I met Brian Buser, marketing manager at Minggl, a few months ago at SXSW Interactive. He and I have exchanged emails regularly every since, so I decided to ask him a few questions about Minggl and how it might apply in the political space.

Who are you?

Minggl is a social interaction manager that helps manage multiple social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. We are based in Austin, TX.

What did you build?

In addition to the web browser toolbar, we’ve built a Facebook application called Political Wall. Political Wall uses technology built for a future feature of Minggl to get people involved in the current election debate.

What does it do?

The Political Wall displays comments made within Facebook on www.barackobama.com and www.johnmccain.com. The wall is viewable by anyone who has the Minggl toolbar. On the wall, viewers are able to vote up or down comments similar to the Digg ranking system. The most popular comments rise to the top. The Political Wall also displays vote totals for each candidate. A comment wall is also displayed on each user’s Facebook profile as a place for their friends to debate.

Why politics?

Quite simply, politics is the big story of 2008. There hasn’t been this much interest in a Presidential election in a long time. The internet has played a big role in bringing new people into the debate. And it just so happens our technology enables people to do some cool things on the Internet that haven’t been done before. So, it’s a natural fit.

Some people are really skeptical of Facebook as a political tool. They see it as a headline-grabber but not an organizer/mobilizer. What do you think?

First, we want to be clear that Minggl has no affiliation with any of the candidates or political party. However, we do see our Facebook application as another avenue for mobilizing support for candidates and interest in the political process. We think it will be interesting to see which comments are voted most popular and how the rivalry between Obama and McCain plays out on Facebook.

The Political Wall provides a unique way for people to voice their opinion in this hotly contested election. In a manner we know people very much enjoy…socializing with their friends on Facebook. And who knows…maybe your comment makes it all the way to the top of the rankings and is read by Obama or McCain someday. Isn’t it fascinating to think you could only be a couple clicks away from the next President of the United States?

Back from that cauldron of caustic backbiting known as the Democratic primary, I’m about ready to crack  knuckles and get busy on the IPDI blog.  What’s good?  Lot to talk about, needless to say. 

In examining the intersection of technology, public policy and politics, I’ve thought, or perhaps, worried a bit about how that links into our national imagination and sense of purpose.  Does the proliferation of information technology actually contribute in fulfilling and long term ways to the common good?  It might appear like a non-sensical question at first glance, but there’s some keep it real below the surface.  Whereas there is quite a bit to celebrate or proudly observe with respect to the record number of voters who participated in the Democratic primary this year (defying past apathy and breaking records at ballot lines), there was something also quite problematic about it all.  It’s one thing to get energized over a candidate and to vote for or openly support that candidate, but how informed of a voter are you? 

The explosive growth of blogs and the insance rotation of the 24/7 news cycle blurs the line between accurate information and irresponsible speculation and innuendo.  We the people eat it up. 

But, there’s something else to it all.  The technology, as great as it is, always poses a risk in terms of our collective motivations.  It can, potentially, make us lazy and intellectually lethargic.  True research and information accessibility is lost to the instant gratification of “Googling,” and citizens are no more motivated to confirm rumors over a Presidential candidate’s religion or whether he pledges allegiance than they are in picking a nail stuck in their foot.  There is a worry here that IT overload lulls the collective society into a mass sleep, since there is this feeling that everything, the world even, is literally at our fingertips.  In pushing the concept of a 21st century modern democracy, I’m more worried about intellectual laziness than I am about apathy.  At least with apathy, much of it is connected to a negative reaction and sense of hopelessness rising from disenchantment with the process and its gatekeepers.

I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, but as someone who has had an enduring love affair with science fiction, I have global claustrophobia.  Of being stuck on this planet and not having the luxury - at least in my lifetime - of traveling to other worlds or, at the very least, orbiting earth in a space hotel.  It is a sense that we still haven’t got our collective human act together, and as I’m watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I’m thinking that we’re way behind.  We can’t think outside the box of our cyberspace.  The Internet being so vast and infinite, there is a danger that too many users believe they have charted unknown territories already. 

“Why explore space when I have it on my desktop?”

Perhaps, I’m a bit old-fashioned, too.  This is, simply, how societies continue to evolve and technology is here to stay, so live with it.  It’s like music: just because I prefer Tribe Called Quest to Soldier Boy doesn’t mean the former is actually better than the latter; it just means that I’m older and that hip hop has changed or evolved - for better or for worse.

But, I can’t shake this feeling that our heavy reliance on information technology has moved us away from the purely academic but intellectually fulfilling exercise of DIY: doing it yourself.  We are duped into a sense of progress through bits, code and social networking sites. 

Gregg Easterbrook’s nightmarish article in this month’s Atlantic Monthly offers a higher sense of urgency to the argument above:

Given the scientific findings, shouldn’t space rocks be one of NASA’s priorities? You’d think so, but Dallas Abbott says NASA has shown no interest in her group’s work: “The NASA people don’t want to believe me. They won’t even listen.”

NASA supports some astronomy to search for near-Earth objects, but the agency’s efforts have been piecemeal and underfunded, backed by less than a tenth of a percent of the NASA budget. And though altering the course of space objects approaching Earth appears technically feasible, NASA possesses no hardware specifically for this purpose, has nearly nothing in development, and has resisted calls to begin work on protection against space strikes. Instead, NASA is enthusiastically preparing to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on a manned moon base that has little apparent justification. “What is in the best interest of the country is never even mentioned in current NASA planning,” says Russell Schweick­art, one of the Apollo astronauts who went into space in 1969, who is leading a campaign to raise awareness of the threat posed by space rocks. “Are we going to let a space strike kill millions of people before we get serious about this?” he asks.

We can talk all day about the political reasons for the disastrous lack of common sense described above, but we must also ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Are we lazy? The fact that we are so comfortable as to lounge back into a somewhat half-baked pre-Copernican worldview that Earth is “aight,” means that we give little thought to the vast universe in which we are a speck of dust.    

Charles D. Ellison, 6.5.08

Rad Campaign just posted interviews with leaders in the nonprofit/social networking space.

We particularly like this quote from Tara Hunt, founder of Citizen Agency:

Using Twitter and Facebook to merely disseminate information is akin to just constantly withdrawing, but never depositing into your bank account. The power of these networks is in the connections people are making, which is the building of social capital. You build social capital through positive interactions - listening as much as you are talking, and responding to people as they talk to you. The more two way conversations you have on Twitter and Facebook, the more support you will gain for those messages you send out.

[cross posted at http://alexkellner.com]

Last week, Nate Wilcox of the Webstrong Group spoke to one of my graduate classes. Wilcox’s lecture entitled “Confessions of an Internet Hack,” overviewed the history of politics and the Internet. While much of the lecture wasn’t news to me as an avid follower of Internet politics, Wilcox said one thing that really struck me. Throughout the lecture he “named” each of the elections, and his title for the current election cycle was perhaps the best metaphor to describe the state of the current political Internet that I have come across.

Wilcox’s metaphor began by talking about the 2006 election. He discussed the innovations in mobilizing, messaging and fundraising online that were made in the election cycle. He compared these innovations to rock and roll bands in the late 1960s and early 1970s like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. Moving on to the 2008 election cycle Wilcox said that The Beatles are to 2006 as Foghat is to 2008. In other words, no one would suggest that Foghat revolutionized the music scene or was even particularly innovative, but, regardless of that fact, they sold out gigantic arenas throughout the mid to late 1970s. The metaphor carries over to Internet politics because while very little innovation has happened online this election cycle (with perhaps the exception of the use of social networks), the effects of old innovations have had made a larger splash because the people are online in larger numbers (just as people were hooked on the rock and roll scene for Foghat).

I think when you look at the oft-pointed to evidence for why 2008 is “the first real Internet election” it backs Wilcox’s characterization. Ron Paul’s money bomb, Obama and Clinton’s online fundraising prowess, Obama’s offline movement with online roots and the campaign’s webpages themselves are all just extensions of developments that occurred in the 2006 election cycle. These events were more pronounced in 2008 because they involved more people and because they received more coverage in the press. This is not necessarily because the campaigns were doing anything drastically different; rather, there are more people comfortable with “new technology”, more people connected to the Internet and the press has become increasingly more likely to cover “Internet” stories in the mainstream press.

Now, I’m not sure that this means that we actually have reached the “first Internet election.” As a child of the millennial generation, The Beatles and Foghat were both before my time, but I have 12 hours of one of the bands and 0 minutes of the other on my iPod. The Beatles are still relevant in today’s music scene, even to someone born almost 20 years after Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, and Foghat is largely forgotten. Perhaps this is carrying Wilcox’s metaphor slightly too far, but I predict that in 20 years, 2006 will be considered far more important year for the development of online politics than 2008. Whether or not it is “the first Internet election” is going to depend on how 2010, 2012 and beyond carry out as the Internet continues to evolve.

At SXSW Interactive in Austin this week, I met up with Howard Tsao, the CEO of Social Sauce, a new social site that offers some interesting tools.

Remember when Senator Ben Nelson created a multi-media journal on Google Maps that tracked his travels in Iraq? What about when the White House covered President Bush’s recent trip to the Middle East, journal-style? Social Sauce offers some of these same features on one site.

I spoke with Tsao about the site and how it might be used in the political space.

Me: What did you create?

Howard: We created a community site, Sosauce.com, for people who care about their content, experiences, and interests. The tools such as Travel, Journal, and Photo that we build, in comparison to other social networks, are powerful, fun, and pretty easy to use.

Me: What does it do? How might it be used in politics?

Howard: The Journal tool is tailored for writing about various interest,s such as politics. It is as easy as 1 click to create multiple blogs/journals on different interests, so for the first time, a reader can be exposed to different topics of interests, knowledge, and thoughts of a politician easily in one place. When writing, photos from our Photo tool, which really displays photos in high quality and resolution, and videos from Youtube can be easy inserted; this places the reading experience in better context. Sosauce Journal has community pages, subscriptions, and feeds into people’s Update Feeds for interesting writing to be discovered as well.

The Travel tool is unique because it takes trip recording and sharing to a different level. Officials can track trips to the Middle East more interactively and informatively, and the viewers of the trip can find the information more easily and readily digestible. They can also interact with the trip and all the content (journal, photo, tips, reviews, and points of interests) in a fashion that is much more fun. Officials can write about, and pin the map, on not just the official occurrences, but also personal observations and experiences. This way, the viewers can get a much more holistic and human perspective of a trip.

Interesting content rises to the top in our community pages, and we will also actively fe

As in other social networks, profile customization, friend network building, community content viewing and finding, communications (message, comments, updates, rating, subscriptions), privacy settings (3 levels for each piece of personal information and content), and connections to outside of Sosauce (email each content, subscription updates, and post links) are integrated into the site. This way, not only can people view contents of the officials, they also have all the tools at their disposal to interact and connect with the officials in a more meaningful way. We also take privacy, copyright, and the content very seriously. So for derogatory and hateful remarks, there are tools to block, report, and remove them.

Me: What did you use to create it?

Howard: It took us about a year to develop Sosauce into what it is today. We built the site using java, Ajax, Css, Html, and Flash programming languages. It is a labor of love, and we really hope you will enjoy using it as much as the people on Sosauce do.

For those of you attending (or thinking of attending) the upcoming Politics Online Conference, consider attending two panels I have assembled: Social Networking/Media Strategy of the Presidential Campaigns and Open Source Advocacy. While it may be too soon to say that this aspect of online campaigns is the “be all, end all” of online strategy, there have been some great innovations in this space this campaign cycle.

Social Networking/Media Strategy of the Presidential Campaigns

The panel includes Justine Lam, eCampaign Director for Ron Paul; Amy Rubin, former Deputy Director of New Media for John Edwards; Katie Harbath, Deputy eCampaign Director for Rudy Giuliani; and Michael Turk, former eCampaign Director for Bush-Cheney ‘04 and my fellow blogger at techPresident.com.

The panel will explore two contrasting views of using the social web for campaigns: it has not been useful (for some) and it has been essential (for others). I suppose where you sit is where you stand.

In any event, come join us at 3:30p on March 4 and join the debate.

Open Source Advocacy

On March 5 at 3:00p, I am chairing a second panel on Open Source Advocacy. This panel will explore how open source software, software that is free to use, though not necessarily free to implement, can help advocacy organizations. The panel includes Michelle Murain, who blogs on Non-profit technology at the ZenofNPTech.org; Ryan Ozimek, President of PICnet and a core Joomla developer; Michael Haggerty, President of Trellon and a core Drupal developer; and Jo Lee founder of CitizenSpeak, an open source advocacy campaign tool that integrates with CiviCRM.

Both panels should be very interesting and I encourage all to attend.

Last night, the much-hyped news segment on Facebook, was aired on 60 minutes. If you didn’t happen to catch it, you can find it here.

The interview didn’t elicit any new information to those of us who have been following Facebook and its spheres of influence from the beginning. However, it does signify a small landmark-of-sorts, in the sense that the traditional media rarely acknowledges web2.0. And 60 minutes is as traditional media as it gets.

In the interview Lesley Stahl mentioned, albeit briefly, Facebook’s influence on politicians and campaigning

Stahl: You know, it used to be, first, you went on “Face the Nation” if you were a candidate; then well, no, you went on “Letterman.” Now it seems the candidates have to be on Facebook. Are you changing the way candidates are running for president?

Zuckerberg: Well, I think because politicians can communicate with tens of thousands of people at the same time, it’s pretty effective for them in campaigning.

While clearly these observations aren’t earth-shattering, it is nice to see a slight departure from mundane horse race coverage, and attention being paid to innovation in the campaign process instead. 2007 was a landmark year for Facebook, but it certainly wasn’t the only online application or website that deserves recognition for its achievements in the political and technology spheres. To fill that void, I want to mention IPDI’s Golden Dot Awards which will be presented at the 2008 Politics Online Conference this March 4-5. The Golden Dots recognize the best and most exciting online achievements and ideas in the 2007 calendar year in the following categories:

• Technology Impact Moment-of-the-Year
• Online Politician-of-the-Year
• Online Dream Team
• Best Website: Federal Candidate
• Best Website: State and Local Candidate
• Best Website: Issue Advocacy Campaign
• Best eGovernment
• Best Blog- eCampaign
• Best Blog- Political Coverage
• Best Blog- Issues and Advocacy
• Best Mobile/Text Messaging Campaign
• Best Podcast Series
• Best Networked Campaign
• Best Vlog
• Best Political Web Video
• Best Political Animation/Mash-up
• Best Online Collective Action Effort
• Best Online Get-Out-The-Vote Campaign
• Best Online Political Application
• Poli-Tech Innovator-of-the-Year
• Best Online Political Advertising Campaign

If you feel that you, your organization or company or anyone else that you know should be honored for their online political achievements in 2007, please go to the Politics Online website and nominate them. Nominations close on January 30, 2008. In February, the winners of each award will be voted upon by the public on the POLC website.

Facebook can help you win friends and feel better, according to a study on Facebook use among college students (via NY Times). The study, “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends:’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites” was conducted at Michigan State University by Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield and Cliff Lampe.

According to their research, some types of Facebook use can maintain and increase bridging social capital between the types of relationships that social researchers call “weak ties.” Lest the Grinches who believe that the Internet is a dreadful thing indeed proclaim victory over all of us naïve believers, “weak ties” doesn’t imply “bad ties” or even “latent ties.” Rather, weak ties can be beneficial because they provide new information and perspectives. What they lack, however, is emotional support.

The researchers designed questions to look at how emotionally connected the respondents were to Facebook, as well as how integrated the site was in their lives. Of particular interest to me are the questions on social capital:

Bridging Social Capital Scale
I feel I am part of the MSU community

I am interested in what goes on at MSU

MSU is a good place to be

I would be willing to contribute money to MSU after graduation

Interacting with people at MSU makes me want to try new things

Interacting with people at MSU makes me feel like a part of a larger community

I am willing to spend time to support general MSU activities

At MSU, I come into contact with new people all the time

Interacting with people at MSU reminds me that everyone in the world is connected

Bonding Social Capital Scale
There are several people at MSU I trust to solve my problems

If I needed an emergency loan of $100, I know someone at MSU I can turn to

There is someone at MSU I can turn to for advice about making very important decisions The people I interact with at MSU would be good job references for me

I do not know people at MSU well enough to get them to do anything important

Maintained Social Capital Scale
I’d be able to find out about events in another town from a high school acquaintance living there

If I needed to, I could ask a high school acquaintance to do a small favor for me

I’d be able to stay with a high school acquaintance if traveling to a different

I’d be able to find information about a job or internship from a high school acquaintance

It would be easy to find people to invite to my high school reunion

The study was conducted in April 2006 (an eon in web years – look at how much Facebook has changed in the past year and a half).

Will the academic study of the Internet ever set standards for the practices of political operatives, campaigns and politicians, or will it forever be trying to play catch up to the constantly changing technology?

This was one of the most interesting questions that I received after presenting my undergraduate thesis yesterday afternoon. My initial thought is that for the foreseeable future scholarship of the Internet would not be able to catch up to constantly changing technology. If anything, the constant push towards advancement and the presence of hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent on acquiring Internet companies is allowing technology to increase its metaphorical lead over academics. I come to this conclusion after reading two dozen scholarly books and articles about politics and the Internet, only a few of which had any salience towards current practice. The lack of conclusions that can be turned into actual practice is not because of bad research (in all but a few cases), but rather because the technology discussed is outdated, even though all of the studies have been conducted in the last 8 years.

My thesis- a literature review of the study of the Internet’s effect on political communications and democracy- identified six main areas or questions that scholars have been considering when approaching the topic of online politics:

1. How does the Internet Age of political communications fit into the history of media and politics? What forces drove the Internet Age to come about?
2. How has the Internet changed the process through which politicians, professional political communicators, campaigns and organizations operate? What may the future hold?
3. What is a blog? What effects do blogs have on political discourse? What societal and political norms do they advance? What is the personal, social and political influence of blogs?
4. What are the implications on democratic societies of Internet-users who can choose what news content they consume?
5. What is the relationship between Internet use and individual-level production of social capital as it relates to politics? Are there generational differences
6. What are the consequences of the growing digital divide on democratic societies as the Internet continues to gain prominence and utilities?

Admittedly, these categories are from perfect. In my opinion this is driven by an overall lack of homogeneity in the study of the Internet. In my research I found that very few scholars are trying to refine or challenge other scholars already published studies. Instead, most scholars are tackling a new aspect of the Internet and trying to put their mark on an emerging field. In the very simplest terms, this makes synthesizing the research more difficult for my thesis; however, it brings up the major question I ask at the end of my thesis: What questions do academics need to focus on in the future of the study of politics in the Internet sphere? And how do they need to approach their studies differently?

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

1. Has the Internet’s significance in political actions changed over time?
2. Do social networking activities have an effect on political campaign? Can politicians target likely voters with the personal information provided by users on their social networking webpages?
3. What are the driving factors in political activities online? Political needs or technology improvements?
4. What are the implications of online micro-donations in political campaigns?

I’d like to start a conversation in the comment potion of this blog post on other questions that scholars should be asking.

Here is the entire Powerpoint I used during my presentation.

Truth in Advertising: I just recently ended a six-month internship with Verizon’s PolicyBlog last week, so now I can write about them without having a major conflict of interest.

Today, my former boss, John Czwartacki, sent me a facebook message informing me that an idea I had for Verizon to create a Facebook application which allows people to send SMSs to their friends straight from their profile came to fruition (Note: I do not believe I was the one who spurred the application into reality, but did come up with the idea independently).

While being absolutely no expert on SMS and mobile politicking, I think that iterations of this allowing friends to send political text messages to friends via Facebook, could have positive implications for campaigns- specifically in the field of mobilization. However, I say this with one MAJOR caveat; that is, that any application such as this must only work with users who opt in.  For virtually all cellphone users, unsolicited text messages are just as much of an annoyance as sales calls and in many cases even more annoying due to the high cost of texts without a specific text message plan. However, for those who do allow it and have unlimited texting, this can be a good easy and non-invasive way to make brief announcements. Even with those who opt-in I imagine that text messages from any organization should be kept to a relative minimum.

For those interested in Verizon’s Text-a-Friend app: http://apps.facebook.com/vzwtextafriend/application_added.aspx