Senator John McCain appeared at a MySpace/MTV “Presidential Dialogue” yesterday at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH. He mangles an opening punchline - “I’m older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein” but hangs in there for a lengthy Q&A with the students.
We’ve made fun of Rudy Giuliani for having a private MySpace page, so now we are honor-bound to let you know that Rudy’s page is finally public. So now we get to see Rudy’s snapshots. Who says he’s grumpy? The man can’t stop smiling:
And we learn that he likes The Godfather and the Sopranos.
Hillary’s interests on MySpace are good for a cocked eyebrow or two. First, why should she bother filling in the line, “alternate career choice”? Seems rather defeatest, eh? But her choice: “Continue to work for causes and issues I care about, in a setting like a university or foundation.” The rest:
Favorite food to cook: I’m a lousy cook, but I make pretty good soft scrambled eggs.
Favorite reality TV program: American Idol.
Favorite fitness activity: Speed walking.
Worst habit: Chocolate.
Sleeping-in time: I feel lucky when I can sleep until 7 a.m.
Hidden talent: I love crossword puzzles.
Last music purchase: Carly Simon’s Into White.
Cars you drive: For security reasons, we drive in Secret Service vehicles but the Service lets us use a Ford hybrid when we’re home in New York.
Home task that needs tending: Organizing my closets.
Last work of fiction read: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Pets at home: Seamus, our Lab.
Best and worst grades or subjects in school: I always loved history and got good grades, but I never did well at math.
Item that most reminds you of where you came from: Olive burgers from the Pickwick in Chicago.
The LA Times pits YouTube against MySpace in the effort to be the Meetup of the 2008 election:
“It’s almost like the ‘browser battle’ — which site is the new e-mail? Which is the new standard for how people communicate?” said Eli Pariser, executive director of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org.
Credibility hangs in the balance as both sites seek to position themselves as more than one-trick ponies where users share passions for rock bands or post funny videos, said Josh Bernoff, a social-computing analyst at Forrester Research.
“Both MySpace and YouTube would like to establish themselves as serious political sites,” he said. “They want to be broader, more multidimensional.” . . .
Facebook.com also is playing a role: It established profile pages for each major candidate through which they can communicate with Facebook users. . . .
MySpace is quickly becoming a key player in online politics, said Micah L. Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum.
“MySpace has become a virtual state fair, and every campaign has decided they are going to have a booth there — hopefully not too close to the bearded ladies and the strippers,” said Sifry, also co-editor of TechPresident.com, which tracks Internet use in the 2008 presidential race. “But the truth is, there isn’t going to be just one major hub.”
Uh, speaking of which, here’s a screenshot of one of Chris Dodd’s friends I spotted on MySpace the other day. With friends like these. . . .
MySpace just announced that it will hold presidential town halls online and on campuses with, so far, Sam Brownback, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Barack Obama, Ron Paul, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, and Tommy Thompson. Between September and December, MySpace will hold an “intimate, candid dialogue between one Presidential
candidate and the MySpace community while viewers at home submit questions via MySpace instant messenger and watch live via the MySpace webcast.”
In the press release, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe vowed: “This won’t be the stale debate format with one moderator getting canned
answers to the same old questions. “Our users will have the chance to get direct answers to the questions they want to ask - unfiltered.” Not sure what they mean by unfiltered. Clearly, someone will pick which questions to answer. But then, maybe we get to see what’s answered and not.
LATER: I just spoke with MySpace’s Jeff Berman, who heads up video. He explained that the events will be held live in front of MySpace users on the campuses. They will ask questions directly and will have the opportunity to follow up — which beats the “real” debates. More questions will come online. Berman said they want “a real dialogue.” MySpace will stream the town halls live online and then archive them, whole or in chunks, with all the usual MySpace functionality: We can embed them in our blogs. They are also looking into other ways to enable us to do more with the video.
MySpace has been clever about the campaign, trying to notch up the ambition from rival YouTube, which has pages for candidates’ videos and the Spotlight allowing candidates to ask (insipid, as it turns out) questions of the voters. As reported here previously, MySpace is also holding a primary on January 1 and 2 with monthly straw polls leading up to that. And MySpace is making a political reality show (if that’s not essentially oxymoronic). You can find all the candidates’ official MySpace sites here.
MySpace insists that it is the right place to reach voters (with advertising as well, one presumes):
According to third party metrics, the majority of MySpace’s users are of voting age and have a higher engagement rate for civic and social activity when compared to other Internet users. For example, comScore Media Metrics* reports that nearly 65 million Americans visit MySpace every month and that more than 85% of them are of voting age. Nielsen//NetRatings** reports that MySpace users 18-years of age or older are nearly three times more likely than average Web users to interact online with a public official or candidate. Additionally, Nielsen//NetRatings reports that MySpace users are 42% more likely to view online video relating to politics or public affairs, 35% more likely to research politics and campaign information online, and 44% more likely more likely to listen to online audio/radio related to politics/ public affairs.
But see also this TV discussion by college students making fun of the notion of voters on MySpace. I wouldn’t ignore the space if I were a candidate.
Micah Sifry writes the engrossing story of the war that erupted on MySpace over Barack Obama’s page there, started and run — until this week — by a civilian supporter. It has now been taken over by the official Obama campaign and the number of friends plummeted from 160,000 to 12,000.
The moral of the story is that politics is still all about control. There is no playbook for handing over control to the people, only for acting like it. Every attempt to use social networking on the internet for campaigns is just that — an attempt to use.
Says Micah:
How all this happened is a complicated tale that is still unfolding, and none of the parties involved–Anthony, the Obama online team, and the MySpace political operation–emerge from this story unscathed. Speaking on background, Obama campaign staffers are spreading word that Anthony just wanted a “big payday.” Anthony in turn has posted a missive on his blog (that was originally sent to me as an email) accusing the Obama team of “bullying…[and] rotten and dishonest” behavior. However one parses those accusations (more below), the Obama campaign’s reputation as the most net-savvy of 2008 has taken a big hit. And MySpace executives have been forced to take extraordinary action to resolve a dispute between two high-profile users of their invaluable site, one a passionate volunteer with a huge network of friends and the other a frontrunning presidential candidate who has helped make MySpace a new factor in the 2008 contest.
The rest could be a movie of the week. Or a dark sitcom.
MySpace is making a political reality show with the king of the genre, Mark Burnett.
Come to think of it, politics is the ultimate reality show. It has elements of Survivor — council meetings are other wise known as primaries, Big Brother — we vote them out of the house, Apprentice — it’s controlled by the guy guy with the money, Dancing with the stars — it’s all choreographed, and American Idol — hair matters but it won’t win you the prize.
But seriously, folks, it’s a brilliant stroke. Politics is entertainment. So why not make entertainment out of politics?
The Wall Street Journal’s description of the show:
Dubbed “Independent,” the reality series pits would-be politicians in a competition for a $1 million prize, which must be either donated to a political cause or be used — improbably as it sounds — as seed money for the winner’s own election campaign. The show is set to launch early next year. . . .
The new political series aims to combine the online power of MySpace’s networking community with the reality-show format Mr. Burnett helped popularize with television shows like “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.” MySpace executives say the new show also stems from its users’ growing interest in the coming 2008 presidential election. Most major candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have MySpace profiles. . . .
Candidates try out for the show with submissions to MySpace Video. The field of contestants is narrowed down by voting on the site; users also interact with contestants on their MySpace profiles. Political topics that generate the most buzz on the site — whether it’s climate change or immigration reform — will determine the kinds of “challenges” created by television producers for the live network show. A challenge might be traveling to a border town to talk about immigration.
I will confess to recycling that headline above from December 2003 when American Candidate moved from FX to Showtime. It was supposed to create the people’s candidate who could win our nomination based on issues, not power. I guess we just weren’t ready to vote for a guy named Park Gillespie, who went on to try to run for Congress. The show didn’t click but then, Showtime didn’t have the constituency that MySpace has.
Note also that MySpace is holding its own online primary. This is not just a smart publicity and programming move. I’ll bet that MySpace will get a king’s — er, president’s — share of online campaign advertising.
MySpace announcing a presidential primary for its members is more than a publicity stunt. It exposes the absurdity of geographic primaries in this connected age. MySpace members share a lot more interests and concerns with teach other than they do with their neighbors; I share more with my fellow internet residents than Jersey residents. But then, the rush to get every primary moved ahead of every other primary also reveals the absurdity of the system. All these states are attempting to get more attention (visits and ad revenue) and influence in the election.
But now MySpace steals some of that thunder, for candidates will now need to spend some effort and, yes, money there to make sure that Obama doesn’t walk away with the virtual election and the subsequent rush of publicity (just watch: the winner on MySpace will end up being announced on network news shows; it would be more newsworthy than last night’s NBC Nightly News report on the voting campaign for Sanjaya).
Rudy Giuliani finally has a new site up with a video front-and-center. Usual rhetoric. The video isn’t even up on his YouTube site yet. And it’s not terribly interactive: no blog, no way to interact effectively. But as I watch the video, can’t help wondering, what’s up with the flowers? An effort to show Rudy’s softer side? Tulips?
By the way, Rudy’s MySpace page is private! You have to be allowed in to be Rudy’s pal. It’s the Studio 54 campaign: Can you get past the rope?
Social networking comes to the 2008 presidential campaign with MySpace’s introduction of a new section called “Impact: Presidential Focus.” Candidates who are participating in this Internet information hub include Democrats Joe Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama, along with Republicans Rudolph Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
Candidate MySpace pages include blogs, photos, videos and, of course, the all-important friends list. (At this point, Barack Obama has the most friends by far, closing in on 70,000.) Candidate ads are also available for MySpacers to plaster on their own pages. Read more.
