September 29, 2006

On The Download: The Running Man

Welcome back to On The Download, your almost-daily dispatch on politechs: Politics, Multimedia and the Internet. Hotline subscribers: Check out our archives.

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*Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign has launched a personal home page program, MyGovernor.com . It's a lot like MyGOP.com, but with a better design and more features. Kintera hosts the platform where supporters can set their own fundraising and recruitment goals, and choose their own page design.

OTD can only imagine what kind of information this gives the campaign on the back end. If this program takes off, Schwarzenegger's campaign will have a very good sense of who their supporters are and how much effort they're willing to put into the campaign (i.e. recruit 5 people versus fifty, raise $20 versus $200). Users also have some basic choices on what kind of content goes on their personal page, for example if they want a statement about immigration or the economy -- also information for the campaign about which issues their core supporters care about.

The site is still working out a few snags, for example the features on the right margin are jumbled in Firefox, but not Internet Explorer. But it's one of the most detailed personal political pages out there. After supporters send along an e-mail, they can monitor their e-mail buddy's activity on the site, such as how many links they've clicked on the page or if they've ordered a Schwarzenegger catalog.

*It seems MySpace.com is getting into the activism business just like Facebook.com. The site launched a "Declare Yourself" campaign this week aimed at guiding its young users through the voter registration process. Declare Yourself, which started for the 2004 election, uses third-party program ElectionImpact.com for the process.

Best of the Web bytes for the weekend:
*You called me what?!?!?! Check out Slate.com's George Allen Insult Generator.
*OTD is unusually motivated by Deval Patrick's Web spot, "Victory." Must be that inspirational music in the background... It's worth a look and listen, if only to check out the user-friendly video platform on DevalPatrick.tv.
*If ProgressOhio wasn't enough lefty netroots activism for one state this week, Ohio Democrats have put up PaintOhioBlue.com.
*CongressIn30Seconds is an video contest which asks users to create a half-minute webmercial about Congress.
*Colin Delany has published 43-page electronic handbook on online politics including everything from MySpace to e-mail lists.

Posted at 01:17 PM

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