viral media

In a diary on MyDD, Adam Conner dissects the viral spread of the "Obama"1984 Apple Remix ad, showing how this phenomenon spread. Even more interesting than this anatomy of a remix, he also manages to find a nugget of wisdom in the reporting of Time Magazine's Joe Klein:

This is pretty amazing, and very effective, I think. It's increasingly apparent that the Great Divide in 2008 isn't black v. white, or male v. female, but young v. old.

By the way, I could put together a reel of Obama sound bites that sounds every bit as trite as Hillary in this guerrilla mashup. But I wouldn't have the skills or sensibility to do it this way; very few in my generation would. I disagreed--quietly, in a loyal and seemly fashion--with Time's Person of the Year last December. But ads like this one, which will have an impact on this campaign, indicate that I was wrong. You are, apparently, not only the Person of the Year, but also the Political Consultants of the future. Wonder how Hillary's paid help will respond.

Sounds about right. Only I'd add this - it's not just young people. We'll probably end up leading this charge, but eventually this will be the province of all people.

A few weeks ago, my friend Dan and I were discussing the possibilities for social networking in 2008 and how the work we were seeing in 2006 was only scratching the surface. I touched on this a little bit in this blog I wrote about niche networks and trusted networks.

In my blog, I noted that smart campaigns will do more with social networks than build big friends lists and microtarget voters - they would use large networks and personal information to find their way into niche and trusted networks. Really smart campaigns would find a way to tap the creative capacity of those networks:

The second option is to go deep - find a way to completely decentralize social networking outreach so that your followers go viral and invade all the niche networks on your behalf. In this model, your FaceBook and MySpace friend are a jumping off point; a baseline pool of social capital that you microtarget by lifestyle and use to create Evangelists who carry your message into "trusted" and/or specialized networks.

The real challenge - the holy grail - will be getting something viral to rise back up to the national level out of the depths of the niches.

Everyone knows what Jib Jab was in 2004; with the rise of the social web, millions of Millenials are out there with the production skills, the tools, and the creativity to repeat that feat. Smart campaigns will use their social networks to tap that creativity. If successful, photoshopped images, machinima satires, home movies like this and this will proliferate - spreading among the niches to which they appeal and out of which they arise. Some will stay in their niches and energize those supporters. Others will go national like Jib Jab.

Some of this will rise organically, but is there a way to incentivize this type of political participation? I think the answer is yes. More after the jump:

Couple interesting, but small items in the news this morning.

Grammercy Communications, an Albany-based PR firm, is offering $1000 in prizes for anyone who can produce a youth-targeted, potentially viral GOTV video:

A $500 first place prize will be accompanied by up to five $100 prizes for honorable mentions. The video should be under 30 seconds in length, be non-partisan and not mention any specific candidate or interest group, and have a generally positive tone. Creativity and humor that appeals to young people is encouraged. Questions about detailed submission guidelines should be directed via e-mail to GOTV@GramercyCommunications.com. The deadline for submissions is Friday, October 27, 2006.

HeadCount, the all-volunteer, artist run GOTV organization for the jamband community announced that it had met it's goal of registering 5000 new voters for the midterms. The group accomplished this with no paid staff on a budget of $25,000, provided mostly by Dave Matthews Band and Relix Magazine.

UPDATE: Also check out this MyDD diary by Ben Waxman of For Our Future about the lack of media training programs for young progressives.

Chris Bowers at MyDD is asking for opinions about a negative ad by Young Virginians for Racial Equality(no website yet) responding to George Allen and his foot-in-(racist)mouth comments.

The ad isn't great. It's slow, the jump cuts are poorly done, and the whole thing has a bad green-screen look to it. And I don't feel like the young virginians in the picture are speaking to me culturally. There's something not authentic about the speakers, even though the actual message is right on.

I think the most remarkable thing about the ad is that it was made at all. Ads directly targeting young voters like this are somewhat new (the exceptions being MTV/Rock the Vote's non-partisan Choose or Loose and a few ads in swing states in '04 by Compare Decide Vote). Distributing them via YouTube is even newer. I don't think it stands much of a chance of going viral, as Bowers asks, or even altering the narrative in the Allen campaign. That damage was already done when the original "macaca" comments circulated through YouTube.

I put in my .02 here. You should too. Help Young Virginians make a better ad.