Opinions Are Equal,” with “Experience Doesn’t Matter” a close second.

Then he notes how three of the dozen or so House candidates promoted by Moulitsas were crushed by their Republican opponents, tartly observing that "All three races were unwinnable from day one for the Democrats, so raising cash for those challengers was about as useful as flushing money down the toilet." (Anybody smell in this the hidden hand of Jim Bonham, the DCCC director who clashed with Kos in the past? Or Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the DCCC's new chairman, another pugnacious pol?)

A lot has been written about the effectives of the Bush and Kerry Internet strategies, including details of money raised, volunteers recruited, and votes won using the Web. However, information about specific online advertising strategies has yet to be released by either side.

Addressing this concern, MSHC Partners has published details about the online ad campaigns conducted by John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee. [Full disclosure, I work at MSHC and helped direct the Kerry and DNC online ad strategies. From this point forward, I’m just going to write in the first person.]

The purpose of releasing this information is simple: to educate the political community about the effectiveness of online marketing. Continuity of key learnings has always been a challenge to all those who have worked in and around political campaigns. Campaigns shut down after elections and little is done to preserve information about the strategies that worked (and didn't work) best.

Eric Porres from Pericles Consulting wrote yesterday in iMediaConnection an overview of his experience as the online media buyer for George Bush and the National Republican Senatorial Committee...two organizations I used to deal with when working at America Online.

In part one of his article -- the rest to be published next week -- Porres tackles two problems he experienced. As a media buyer for numerous Democratic candidates, I agree with his first point, but take issue with his second.

1. Making the medium scalable
Eric here is actually addressing a problem that the entire online advertising industry faces. Scalability.

Take a look at any three websites today. Doesn’t matter which three. Now…pay attention to the ads. How big they are, where they’re located on the page, how long they animate for, etc.

Eric Porres’ second article on the challenges online political ad buyers face was published today in iMediaConnection. The first part was discussed on PDF last week.

In this portion of his three-part exploration, Eric addresses some of the issues surrounding contracts between online media buyers and website publishers. The piece, which focuses on “Insertion Orders, Terms & Conditions and Delivery Guarantees” is broken down into three parts, two worthy of debate: (1) pre-payment and (2) make-goods for under-delivery.

1. Pre-Payment
Eric points out that there is no law governing payment of political advertising, either online or off. As a result, media outlets are entitled to set their own rules regarding payment terms. For a variety of reasons, publishers decided to force political advertisers to pre-pay for their ad campaigns.

And you thought the only ads for sale on eBay were for placement on foreheads and naughty bits. Not for long: on March 14 political advertisers and vendors will be able to bid on PoliticsOnline newsletter ads.

Through its PoliTicker and NetPulse email newsletters, PoliticsOnline has been covering all things politically interactive for quite some time now (seems like it must be at least two or three years). Although the media company doubles as a consultancy and Web tool provider, it hired campaign management and web marketing services firm CampaignAssistant to handle its eBay auction service which will offer ad space in the newsletters. It looks like CampaignAssistant has a service called "MarketRates Advertising" that sells and implements ads on websites, email newsletters, blogs, and print mags or newsletters.

As someone who's followed the online ad industry for...sheesh...about 7 years now...I've gotta say I'm surprised to see an ad space auction originate in the political ad sphere. Typically, political advertisers lag years behind corporate marketers.