I didn't go to South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual interactive festival in Austin, Texas, but I lot of my friends and colleagues did. However, I know what time many of them landed, where they were flying from, where they've been staying and eating, and even what sessions they've been attending. How do I know all this? They've been Twittering it, of course.

The Web on the Candidates

Danny Glover at AirCongress writes that Newt Gingrich is issuing us a "conversation challenge." Newt dismissed the Hillary 1984 video as "utterly, totally destructive of the process of thought. There is not a single thing in that commercial that enables America to solve a problem. … It’s the Entertainment Tonight version of governing a great country. … Everything is reduced to gossip, attack, whose consultant is cleverer. And it’s really very destructive." Instead, he's proposing that the nominees engage in a 90-minute dialogue once a week from Labor Day 2008 to Election Day. "Once a week with a timekeeper and no moderator. No Mickey Mouse questions. No gimmicks. Two adults, much like [Abraham] Lincoln and [Stephen] Douglas," he said.

The LA Times reports that Google, and to lesser extent other web companies like Yahoo and Myspace, is aggressively reaching out to political campaigns, looking to provide them with advertising and other services.
Phil Noble of PoliticsOnline thinks it's a smart move: "There's probably a lot less [money] than they think initially, but Google plays for the long term and they're smart to be there... The Internet and politics is a revolution, and Google and these guys are not going to lead the revolution, but they don't want to get shot in the back either." According to techPresident contributor Michael Bassik, 2004 campaigns only spent $12 million on online ads, compared to $1.6 billion on TV, but "political campaigns are expected to shift more of their ad dollars to the Web." Google will be waiting in the wings.

The Web on the Candidates

More on the Ron Paul madness: although Paul barely registers in nationwide polls about the Republican presidential contenders, he actually won ABC's online poll following last week's Republican debate, garnering more than 9,400 of 11,000 votes as of mid-day Monday. ABC News, which apparently feels like it's been punk'd, chalks it up to "Paul supporters [who] have mastered the art of 'viral marketing,' using Internet savvy and blog postings to create at least the perception of momentum for his long-shot presidential bid." Meanwhile, Todd Zeigler has a more lengthy analysis of why Paul is so hot on Digg, noting that, in the absence of mainstream coverage, Paul's supporters are turning to Digg (Democrat Mike Gravel is also starting to get dugg), and Digg readers have been receptive. The result? A submission trying to get Paul on the Daily Show has attracted over 5,500 diggs.

DomeNation, the bi-partisan Internet TV project started by MyDD's Jerome Armstrong TechPresident's David All, posted its first interview yesterday, with Senator John Kerry. Kerry was open and friendly during the interview, in which, among other things, he discussed YouTube and the role of the Internet in politics. He talked about posting on Firedoglake and name-checked an impressive array of bloggers. "They're the new medium, the new ways of communicating with people... they've been a terrific truth and accountability squad," he said.

The Web on the Candidates

Does the performance of a candidate's web page help determine their online effectiveness and the amount of online donations they bring in? Katherine Noyes at TechNewsWorld reports that 62% of respondents to a "nationwide survey" "said they'd abandon the online donation process after two unsuccessful attempts, and 67 percent said they would tell other people if the donation process didn't work well," and "of the 43 percent of survey respondents who had already visited or who planned to visit candidate Web sites, 58 percent said they believe there will be a correlation between the candidate with the best-performing Web site and the ultimate winner of the presidential race." However, these stats ignore the actual content of the web sites -- are candidates blogging, using video, or Twittering? Are they using social networking sites? While a site's poor performance can undeniably aggravate users and discourage them from donating, there also other online factors to consider when judging a candidates' online presence.

The Candidates on the Web

John Edwards has launched a new web site called Support the Troops. End the War, with an overlong url to boot, that is calling for Americans to... support the troops and end the war with a series of actions over Memorial Day weekend. The site begins, "As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice. As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong. As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home," and provides 10 things you can do over Memorial Day weekend toward that end. Otherwise, the site is mostly a place to gather email addresses, though it also provides a way to search for Memorial Day activities near you. However, I live in one of the most populated spots in the country, and the nearest activity ("Donation") was over nine miles away, followed by an activity ("Call/email President Bush and your Congressional Representatives") almost 29 miles away.

Hitwise and Compete show Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain getting the most online attention in the runup to the New Hampshire primary; Obama is getting more buzz in the blogs than Hillary Clinton; Mark Glaser considers whether online support is beginning to translate to offline votes; a fun new site called Politweets aggregates Twitter posts about the candidates; Mitt Headroom rears his robotic head; and Katherine Seelye writes that the candidates are racing to keep up with demand for online content.

Journalists, bloggers, pollsters, and pundits flagellate themselves for being so wrong about New Hampshire; Glenn Greenwald calls the media "adolescent, coddled narcissists"; one blogger thinks Memeorandum is the best way to get election news; Why Tuesday continues to get the cold shoulder from Mitt Romney; Barack Obama is the most-mentioned candidate on Twitter; Obama and Clinton release post-New Hampshire fundraising numbers; and Bill Richardson drops out, yet there are still six GOP candidates!

Jay Rosen explains why campaign coverage sucks, but does it nicely; Zack Exley gets in-depth about the Clinton campaign's field operation; political journalists are Twittering; allegations of voter suppression from the Clinton campaign in Nevada are gaining traction; expat Democrats can now vote in the primaries online; Micah Sifry schools Brian Lehrer on online political video; Duncan Hunter drops out; and Fred Thompson is still in it for now, though is obits are being written anyway.

Rounding up last night's results, explanations, and prognostications; what's CNN? Online politicos tracked the action with Twitter, Google Maps, Flickr, and YouTube instead; Hillary is favored by Microsoft employees, Barack by Google: Hillsoft vs. Goobama?; Voices without Votes gives us international impressions of the race; what do we see when we take a closer look at John McCain?; and online advertising is stuck in the dark ages.

MoveOn members funnel more than $500,000 to the Obama campaign, end send out hundreds of thousands of GOTV notes; a new crop of nonprofits are creating political messaging, blurring the line between advocacy and electoral politics; a chart shows the most popular candidates on Twitter; a sneaky move to redirect folks looking for Mitt Romney (who are they?) to Mike Huckabee's site; the cult of the Obama or a genuine movement?; unexciting headlines about moderately interesting things; and the Obama campaign wants to control the fight against superdelegates.

Judging the efficacy of a Google bomb campaign against John McCain; three liberal blogs ask readers if they should endorse a candidate before the nominee emerges; another piece about why Twitter matters; illustrating the strength of viral video; congrats to Josh Marshall on his Polk Award and NYT profile; Hillary Clinton launches Delegate Hub, controls the tubes; John McCain continuing to generate little online enthusiasm.