ThinkStream

See, Twitter is useful, and it can make money (H/T @bivings)

“The reality is Twitter’s got all sorts of business models available to it,” said Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners and a Twitter investor. “We’re putting together monetization framework, things like features for commercial accounts, which could be for global companies all the way down to local companies.” He said the business model will be largely driven by the creativity and needs of the businesses using it.

Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses – Advertising Age – Digital

So true. Hat tip to Allen Fuller: Small talk with a web designer by The Anti Pimp.

Todd Zeigler at Bivings gets it right: splash pages can be annoying and technically present an extra step between users and data they are searching for, but as long as they continue to work, developers are smart to continue to use them, as long as best practices are observed: In Defense of Splash Pages

I was a guest on the Digital Politics: “The Art and Science of Targeting Voters” podcast yesterday, and relayed my thoughts about the recent Politics Online conference, the state of the industry, and the importance of a database centric strategy for political campaigns.

The Digital Politics podcast this week will focus on how web tools can be used more effectively to identify likely contributors, volunteers, supporters, and voters.

My guest today is Matthew Dybwad, Senior director of Internet Strategy, emotive LLC, a Virginia based Internet consulting firm. Matthew moderated a panel at the IPDI Politics Online Conference in DC this week and we will be talking about where the political insiders are seeing the most potential for the next round of online campaigns.

Get in your ROFL Copter. This is from Josh Trevino:

About 30 minutes ago, I posted this:

http://twitter.com/jstrevino/status/1479268821

About 10 minutes ago, I got a call from a producer at Nightline, asking for my source.
The answer? Steven Seagal’s 1992 classic, “Under Siege” –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Siege

So disappointing. But now you know they’re watching.

Wow. They should have called me. I’d have been happy to put up a website with no information for them for 1% of that price. In fact, they could have gotten any competent firm in town to put that together for 0.003% of that price.

Obama’s stimulus-spending Web site short on details – The Back Story – Washington Times – Politics, Breaking News, US and World News

Here's the link to the story I mentioned on the "Using all the tools
in the box" panel.

http://politicsmagazine.com/magazine-issues/february-2009/long-tail-nanotargeting/

Along with a handy bailout calculator showing your share of the bailout (no, not what you are getting, what your share of the debt it creates will be)  Right.org showcases very succinctly the folly of the impending Obama bailout.  They are also incentivizing their users to submit video asking where their own bailout is, and giving $28k (your average personal share of the bailout) away to the best video. 

Can the right create its own netroots? – By Christopher Beam – Slate Magazine

Among the excellent points made in the article are a few that bear refining. Chief among them is that trying to replicate the Obama campaign will FAIL for the Right, because the Right is not Barrack Obama. Now that the message of “running the last successful campaign again won’t necessarily work” is finally sinking in, Republicans seem to want to run the last successful campaign of their opponents. Good luck.

The key, as pointed out by Beam, is to move onto the next thing, “Web 3.0″ as Karl Rove has said. My opinion is that the “next thing” is facilitating centralized coordination with decentralized activism, which is a whole series of posts for another time. However, that notion follows along the other of Beam’s critical points, which is that without an effort that bolsters the entire movement online, certain groups have the opportunity “mobilize online and hold the party hostage,” thereby splintering the GOP.

What we need to do as a movement is not only give the tools away that will facilitate group blogging, online activism, fostering community, etc, but make those tools all work together for everyone so that efforts are not duplicate and that the movement can prosper as a whole, in spite of all of its disparate parts. Yes, we need a common narrative, yes we need an army of bloggers, yes, we need inspiring candidates, but without an easy, distributed array of communication, coordination, and activism tools, what we have are thousands of interest groups reinventing the wheel over and over again.

From a political perspective I think campaigns are now getting to the point where they are ready to embrace outrech efforts that go past the usual “give me money now,” and “vote for me on election day.” The article below is a good synopsis of the potential of episodic video content to be the best ongoing representation of a brand (or candidate) available. As production technology gets easier and easier this type of content should proliferate across campaign websites, and candidates and staff should start thinking of their campaign itinerary in terms of opportunities to record and repurpose their offline activity for online gain.

MediaPost Publications Goodbye Banners, Hello Webisodes! 01/27/2009: “Where banner ads simply flash a message, and rich-media ads only invite interaction, good content and Webisodic series hold the customers’ attention for minutes at a time, lure them back for repeat exposure, and communicate much more than the often forgettable ‘buy me’ messaging of a traditional 30-second spot.Where banner ads simply flash a message, and rich-media ads only invite interaction, good content and Webisodic series hold the customers’ attention for minutes at a time, lure them back for repeat exposure, and communicate much more than the often forgettable ‘buy me’ messaging of a traditional 30-second spot.”