Campaign.org

Source:  The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=384

Overall, 26% of Americans mention the internet either first or second as their main source of election news. Among young people, the internet is eroding television’s advantage as a main source for election news. Six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 cite television as their main source for election news, down from 75% four years ago. Over that time, the proportion citing the internet has more than doubled – from 21% to 46%.

Notably, while newspapers were mentioned more often as a campaign news source among young people four years ago, today those under age 30 are almost twice as likely to mention the internet as newspapers as where they get most of their news about the election (46% vs. 24%).

 but not yet the primary source of campaign news.

From CNET:

The share of Americans who say they “regularly learn something” about the presidential contenders from the Internet jumped to 24 percent for this election cycle, nearly double the 13 percent figure when that question was asked during the 2004 race. In 2000, the level of use was even more minuscule, at 9 percent.

And for the 18-29 demographic, perhaps unsurprisingly, the numbers are vastly different: some 42 percent of respondents said they’re learning about presidential campaigns online, which outnumbers all other news sources. Cable news networks came in second for that age group, at 35 percent.

Full story… http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9849169-7.html?tag=nefd.only

From The Times:

The entry of Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, as an independent candidate could see election spending for 2008 move towards $5 billion – compared with £50 million for the British general election in 2005.

Jan Baran, a Washington lawyer who specialises in campaign finance, said that the open contests for both party nominations – and intensity with which they are being fought – meant that spending would smash all previous records.

Full Article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3168726.ece

From comScore Media Metrix, a report of campaign and political web sites experiencing the greatest gains in web site traffic of all measured categories:

“With both Republican and Democratic presidential debates swinging into action, the politics category saw a 17-percent increase to 9 million visitors in May, making it the top-gaining category overall for the month. Traffic to Politico.com, which sponsored the Republican Presidential debate on May 3, jumped 162 percent for the month to 648,000 visitors, while MoveOn.org’s traffic surged 246 percent to 689,000 visitors due in large part to an online petition against gas price increases. Several presidential candidate websites also saw their traffic increase, led by BarackObama.com (up 13 percent to 298,000 visitors) and HillaryClinton.com (up 3 percent to 217,000 visitors).”

An article on the rise of Internet politics:

“What really mixes this race up is the Internet. It has the potential to make the conventions look like something from the horse and buggy days. The traditional press corps, of which I am a member, begins to look very out of touch. The Internet has power to change elections. ”

“Bloggers are critical, but they do not wield as much power as they would like. What is changing the election is the nature of the content shift from newspapers, radio and television to the Internet. ”

“More and more people are turning to the Internet to satisfy their political curiosity. ”

Read full article….

From the LA Times:
An article on the power of new media to differentiate candidate.

“ALL the fizz aside, new media have the capacity to create distinctions with a difference.

National politics is one of the places where that may be occurring, and that’s a possibility to which, in Mrs. Willy Loman’s unforgettable words, “attention must be paid,” especially by the country’s news media.”

“What’s really interesting about this particular moment in our nation’s electoral life is that neither the Republican nor the Democratic candidates currently generating much of the interest and enthusiasm have formally declared. Both, in fact, have made themselves forces to be reckoned with by standing outside the formalized political process and communicating with voters through new and alternative media rather than traditional political journalism”

Read the full article….

From The Wall Street Journal:
An article on the talent and technology behind Bararck Obama’s Internet campaign effort.

 ”Now social networking is shaping up as a potent new force in the 2008 presidential campaign. Candidates are betting that the sites — existing commercial ones or their own newly created ones, like Mr. Hughes’s My.BarackObama.com will expand their power to find and mobilize supporters, particularly elusive young voters who go to the polls at much lower rates than their elders.”

“Several candidates have taken the step of actively developing their own social networks — Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards and, to a lesser extent, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Sen. McCain of Arizona — in hopes of sparking online support that can be translated into real-world donations and volunteerism. McCainSpace allows people to create home pages inside Mr. McCain’s Web site so they can recruit other people for his team and raise money. In February, Mr. McCain’s Web site attracted some 226,000 unique visitors, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, making it the most viewed Republican campaign site. But that still lagged far behind Mr. Obama, the Democratic leader, who logged 773,000 unique visitors.”

Read the full article….

Salesforce.com has created Campaignforce, a web-based on demand customoer relationship management application (crm) for politics online.

 From a CNET article:

“Online political campaigning has come a long way since Howard Dean’s turkey sandwich fund-raiser. ”

“Campaignforce mash-ups may even replace the need for college volunteers to serve as online media watchdogs. Using Web-based APIs (application program interfaces) Campaignforce can tell politicians the YouTube views for Barack Obama, searches for Sam Brownback on Google, or how many articles on John McCain have appeared on Yahoo News. It also works to manage staffers and volunteers in coordination with get-out-the-vote efforts and campaign events, while monitoring the campaign trail with Google Maps.”

“Salesforce.com said an incarnation of its program is already being used by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.”  read full article…

From the Orlando Sentinel:

“About half of Democrats and one-quarter of Republican donors in 2004 made at least one of their contributions online, according to a study by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at Washington’s George Washington University.

This time, candidates will need to use the Internet for money and advertising as well as mobilizing support, Turk said.

During the first quarter of this year, Obama, for instance, raised nearly $7 million online — close to the amount candidates raised four years ago from all sources during that time period. And most of it came in small increments well below federal limits on donations, meaning he can go back to those donors and ask for more. 

Jagoda said politicians have lagged behind the business world in using the Internet. Online ads are much cheaper than television and can be better targeted to particular groups of voters. And it gives campaigns an option besides “the 50th television ad” that voters will be sick of. “TV is increasingly not the way people are receiving their entertainment or their information,” she said.”  read more…

More People Go Online for Political Information than Any Other Medium
From Entrepreneur

“According to a study by Burst Media, about 25 percent of likely voters said the Internet was the best place to research candidates’ positions and election issues. About 21 percent said TV was the best source, while more than 17 percent said newspapers.”

 From Forbes 4/4/07:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/04/ap3584830.html

“With a stunning $25 million fundraising haul for his presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama affirmed his status Wednesday as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief rival.

His campaign released additional details illustrating the breadth of Obama’s support. He had 100,000 contributors in the first quarter, with more than half donating online for a total of $6.9 million. Clinton, by contrast, had about 50,000 contributors and raised $4.2 million online.”
read more…

With more than 100,000 donors, twice as many as Clinton, Obama is proving that harnessing the vast reach of the Internet is a powerful strategy.

From MSNBC:
http://www.nbc6.net/msnbcnews/11519742/detail.html

“A presidential campaign is a peculiar, short-lived kind of start-up business, and like other firms it has overhead: the costs of being in business.”

“As a general rule, 75 percent of a campaign’s outlays will ultimately go to paid communication: direct mail, radio, television and Internet ads, said Craig Smith, the campaign manager for Sen. Joe Lieberman’s presidential effort in 2003-2004.”
read more…

But if some of that communications money was invested in a prime generic domain name for politics like Campaign.org, that asset has a long term use - one that can dramatically reduce advertising costs for years to come.

From Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aMj54a65hFjY&refer=home

“Dean helped revolutionize presidential campaigning by harnessing the power of the Internet. This year, Clinton’s campaign bragged she took in $4.2 million over the Internet during the first three months of 2007. Edwards, 53, brought in $3.3 million online. ”

From ABC News:
 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2999460

“Both campaigns trumpeted funds raised on the Internet. The Clinton campaign said it raised $4.2 million that way. The Edwards campaign said it had raised $3.3 million online from 37,000 contributors.”

Google plays for the long term and they’re smart to be there,” said Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, a site that provides Internet tools and strategies for campaigns. “The Internet and politics is a revolution, and Google and these guys are not going to lead the revolution, but they don’t want to get shot in the back either.”

The amount spent on all political races in 2004 — about $4 billion — is expected to more than double in 2008. And just as many major companies are doing, political campaigns are expected to shift more of their ad dollars to the Web.Google wants to be ready when that happens.  full article…

From Wired, March 2007 - an article describing the potential of using the Internet for annonymity for large donors who want to heavily influence a campaign:

The video’s success has fired up a new round of debate about the impact of federal regulators’ decision a year ago to exclude unpaid online political activity from the detailed disclosure requirements that apply to political advertising in traditional media…

“The hot issue is whether the (Federal Election Commission) made the right call when it exempted from the disclaimer rules all internet activity except for paid internet ads,” says Scott Thomas, a former chairman of the FEC who is now an attorney at the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro in Washington, D.C.

But some longtime politicos worried that the ruling would carve open a loophole through which large donors could fund stealth guerrilla campaigns to deceptively influence people…

“Think ahead to what ad agencies, with checks from Republican political donors, would produce against Hillary, Obama or (John) Edwards in the general election.”

Former FEC chairman Thomas said it’s unlikely that the FEC would revisit the issue anytime soon unless news breaks about rampant abuse of the loophole. And after fighting to bring some level of transparency last year and being ignored, some pundits have simply thrown up their hands.  Full Article…