The internet - and bloggers - are going to play a major role in this upcoming presidental election…
Several major politicians have already announced their intention to run for president. They have all included video of their announcements on their sites:
First to announce was Barack Obama, the Senator from Illinois. His video is on his campaign web site, and can be seen here:
Following soon after Senator Obama’s announcement was one by Hillary Clinton, the Senator from New York. Her announcement video is also on her campaign web site, and is available there for download in Quicktime format.
In the most recent announcement, Joe Biden, the Senator from Delaware, tossed his hat in the ring as well. His announcement video is on his campaign web site.
I’m sure you noticed that in my discussion of each announcement video, I gave a different level of visibility to each of the candidates’ material.
I can assure you, that was not an editorial decision on my part…
Barack Obama was the only one of these candidates that had a way for bloggers to grab the code needed to embed his video into a post or web site. (He uses Brightcove). You can also email it right from the video as well - even in these embeded copies. And all of those emails still flow through Sen. Obama’s web site. His site is very sparse, however, and has very little information on it. It could use a blog.
Hillary Clinton has more video based content on her site then any other candidate, but doesn’t offer a way for bloggers to embed any of it into their posts. The only video option available on the site was for a download of her announcement video in Quicktime format. As big an Apple fan as I am, the only reason to offer video in Quicktime is because it is the format used by professional video editors. (That could indicate that she is more interested in courting the traditional media then bloggers.) The site itself does have a blog, and Sen. Clinton responds to comments posted there via video segments.
Joe Biden’s video is only available on his campaign site. There’s no way to use it in blogs or even download it. The site itself has prominent links to YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr, but they feel like they were added as part of a ‘how to be relevant’ checklist. If it isn’t real, people will see through it. Sen. Biden has a ‘blog’, but it only seemed to have reprints of news articles.
This isn’t a political post. I am not commenting on anyone’s message or politics - just the way they are looking to communicate it online…
Being on the internet means something different in this election. Having a site isn’t enough any more. These candidates will need to microchunk their messages, and make them available broadly. They need to be reaching audiences not just through The New York Times and CNN, but via blogs and iPods as well . More than anything, they need to reach out to people and talk to them directly without all of the spin. (I’d love to see them all have their own blogs - and actually post into them themselves.) In this election, they can’t simply hide behind well produced web sites and scripted media events. They really need to make themselves accessible.
This time around, the web is social…
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