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Archive for the 'Startups' Category

Matthew Yglesias’ Career Reduced to a Timeline

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2008 in Atrios, Beltway media, Charts and Graphs, Instapundit, Metapost, Startups, Website Design and William Beutler. 8 Comments

As frequent readers of political blogs undoubtedly know, famous-for-DC blogger Matt Yglesias recently gave up the job of many others’ lifetimes, blogging for The Atlantic, to write the same typically eponymous blog he has posted to more or less daily since 2002, now for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

I say “typically” because Yglesias’ blogging history has taken a few turns more than most bloggers of comparable influence and readership. I wrote about this early on at Blog P.I., when Yglesias gave up simultaneous blogging duties to focus on just one and write a book, the recently published “Heads in the Sand”. I praised the move, but when he changed sites once more just a few months later, I wasn’t inclined to devote another post to it.

Yglesias is of course far from the only blogger to have changed blogs more than once at this point in blog history. I’ve done it myself a few times. At the top levels, Instapundit and Atrios both eventually migrated away from Blogspot [though as a commenter notes, Duncan still uses Blogger], and Reynolds recently moved his site again to Pajamas Media. But that’s nothing compared to Yglesias, a veritable rolling stone even if he is far from a complete unknown.

In order to give a fuller picture of what I’m talking about, I’ve created a handy chart in Keynote that shows at which URLs he has written his blog(s) and when:

Small Yglesias Timeline

This is the small version, of course. Click on the image to visit my Flickr account and see it full-size. For specific dates and the explanation for that short, unlabeled “50% red” rectangle, let’s go below the fold. Otherwise, check back after another four or five Yglesias blogs, when I’ll probably have another update.

Continue reading ‘Matthew Yglesias’ Career Reduced to a Timeline’

When Not to Blog About the White House

Published by William Beutler on August 10, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Blogs vs. MSM, George W. Bush, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Metapost, National Politics, Newspaper Columnists, Newspapers, Startups, The Politico, Tough Crowd, Twitter, Washington Post, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Politico sign in DC Metro from David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Last week I traded a series of Twitter “@ messages” with Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor, blogger and media critic. The first one asked:

Maybe you know. Q: why doesn’t Politico have a Ben Smith for the White House? Bets on whether they’ll get one if Obama wins?
He’s got a point. The Politico lists the organization’s designated blogs on its front-page in this order: Ben Smith on Dems, Jonathan Martin on GOP, Shenanigans on Gossip, The Scorecard on Campaigns, The Crypt on Congress, Michael Calderone on Media, James Kotecki on whatever. The Politico is literally blogging about “whatever” but not about “the White House.” So I guessed, in fewer than 140 characters:
Smith-Martin are a package deal, covering both primaries. Politico: more campaign, less governing? But that’s a great idea.
Prof. Rosen suggested in turn:
How about a PI post? Politico columnists for the Dems, Reps, Congress, Media, Gossip, Campaign trail, but no White House?
To which I replied:
Mike Allen certainly covers the WH. But not in blog form, true. Have friends down there, so I can ask. Possible PI post indeed.

And so I did, getting in touch with a half-dozen or so current and former Politico writers, asking for their thoughts on background. I also made an effort to get VandeHarris on the record, but they did not return e-mails by my less-than-rigorously self-enforced deadline.

So here’s what I could piece together:

  • When the Politico launched a little under two years ago, the presidential campaign offered the biggest opportunity first. Politico was first conceived as a newspaper to be called Capitol Leader — “Yet Another Newspaper Aimed at Capitol Hill” as the Washington Post had it. The Executive branch wasn’t even in the picture until John Harris and Jim VandeHei were.

  • As noted above, the newspaper that did emerge hired the much-acclaimed, much-accosted former White House reporter for Time and WaPo, Mike Allen. He writes big stories, is in good with Drudge, and produces content on a daily basis like everyone else. The format of his output is a secondary matter.

  • Most everyone I talked to seemed to assume that no matter who won the presidential election, Politico would increase their White House coverage after the election. After all, it’s the logical continuation of the campaign stories they are covering now. Some said they thought a blog would be involved, and no one volunteered the opposite.

One thing that occurs to me is that other major newspapers have blogs covering the White House as a beat, as do regional newspapers with Washington correspondents, but none of them command major audiences (even when they resort to Olympics T&A).

People care about the big stories that emanate from the White House, and they’ll get that from every newspaper and every political blog inside the Beltway, but few are looking for the day-to-day minutiae. Bush is a lame duck, interest has waned even in some of the bigger stories, and other national newspapers have moved their White House correspondents to the campaign trail.

The answer given reminds me a bit of the response I got in the summer of 2006 when I first wrote about the opening for a “Republican ActBlue”, viz., just wait. It may be worth noting, the person who did finally create one was not yet working on it at that time.

So, yes, the Politico will probably have a White House blog next year. Whether Politico writes the one that Jay Rosen is hoping for remains to be seen.

Photograph by David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Let’s Just Admit Slatecard is the Republican ActBlue

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups, Technology, White House '08 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

In the past week or so, two online GOP operatives (neither of whom is David All) have separately suggested to me that the competition among the three Republican Internet fundraising websites is effectively over. Even I doubted the separation would happen this quickly, but as of now even a late push by one of the two laggards would have a hard time catching on.

Evidence that Slatecard, bootstrapped project of Republican consultant David All (and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram), is “the Republican ActBlue” can be found throughout mainstream political coverage over the past six months. Here are just a few:

Campaigns and Elections:

Then why the development of small donor online vehicles, including the Democratic ActBlue and Republican Slatecard, that aim to raise small donations on the congressional level? Both tools are growing substantially, and several candidates for Congress are highlighted on those sites.

USA Today:

“Your average online donor is an impulse buyer,” said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site’s donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal [$]:

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account,” said the 28-year-old Mr. All. “They don’t understand what this is all about.”

Human Events:

Slatecard aims to raise money for Republican candidates in the same way that ActBlue has for Democrats. Slatecard lets users create profiles (“slatecards”) for candidates they support and then raise money by donating to that candidate and passing it on to friends, family members, co workers — anyone — through blogs, emails, and social networking groups.

Wired:

“If you read the statute, the result is not surprising,” said Don McGahn, an attorney who advises Slatecard, the Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. “However, when they passed the statute, there wasn’t even the internet … what it really shows is that the way to fix this is to pass legislation to update the Matching Payment Act .”

While Slatecard is more elegant, interactive and transparent than its counterparts, it seems that All’s sometimes controversial self-promotion has made the lion’s share of difference, especially as he has succeeded in persuading local congressional campaigns to use his site, sometimes making it their exclusive online fundraising platform.

RedState, former backer of Big Red Tent, now supports SlatecardBut if you need further evidence that Slatecard is the take-all (no pun intended) winner of the online GOP fundraising tool primary, consider the image at right, taken from the sidebar of leading Republican activist site RedState. It’s a Slatecard widget encouraging contributions to the McCain camapign.

It’s noteworthy not just for being there but for what it replaces: Nearly a year ago, RedState announced it was backing one of the future also-rans, Big Red Tent:

Patrick Ruffini has said more than once that the right needs to stop building what the left already has and instead build the next big thing. As part of heading in that direction, please let me introduce you to the Big Red Tent. We didn’t build it, but we’re actively supporting it.

There is more irony here: Ruffini is chiefly responsible for the other runner-up, Rightroots, and RedState’s Erick Erickson was party to a minor internecine fight with All during the Republican primary season. To back All’s Slatecard over Big Red Tent may have been a difficult choice, but considering how the other two have languished, it may have been no choice at all.

Update: David writes to say that 48 candidates now have used Slatecard exclusively for online fundraising, though some have already lost their primary or special elections. That’s impressive, especially for a site not yet nine months old.

Rightroots, Big Red Tent and Slatecard: An Assessment

Published by William Beutler on December 3, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Campaigns, Charts and Graphs, Fred Thompson, Internecine Battles, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Social Networking, Startups, Trend Tool, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 4 Comments

Logos for Slatecard, Rightroots and Big Red Tent

Online fundraising startups are a longstanding interest of Blog P.I. In our year and a half, we’ve devoted more than a few posts to the subject, including the progressive, Democrat-supporting ActBlue, the conservative, Republican-aligned newcomer ABC PAC/Rightroots, attendant security issues and flawed coverage often (but not exclusively) in the Washington Post. The last time I wrote about it, Rightroots had relaunched, and two similar Republican fundraising startups — Big Red Tent and Slatecard — were announced and on the way shortly.

Now, all three have been up for more than a month, which I think is enough time to make an early comparative assessment.

For those playing at home: Rightroots is a reboot of the ABC PAC/Rightroots slate that saw a trial run fairly late in the 2006 cycle, controlled by McCain adviser Becki Donatelli, former Giuliani Patrick Ruffini and Mike Turk, an outside adviser to the Thompson campaign. Big Red Tent is an outside-the-beltway venture by a pair of Austin, Texas web consultants Ryan Gravatt and Brad Jackson. Slatecard is the brainchild primarily of ubiquitous DC Internet guy David All and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram (who strangely has no website that I can find).

Last weekend, I signed up for each one and made some nominal contributions. Since then, I’ve continued poking and prodding. I thought about putting together an elaborate chart comparing their features side-by-side. Perhaps in a future post I will, but for now, but I don’t think that gives as clear a picture of what I thought about them. Instead, this post collects my observations, with screen captures. It’s a long one, so I’ve tucked the rest of this post below the fold. Follow me…

Continue reading ‘Rightroots, Big Red Tent and Slatecard: An Assessment’

Fundraising Awareness

Published by William Beutler on August 16, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, John McCain, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, MSM, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups and Washington Post. 3 Comments

Earlier in the week Matthew Mosk, a political reporter for the Washington Post, posted to Post.com’s The Trail an arguably unhelpful and inarguably un-insightful post about the disparate fates of the best-known online fundraising apparatuses (apparati?) of Democrats and Republicans:

Democratic candidates for federal office have seen more than $25 million come through the web site ActBlue — some of which will eventually flow to the Democratic National Committee for use during the general election. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen just a tiny ripple of activity on the ABC PAC web site — $385 raised for the presidential candidates to date — which is supposed to be ActBlue’s direct competition.

Sure, at one time it was supposed to be. But as this blog and other blogs have pointed out, it’s never had the kind of support such that it should actually be spoken of in the same sentence. Not to mention that several journalists, including Mosk’s colleague Chris Cillizza, have (apparently ignorantly) misrepresented what ActBlue means to different Democratic candidates.

Mosk’s brief report is of a piece with this, not knowing or bothering to differentiate between the two websites. Is it fair to point out that Democrats are doing better with their independent online fundraising tools? Absolutely. Is it fair to compare ActBlue’s total fundraising figures over three cycles compared to ABC’s (admittedly underwhelming) year in existence? Not without explaining the situation, it’s not.

But it gets worse:

Now there is a new effort to change that. R. Rebecca Donatelli, a pioneer of Internet fundraising who help raise some of the nation’s first online dollars for John McCain in 2000, has revealed she and partner Michael Palmer are working on a new, and she hopes improved, version of ABC PAC to launch this fall. While she continues to work on behalf of McCain, she said she is optimistic the improvements to ABC PAC will help all of the Republican candidates. Given the numbers they are posting on the site right now, it would be tough to make things worse.

This “new effort,” as Mosk doesn’t adequately explain, is a second go at the same operation by the same person responsible for ABC’s ineffectiveness. Worse, though, Mosk is apparently unaware of other new ventures by GOP activists in the same space. Even before Mosk’s posting, there were two new efforts gearing up to do same thing:

Both sites have yet to prove themselves, sure. But considering that Mr. Mosk was moved to write a post about ABC PAC, isn’t this worth an correction? Or better yet — another post?

Open Season

Published by William Beutler on July 10, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Democrats, Metapost, Netroots and Startups. 0 Comments

Last week Ari Melber from The Nation asked me to comment on the prospects for Open Left, a new blog from Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller, which launched on Monday. Accepting my fate as a known critic (and risking the “concern troll” label), I willingly responded with my predictions for the site. Melber was just looking for a quote to illustrate his column, but today he’s posted the entire exchange at Personal Democracy Forum. Here’s a sample:

Whatever happens to Open Left, it won’t be like HotSoup. [AP Reporter Ron] Fournier and company had no idea what to do with an online community or even how to build a website and no clear idea who their audience was. These guys don’t have that problem. I think the better analogy is HuffPo — that website is very successful, but it’s not quite what Arianna originally envisioned. The netroots will come to the table, and probably so will the offline activist orgs. Campaign professionals, not so much.

Not enough for you? See the whole thing here. For my thoughts on the (apparently defunct) disaster called HotSoup, see here.

I Got a Crush… on the Obama Girl

Published by William Beutler on June 13, 2007 in Barack Obama, Entertainment, Online Campaigns, Seriously, Startups, Web video and YouTube. 13 Comments

In an attempt to demonstrate that the argument made by Adam Bonin and echoed by Not Paul Begala in the previous post is not fait accompli, and to generously devote a post to NPB’s favored candidate rather than my own, and… oh, who am I kidding? I just have a crush on the self-described “Obama Girl,” whose modeling career is likely to get at least a small boost from this soon-to-go viral video (and so should Barely Political, whence it came):

It’s grade-A YouTube cheesecake for sure, but it also helps that the R&B parody lyrics effectively deploy its political references, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that they also have that so-bad-it’s-good quality:

You’re into border security Let’s break this border between you and me

But not everyone is smitten with Obama girl. From the comments:

This video is the nail on Obama’s coffin. The Republicans will have a field day with this trash. I hope someone has the good sense to yank it. It is disrespectful and insulting to a serious candidate. Bill Clinton is still stuck with his womanizing legacy.

Well… maybe if this came from Blue State Digital, and not a video-blogging version of Wonkette. As with many a YouTube comment section, the best comments, are often the ones that make the least sense:

I hope you Omabmagirl gets kicked out of temple. Also I want this spot off youtue. This spot slanders, ombama and is a way the other contenders might get a leg up. SHAME ON OMAMAGIRL. SHAME. You have gave you your intregty to make yourself fame for yourself.

That may or may not be the case, but still you have gave you your watching to make yourself comment for this video.

You Got to Have Faith

Published by William Beutler on February 12, 2007 in Barack Obama, Religion, Social Networking, Startups and White House '08. 1 Comment

Pointed out to me earlier today is this screen shot from the Create Your Profile page at My.BarackObama.com:

MyBarackObama does not list religion/faith among the potential interests of supporters

No category such as “faith/religion”? If you say so. Not only has Sen. Obama has faced unfair but persistent questions about his faith, but the entire Democratic Party has been trying since 2004 (at least) to demonstrate that Republicans don’t have a lock on “moral values.” Sure, it’s just the initial launch of a website intended for those who already support Obama, but it’s still worth asking how they let this one get by.

And while it certainly is easy to nitpick and second-guess someone else’s hard work, I still have to wonder: If “This Campaign is About You,” then why not provide a box for you to fill in your own most important issue?

The XYZ of ABC?

Published by William Beutler on January 9, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Campaigns, Facebook, Netroots, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Social Networking and Startups. 13 Comments

Last August conservative bloggers joined with Alexandria-based Campaign Solutions to address the GOP’s weakness in online fundraising. Already they were two years behind the Democratic pioneer in this space, ActBlue. The result was ABC PAC and Rightroots, and when I reviewed it upon launch, I found a lot to be desired:

Rightroots is the only slate [of candidates] available; other interested parties have been told they’ll just have to wait. I’m told that eventually it will be brought up to parity with ActBlue: Bloggers will have a personal ID with the site to track their accounts, and ABC PAC will make it possible to donate to any federal GOP candidate (right now only high profile candidates are listed). … As yet, a proof of concept is really all it is: It’s more like a shareware demo that only lets you play the first level.

Mike Turk, the GOP strategist most responsible for putting the site together, responded in the comments:

ActBlue has been in development for two years, and already raised north of six million dollars. To compare the functionality of a site that has been online for less than two full days, and which publicly states it is trying to put together funds for further development to a site like the one ActBlue is today is a bit disingenuous. … Given full funding, full functionality and a full catalog of candidates, ABC PAC has the potential to meet and exceed what ActBlue has done - and we plan to do so.

It seemed to me that ABC could have debuted with more functionality than it did — it should have built upon what ActBlue had pioneered — but his response was fair. However, I kept checking back throughout the fall, and while the fundraising numbers attained respectability, the ABC website itself never improved. (Disclosure, however, did improve — the front page of ABC now gives an idea of how your money will be handled.)

My main point the first time around was that ActBlue was a Web 2.0 kind of site, like a Facebook for progressive fundraising. You could sign up for your very own account, compile your own slate of candidates, keep track of your progress and follow the rankings. Not only that, but there was plenty of reading material about how ActBlue works. ABC, on the other hand, appeared to be ony a few pages deep, everything was locked down, nothing was customizable, and the only interactive feature would perhaps be watching the figures change.

Flash forward a couple months, and the situation is even more dire for online Republican activists. First, here’s a screen capture from ActBlue’s front page as of last night:

ActBlue front page, 2007 YTD

Now let’s compare that to the front page of ABC PAC, taken at the same time:

ABC PAC front page, 2007 YTD

Note the figures. Yes, it’s all this cycle. The top 5 presidential candidates on ActBlue have received about $434,000, while all candidates on ABC PAC have collected exactly $298.

The stark difference continues as you explore each site. ActBlue’s page for the ‘08 presidential contest provides plenty of options for supporting a candidate, on the site and off, and also-ran apparent runner Dennis Kucinich has raised just $20 shy of ABC’s top recipient. Edwards is the clear fundraising leader, because his own campaign is making use of ActBlue’s infrastructure. If you go to his website and click “Contribute” under the “Take Action Menu,” you will be redirected to to ActBlue.

By contrast, it doesn’t seem anyone has linked to ABC in over a month. Will one of the just-hired GOP blogger consultants persuade one or more of their candidates to use ABC PAC? They can’t, at least not without talking to the Donatellis first. But why would you even bother? The website is boring, an obvious corporate job without even the faintest sign of the social networking tools that make ActBlue so cool.

And what of Rightroots itself, the monopoly blogger slate from the ‘06 cycle? It is no longer linked off the main page, and if you punch in the URL yourself, you’ll find a generic ABC page thanking you for your support:

Because of you, ABCPac was able to raise almost $300,000 for Republican House and Senate candidates, online! … We are currently in the process of expanding and improving our web site and will be announcing our new efforts in the coming months.

Maybe that’s true. But if that assurance was available somewhere besides an orphan page, I’d be inclined to take it more seriously. Besides, ABC doesn’t need to get a little better to be useful. It needs to get a lot better. Currently, there is no baby to throw out with the bath water.

As of now, putting ActBlue and ABC side by side is like comparing the Wii to a Tiger Electronics handheld. ABC isn’t even playing the same game as ActBlue, and it is far from clear that it ever will.

Update: For further discussion and debate on this topic, see (in chronological order going back nearly a week) Patrick Ruffini, Mike Turk, Rob Bluey and Todd Ziegler.

Merry GOP-Round

Published by William Beutler on January 4, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Campaigns, RNC, Relaunches, Republicans, Startups, Virginia Politics and Website Design. 3 Comments

It’s been a busy few weeks for Republican bloggers in Washington: since late December, a number of Republican aides and activists have changed jobs, created new partnerships or relaunched old ventures. Let’s take a walk:

  • Start with Jon Henke, the Virginia delegate to QandO who this summer took on the thankless task of trying to save George Allen on the very Internet that would eventually do him in. His next job might not be much easier, but it should at least be a little more stable — on January 1 Henke officially announced he’ll be joining the Republican Communications Office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as New Media Coordinator. His family will be following him from Richmond, and I hear he could use some tips on finding a place in DC.
  • My headline references one childhood amusement, but let’s invoke another: If there’s a game of musical chairs being played, it’s over at Heritage. Last year Mark Tapscott, Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy, decamped for the Washington Examiner editorial page. Shortly thereafter, Tim Chapman took the job, fresh off a stint at Townhall during its late-middle period. Now he too is moving on, to assume the role of Senior Communications Adviser for Sen. Jim DeMint. Taking his place as of February 1 will be Rob Bluey, current online editor of Human Events. Replacing Bluey will be TBA, a hotshot young go-getter straight out of… okay, I know you know what TBA means.
  • There probably are not very many new media consultants working for presidential candidates at the moment — Pat Hynes (McCain) and Peter Daou (Clinton) come to mind first — but now there is another: Just a few weeks ago, when ex-Gov. Mitt Romney did not yet have to put an “ex-” before his title, the likely presidential contender hired the blog coordinator of then-Sen. Bill Frist’s VOLPAC. Bluey had the story first, reporting Romney’s acquisition of Stephen Smith, not to be confused with Stephen A. Smith.
  • A development of a different sort is the relaunch of PatrickRuffini.com. When Ruffini accepted the job of eCampaign director for the Republican National Committee in 2005, the first casualty of the job was his popular and beautifully-designed personal blog — by his choice, not the RNC’s. (Doing right by your job and your blog is no easy task, I’ll tell you what.) But as of the new year, PatrickRuffini.com is back — and back, and back, and back — with a sidebar blog, retooled 2008 Wire and a tech blog called Overclocked. If you’ve had to take this one out of your aggregator before, you’ll probably enjoy putting all these new feeds back in this time.
  • Maybe the most interesting development is the creation of the David All Group. All has made a name for himself doing creative work, mostly on behalf of Rep. Jack Kingston. I believe All’s firm is the first Republican strategy firm in Washington predicated on social media and the blogosphere. At launch, the site features a blog where All comments on politics and technology, which is already more than a perfunctory product demonstration — see, for instance, his in-depth, screen shot-laden (extra points) recap of how the “macaca” controversy unfolded. But something else caught my eye — the business address. I’m not quite an expert on Capitol Hill, but I was pretty sure the listed address was on a residential block. And I’m still a journalist, kind of, so…
    David All Group, located in residential Capitol Hill
    Yup. I don’t know if it’s his home address (and I don’t blame him for not returning that e-mail query) but it’s certainly somebody’s residential address.
  • A much more complex story is the recent sale of community site RedState to Eagle Publishing. That one will get its own post, soon enough.