It's been a busy week in the 2008 presidential campaign--Hillary Clinton launched her online "conversation" (see David Weinberger's spot-on critique) and went to Iowa; John Edwards also did an online video web-chat that he calls a "live online discussion"; Barack Obama laid low and let the explosive growth of one unofficial Facebook group (now at more than 158,000 members) speak for him; and Bill Richardson formally announced his campaign launch.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic candidate who showed the most growth in online grassroots support, as measured by trends in the number of friends they have on their MySpace page and in incoming blog posts to their campaign site was Richardson, whose MySpace numbers were up a whopping 61,100% and blog posts up 285.8%. Of course, those numbers have to be put into context. A week ago, Richardson had only one friend on MySpace; as of last night (Sunday, January 28), he had 611. His incoming blog link tally, as measured by Technorati, jumped from an anemic 92 to a still feeble 355. But, hey, you have to start somewhere.

The Web on the Candidates

The Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas writes about the presidential candidates' use of video, and the reviewers that pick it apart. Specifically, he interviews Jeff Jarvis, James Kotecki, and techPresident's own Micah Sifry about what the candidates still have to learn about online video. Online viewers want something different than they're getting from the candidates; while one of Hillary Clinton's recent Hillcasts had about 15,000 visitors, a popular video of YouTube featuring Clinton singing an out-of-tune national anthem has been viewed over 1.1 million times. A lot of viewers are looking for that human touch: "Look at how the candidates are talking in their videos. With a few exceptions, they're mostly looking sideways, not talking directly to the camera. The important thing about this medium is it's very human and intimate. A voter comes across and clicks on you. You should talk to that voter and look at him in the eye," says Jarvis. Micah agrees. "There's something fundamentally different about video online. Viewers are looking for that rare, unscripted, revealing moment, to get a little sense of who these candidates really are."

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."  

The Web on the Candidates

MySpace and Mark Burnett (producer of TV shows like Rock Star: INXS) are working together on a new reality show that will search for an independent presidential candidate. "Contestants in the show, set to launch in early 2008, will meet the public and interact with supporters, protesters and others. An interactive 'town hall' will give MySpace users and TV viewers a chance to rate their performance." The show is still looking to partner with a network, though something -- I don't know, intuition maybe -- tells me that Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace will ultimately find a partnership with Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox...

A bipartisan alliance has signed a petition asking the Republican and Democratic National Committees "To Ensure All Presidential Debate Video Can Be Legally Put On Sites Like YouTube." The petition was started by Stanford professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig, and it seeks to make certain that all debate footage (which would be officially owned by the networks on which the debates appear) be put into the public domain or licensed as "Creative Commons," Lessig's alternative copyright vision. It was signed by the who's who of tech/politics, including techPresident's own Micah Sifry. See the post for the complete list.

The Web on the Candidates

James Kotecki is calling Hillary Clinton to task for not having posted a new "Hillcast" video in over six weeks. When she first started to post videos, they were a bit stilted and tight, and her call to "let the conversation begin" was contradicted by the sense that we were being talked at, not talked with. As Kotecki notes, her videos were better and more relaxed over time, but then they just stopped. Why has she stopped, he wonders, and when can she "let the conversation continue"?

To gaffe or not to gaffe? Joe Biden is making waves again with his blunt talk, this time telling a supporter at a fish fry that he would shove the Iraq funding bill down Bush's throat. While the comments below Ben Smith's Politico post about it are critical of Biden and the remark, Biden's own team is proud of it, and is promoting it on Biden's YouTube channel.

The Web on the Candidates

Joe Anthony, the creator of an unofficial MySpace Barack Obama profile who had a well-documented brush-up with the Obama campaign over control of the profile, has decided to take down his old unofficial profile. This morning he wrote on his blog, "I've had some time to relax and think about what's next, and decided it's best to delete this profile and start anew. Regardless of the outcome, we accomplished a lot here on Myspace. We built the biggest profile, the biggest community of supporters, for any candidate on Myspace and I think we all did an amazing job. We did this together, before the campaign or Myspace even got involved... I'm going to stay positive and look forward to the next opportunity, whether it includes Myspace or not. I hope I'll meet some of you along the way." It's still up this morning but will apparently be deleted sometime today.

Scott Keyes at Political Insider does a quick roundup of the candidates' Facebook profiles, offering one factoid per candidate. Examples: Hillary Clinton is "the only candidate in either party to not list his or her relationship status. Everyone else listed 'married.'" Joe Biden "lists his political views as 'liberal' and is the only candidate to do so." Dennis Kucinich is "in a Facebook group called 'Free Hugs.'" Mitt Romney said that "Battlefield Earth was his favorite novel, [but] it isn't listed among favorite books; the classic American novel Huckleberry Finn is listed instead." And Sam Brownback also likes his science fiction: he "lists The Lord of the Rings before The Bible in his list of favorite books." (thanks Colin!)

The Web on the Candidates

Ben Smith has a biting piece in the Politico exploring YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook's growing role as arbiters of political speech. "As political communication moves online, a new group of corporate executives and their customer service agents have gained control of the censor's pen - in a forum where the First Amendment does not apply," Smith writes. YouTube in particular has attracted criticism from the left and the right for it's policy of removing "inappropriate" content. However, the expansiveness of the web means that other sites will pop to show content banned on the biggies. "A video posted on a small site might not access the giant communities of YouTube or MySpace, but political bloggers and campaigns could easily direct the members of their own communities to a video posted anywhere.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has been producing some great online video under the name TPM TV, producing videos that give his insistent investigative reporting more room to breath. He's been extending his coverage of the Alberto Gonzales controversy with new videos that quickly react to new developments, and his team produces great videos essays that pull together news coverage and commentary. While the actual content of the reporting isn't that different from Marshall's blog posts, it's refreshing to see him in front of the camera interacting with televised news reports or even interviewing people like John Kerry. We look forward to seeing how Marshall uses video to cover the presidential race.

* Left and right are buzzing about Republican candidate Ron Paul's surprising showings online. He's been the most popular candidate on MySpace since before anyone was paying attention to the friends-chase there, a reflection of the disproportionate number of libertarians among techies online. More recently, he's been at the top of Technorati's most searched terms, and he's also big on Digg. But now these online forays are starting to earn Paul some unusual attention from the mainstream media.

The Web on the Candidates

Blogpac, a group comprised of MyDDers Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, and Mike Stark that gives grants to online progressive activists, has awarded $1000 to former John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte "for her courage in the face of an irresponsible media." Earlier this year, a mini-scandal erupted after conservatives criticized comments Marcotte had written on her Pandagon blog before she was hired by the Edwards campaign. In the post announcing the award, Mike Stark gives us Marcotte's story, from the time she was hired by the campaign (she was working as a financial aid counselor at UT-Austin) to how the cable news sites helped blow the thing out of proportion to how and why she resigned from the campaign.

Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post explains that the Democrats are beating the GOP online, getting more traffic, raising more money, and gaining more popularity on the "social-networking triumvirate" of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. TechPresident's Mike Turk says that it goes beyond using the right technologies. "They've all got Web sites. Yes, they're doing videos. Yes, some are blogging. But that's not enough to really connect with voters." And while Republicans are fighting back, with TechPresident's David All forming TechRepublican and former Reagan campaign aide Charlie Gerow starting QubeTV to counter what he calls the "liberal bias" of YouTube, All says "for the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000."

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