MySpace

Tomorrow young voters across the country have the chance to be the margin of victory for Sen. Barack Obama and Democrats up-and-down the ballot.

Tomorrow our generation has the chance to silence the critics that have been promulgating the slander that young people do not care, will not vote, and are not worth the effort.

We have one more day to convince our friends to vote. It is time to leverage our social networks to make this final push.

In 2004 the Young Democrats of America had a lot of success building online visibility with the equivalent of a digital I Voted Today sticker as a profile picture. This year we have another. Change your Facebook and MySpace profile pictures to the image in this post. Tag your friends in the picture and encourage them to do the same.

You have friends on social networking sites that would vote for Democrats but just need that extra push to get them to the polls. Send messages to these friends. Leave comments on their profiles. Ask them if they have any questions or need a ride to the polls. If you can get them to assure you they will vote they are much more likely to do so.

John McCain and his fellow Republicans don't want you to vote and don't think you will vote. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis had this to say about us:

"The whole premise of Barack Obama's campaign was, 'We're going to restructure the political dynamic in America.' There has not been a restructuring," he said. "Where's the youth vote? They come to his events. They wear nice shirts."

We are up against a campaign and a party that have no respect for our generation. They want our silence, not our voices, and have often engaged in tactics with the intent of suppressing them.

Tomorrow we can make our voices heard.

One more day.

Last week I noted that the Wall Street Journal, NBC and MySpace released a joint poll in which they attempted to gauge the views of "new" and "lapsed" voters, who were defined as voters who had participated in the past, but skipped the 2004 election. At the time, I warned that there was a danger in making the mistake of equating these voters and the poll's results with the opinions of young voters.

Well, I just saw an MSNBC interview between Chuck Todd and Lee Brenner of MySpace in which both Todd and Brenner make this mistake multiple times during the segment. Brenner even goes so far as to suggest that the results of the poll accurately reflect the views of "students," a distinction made no where in the poll's methodology.

As I noted in my previous blog post, 45% of the survey respondents were over the age of 30. 39% of the sample was over 35 years of age. In my world, those don't count as young voters. The vast majority of the statistics discussed by Brenner and Todd make no distinction between those older and younger respondents in the poll, or between "new" and "lapsed" voters, who surely have different levels of interest and engagement. These respondents - and the results of this poll - shouldn't be equated with all young voters.

The WSJ/NBC/MySpace poll offered some unique information on new and lapsed voters. But that information can't be examined in a vacuum and it shouldn't be used to infer things about young voters generally. For a complimentary, and I think more accurate, look at what young voters are thinking this election cycle, I recommend the recent non-partisan poll released by Rock the Vote, Lake Research, and The Tarrance Group.

Hold onto your hats. Every link today is pure youthy awesomeness and should be read. In no particular order, but with extra commentary:

• Conservative reporter Carl Cannon, writing at conservative outlet Reader's Digest, reports that pollsters are probably underestimating the youth vote this year.
• The LA Times reports that Obama wins the Xbox/Rock the vote primary, but wonders if young gamers will actually vote. As we know from the recent Pew study, the answer is yes.
• Our own Sarah Burris has an excellent piece over at WireTap grading the RNC and the DNC for their inclusion of youth. It's comprehensive and enlightening and unexpected to see where each convention excelled and where they inevitably fell short.
• There is a lot of chatter lately among youth organizers about finding ways to reach high school students. One answer may be Channel One, the news/advertising network played in so many homerooms across the country. The channel recently launched One Vote 2008 to cover the elections. Now if we could only get our folks in front of their cameras . . .
• Youth Vote '08 covers the launch of Generation WE, a new study on Millennials. We'll have more about this in the coming days.
• In the Washingtonian, Garrett Graff thinks that Millennials will cost McCain the election.
• Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising is now available for download.
• Rock the Vote's new poll gets some coverage from UPI and The Nation.
• In cooperation with PayPal, MySpace deploys a new system to raise money for nonprofits through its network.

This week, MySpace officially launched MyDebates, their destination site for the Presidential debates. I've written before about how these look to be a regression to Web 1.0, and I won't rehash that here other than to say that, after perusing their new site, my opinion has not changed (and probably won't until we actually see these debates in action).

However, I did come across one item on the MyDebates that's at least worth toying around with. Like myriad other websites, one of the function of MyDebates is a user quiz on the issues to help "undecideds" determine how they should cast their ballot. MySpace is taking the extra, more interesting step of aggregating all of that issue and voting information, breaking it down by age and gender, and allowing users to display that data via a flash map. It's pretty cool.

Here's a look at how 18 - 34 year olds are going to vote, according to Myspace:

Here's a look at men within that age demographic:




Now the women:




It's tempting to draw conclusions from this - southern women are more conservative than southern men, women in Alaska dont' like Sarah Palin, etc. Of course, there are all kinds of problems with this, and the map tool is more like a neat demographic toy than a serious data set. We have no idea how many respondents there are (at this point, judging by the amount of "friends" MyDebates has, probably not many), and those respondents in the data set are both self-selecting and limited to MySpace users. As such, this isn't really representative of MySpace, let alone the whole country.

I imagine that once the debates get kicking, MySpace will have respondents numbering in the tens of thousands. It would be awesome if they could open source their data or team up with a pollster to draw out some reliable information about the youth electorate, or at least the overall MySpace community.

Update: At the Washington Indpendent, Ari Melber confirms that a proposed interactive forum hosted by Google down in New Orleans is likely scrapped.

Micah at Tech President beat me to it, but I just want to echo that the proposed partnership between MySpace and the Commission on Presidential Debates, announced this morning, represents a step back from the innovation that we saw during the primary process.

This morning, MySpace and the Commission on Presidential Debates announced a partnership designed (theoretically) to bring Web 2.0 to the normally stodgy and uninformative Presidential debates:

MySpace and the CPD will jointly launch ‘MyDebates.org’ – a new website which will house online tools to promote deeper levels of political engagement with viewers at home. Visitors to the site will have the option of downloading a personalized application which, during the debates, will stream the television event live from the embed location (e.g. within a blog, social network, or website). The application will also provide users with an on-demand playback functionality as well as issue-based tracking, allowing users to track a candidate’s stance on issues they care about throughout the live stream. The full functionality will be available in the days leading up to the first Presidential debate on Friday, September 26.

Additionally, ‘MyDebates.org’ will feature high-quality video streaming and as the candidates are speaking, “issue icons” will light up as candidates discuss specific main topics. Users will be polled periodically throughout the debates with short questions with multiple choice answers (or iconic responses, e.g. thumbs-up/ down). This format will reduce distraction while eliciting specific and valuable feedback.

In short, here's what debate 2.0 means to the CPD:

• Debates streaming on the web.
• A rewind button.
• Embeddable widgets of said live stream
• (Potentially condescending) issue icons popping up all over the screen
• Occasional and simplistic polling that may or may not be used to determine the direction of questions.
• Tagged, searchable and embeddable clips of the debate available the next day.
• 1 debate where the candidates may face pre-screened audience questions.

Notice anything missing? How about greater, unfiltered interaction between the candidates and the audience. Web 2.0 is about social media. Meaning we talk to each other, not at each other. That's what MTV and MySpace had during the candidate dialogues last year, and that's what is missing from this proposal.

During the previous dialogues, questions from the live audience were always unscreened and never dumbed down. The polling was continuous, nuanced (the audience had six potential choices, not simply "yes or no") and was viewable at all times by the live audience, the moderators, AND the candidates. These polls were often used as a guide for follow-up questions, many of which came in over IM from the live-stream audience. It was that feedback loop, coming in over multiple channels, that forced the candidates out of their talking points and into a real conversation sans sound byte or spin. That unfiltered interaction between the candidates and the public is what made the MTV candidate dialogues interesting and informative. That kind of interaction is largely missing from this proposal.

Here's another question. Why do I want to watch these debates on a live stream of crappy quality when I could just watch them on the TV? I didn't watch the MTV Dialogues on line because I wanted to. I did it because I had to (and complained bitterly about how often the whole system crashed, necessitating a reboot of my browser). They were streamed live, but they were not aired live, and there was no other way to participate. I would be more than happy to watch the debate live on TV while participating in polling and other social features using my laptop. Or, wouldn't an SMS-based polling system work much better for a live national audience? The success of American Idol would lead me to believe so.

I will say that tagging and creating a searchable database of clips by issue and by candidate is a useful feature - especially for people to discuss the coverage on their blogs and social networks in the following days - but the rest of the proposal is pure web 1.0.

Rock the Vote and MySpace released a new joint competition this week geared to increase voter registration online with their online widget.

According to CNET

Here's how it works: from now through August 14, bands with profiles on MySpace can install a tool on their pages that lets their fans register to vote. The first 25 bands to have 150 people register to vote through the tool will have their music featured in custom playlists on TouchTunes digital jukeboxes--you know, the kind you see in bars--and then the grand prize winner will get to be the opening act at Rock the Vote's "Ballot Bash" concert at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 25. They'll also get some new guitars courtesy of Gibson...

MySpace is hoping the contest will spark the interest of some of the many small-time bands that have a presence on the site and have used it to build up loyal fan bases. "Not only will the competition link MySpace's thriving music division with an active and successful field effort but it will also offer small bands, a core constituency of MySpace, the chance to open up for top talent," Lee Brenner, executive producer of political programming and director of the "Impact" political channel on MySpace, said in a release Tuesday. "This competition with Rock the Vote is furthering the democratization of music and the ability of bands to engage their fans through MySpace."

Recently I've talked about John McCain's potential (yet relative) attractiveness to young voters, at least for a GOP candidate, and noted that if he gave it half a shot, he might actually be able to somewhat hold-down Republican losses among young voters (though it is extremely unlikely he could actually beat or even tie Clinton or Obama among Millennials). Well it looks like the outreach has started, at least online.

Hat tip to Everyday Citizen for tipping me off to this:

The image comes from an ad now running on (Democratic candidate) Nancy Boyda's MySpace page. So McCain is obviously buying ads on MySpace. I'm not sure if this is a new strategy or an old one, but it is certainly a good one, as an article in the Washington Post made clear earlier this week (emphasis mine):

Obama aides say their goal has been to "build an online relationship" with supporters who will not only give money but also knock on doors and help register voters for the candidate. To do so, they have spent heavily on Internet ads -- $2.6 million in February alone, more than 10 times as much as Clinton and more than 20 times as much as McCain.

...

Obama has targeted unlikely sites, such as the conservative Washington Times, where an ad for the candidate appeared yesterday on the same page as a story about an economic speech he gave that morning. But a click on the ad did not lead to a request for donations; instead, it took users to a page where they could sign up for invitations to campaign events.

This approach -- not directly asking for donations -- has been part of the campaign's strategy of slow-walking its way into supporters' wallets. Newcomers are led to a blog and an online store and are offered a chance to join local Obama groups.

McCain's ad seems to have one thing going for it - like Obama's online ads it does not lead directly to a fundraising appeal, but rather seeks the support of young viewers for one of his policy platforms - reigning in government spending, ostensibly by cutting government pork. By asking those potential supporters to sign a petitions, McCain is looking to build up a list of young voters he can geographically target later in the campaign.

• The Nation notes the negative impact that complex voter registration laws have on youth turnout.
• The Wall Street Journal makes sense of the race for delegates in the Democratic nominating contest.
• Threat Level, the Wired politics blog, has a great piece in which Sarah Stirland interviews participants in the MTV/MySpace Super Dialogue about how online organizing is changing politics.
• NetSquared interviews Ben Rigby of Mobile Voter about his new book, analyzing best practices in online advocacy. Definitely worth a read.

Last night, four Presidential candidates participated in the final MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogue. Dubbed "Closing Arguments," the event, which ran almost two hours, was a final chance for the candidates to make their arguments to young voters, who have played an influential role in the nominating process thus far.

The event was not very interesting in what it told us about the candidates - most viewers in the live audience had already decided which candidate would receive their ballot, and the candidates themselves said nothing new. Last night's event was interesting in that it revealed a new battleground for online organizing that will surely come into play during the general election.

When I arrived at the event at MTV studios in Times Square, a rally in support of Sen. Obama was already in progress. The Obama camp placed attendance somewhere around 300. Supporters were also there for Hillary and Ron Paul, though their numbers were much more modest. This wasn't all that unexpected. Obama has the most youth support by far, and he's been able to organize his supporters quite effectively on the ground.

The surprises came during the online polling when Ron Paul took his turn (all online polling results below):

I've long noted that the candidate dialogues were the most interactive events on the campaign trail, and I've been excited about the possibility that MTV and MySpace could create a feedback loop between the candidates and the online audience that would keep the candidates more honest in their answers and cut down on speculation among the punditry by providing a real-time glimpse into what young voters were thinking about the campaigns.

This didn't happen in previous Dialogues, where young voters overwhelmingly agreed with the answers provided by Senators Obama, Edwards, and McCain. My hope was that this feedback loop would emerge during last night's Q&A with one of the Republican candidates, who generally have views that contrast greatly with those of young voters.

Instead of that feedback loop, what I saw was a tactical assault by Ron Paul supporters to "win" the debate for their candidate. In question after question, Ron Paul scored much higher than I would have expected, and the Democratic candidates scored far lower than I thought possible.

For example, Darfur has long been a high priority with young voters, who are also multilateralists, and questions about the genocide have come up in almost all of the previous dialogues. When asked a question about Darfur, Dr. Paul laid out a non-interventionist plan for handling the crisis in which he equated direct involvement in solving the Darfur crisis to our intervention in Iraq. I expected Paul's answer to invoke a backlash in the online voting. Instead, he garnered a startling 61 percent support.

This level of support continued. 76 percent supported his views on how the country should have responded to 9/11. 78 percent supported his views on energy independence. 81 percent supported his foreign policy ideas, and fully half declared their intention to vote for Rep. Paul on Tuesday. To be sure, Ron Paul has some youth support, but this was above and beyond any support he's received thus far. Even in the Republican contests Huckabee, Romney and McCain have repeatedly done better among young conservative voters than Ron Paul.

These results were startling, but perhaps not unexpected. Ron Paul's support has mostly manifested itself on the internet, where he dominates social news websites like Digg and Reddit. This tech savvy was on display once again last night, and the Paulites were not content to limit their activity to boosting their candidate. They also worked to drag down his opponents.

This was confirmed when the Democrats - Obama and Clinton - had their turn. Sen. Obama scored just above or below 50 percent support on almost every question asked of him. This was far different from his first appearance on MTV, when he typically scored upwards of 75% support. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post, the moderator in charge of the online component of the debate tried to explain Obama's low-marks as a manifestation of young voters desire for "experience" over the Senator's message of "change," but polling for Clinton not ten minutes later put the lie to that analysis. Sen. Clinton rarely scored higher than 25 or 30 percent support, despite the fact that younger people are participating in the Democratic primaries in far greater numbers than the GOP contests.

Last night, Obama's supporters showed their strength outside the venue with as they rallied for their candidate, but Ron Paul's supporters were the real winners last night. Yet again they were the first to break new ground in another online venue. Unlike the other campaigns, Paul's supporters figured out that the interactivity of the MySpace/MTV dialogues was a two way street; it could keep candidates accountable, but it could also be used by supporters to influence the kinds of questions their candidate received and how his performance was reported. Pauls supporters made last night's event another battleground for their online campaign, and gave their long-shot candidate another feather in his cap (even if they probably didn't improve his chances of winning the nomination).

This has implications beyond Super Tuesday. Due to the success of these events, MTV and MySpace will likely engage the eventually nominees for both parties next fall. Whoever those nominees are, if they are smart, they will learn last night's lesson and organizer their supporters accordingly.

Here's some video I took at the MTV/MySpace Super Dialogue tonight. First, the scene outside - a good sized Obama rally (which never stopped chanting for 2 hours straight), and a more modest gathering for Hillary and Ron Paul.

A quick look at the studio itself. My camera did not like the lights:

Here's the reaction from some of the student/youth participants. Since I covered this event for Tech President, I mostly focused on asking them what they thought of the interactive format.

You can read my live blog at Tech President here. I'll have a more thorough analysis of the event tomorrow, but one of the really interesting thing I noted was how poorly Obama and Clinton scored in the online polls. Chris Cilliza, one of the moderators, tried to spin it as a manifestation of the Change vs. Experience dynamic, but that wouldn't explain why both scored so low. On the other hand, Ron Paul scored quite high. I think this was another instance of Ron Paul followers showing their strength in internet organizing. The Flektor polls were just another tactical victory for them.