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.

Ah, the olden days. Remember the night of the New Hampshire primaries? Like many people inside the beltway, I was at a happy hour, wishing that someone would turn on CNN and rather clumsily using my cell phone to surf for poll results. That very same night, I heard about a cure for people like me, addicted to CNN the night of every primary. Little did I now that someone, somewhere could actually do the watching and the reporting for me.

That night marked the debut of Politweets, a site that tracks Twitter conversations about the presidential candidates. Josh Catone credits Politweets for informing him that Senator Clinton won New Hampshire. Politweets told me the moment Fred Thompson dropped out of the race on January 22.

Jason Garber and Doug March, two of the minds behind Politweets, recently had a conversation with IPDI about the project. Neither Garber nor March characterizes himself as a politico. Neither expressed an interest in politics until recently: “Politics was the thing that caused arguments at the bar,” said March. They’re web developers for Revolution Health and Mixx.com, respectively (both also created Twittertale, a site that tracks curse words in the twitterverse), and are highly involved in the Refresh DC Meetup.

In a testament to the power of social networks, Garber and March say that a presentation at a recent Refresh DC event by the Sunlight Foundation (plus an email from Twittertale fan Dan Croak, who then assisted in the development of Politweets) encouraged them to look more closely at transparency in politics. Less than two hours after Garber, March, and a team of other developers (including Gabe Hanford, Alisa Schadt, and Min Kim) came up with the idea, Politweets was born as a citizen-powered tool to share information about the primaries. It took a few more days for the site to be ready for prime time.

Politweets, then, is built with the imperative that “anything citizens can do to open the political process to transparency is a good thing.” In this context, said Garber and March, when regular people take the time to share information with each other online, we become public figures in our own right. We power a different avenue of information, one that enhances the stories and storylines created by the mainstream media.

As March put it, “Twitter is like a river of information. We took a stream off that river and separated comment about the presidential candidates from the noise.”

Expect the site to evolve before Super Tuesday to include links to pages that display the latest five tweets on each candidate and aggregate information posted by the campaigns on other social networking communities.

If we were playing a game of buzzword bingo, having the phrase “Long Tail” on our bingo card would most likely win us the jackpot.

In an article for Advertising Age titled “Three Strategies for Thriving on the Decentralized Web,” Steve Rubel looks at three things that marketers need to create a “perfect storm” of “bite-size” online content.

We’ve given his strategies a politic spin.

Rubel Strategy #1 - Think web services, not websites.

The goal, according to Rubel, is to “create similar mini-experiences via web services that plug into these sites yet are consistent with the brand.”

Some of the most popular sites on the web today function as platforms on which interesting and – most importantly – useful applications run. Think about how easy it is, for example, to start an event or raise money on Facebook, which has become something of a trend amongst politically active Facebook members.

We add that these types of applications are successful because they are essentially useful. They do something for us. They give us something – even if that something is getting book or movie reviews. They aren’t merely the online equivalent of direct mail pieces.

Local government, offices on the Hill, federal departments have very little to lose when it comes using their web presences to develop online tools that serve the public, rather that merely functioning as brochures. And, for their part, many federal organizations appear to be moving carefully, slowly in this direction.

Some of them.

And if, by “services” we mean online games and multi-media presentations often directed toward an audience of students, promising enough in themselves  – if they lead to a more enabling, service-oriented approach to the web and aren’t merely the online equivalent of museum brochures.

Rubel Strategy #2 - Connect people.

The new, service-driven platforms aren’t increase in value if they connect people.

“Connect”: another bingo buzzword. According to Rubel, “the greatest value is created when people connect via platforms of participation around a common goal.”

What better common goals to participate in than creating better policy, making government more transparent, volunteering on a political campaign, and helping government goods and services run more efficiently.

Rubel points to microcontent as a new consumer-engagement platform. Specifically, Rubel looks at the Los Angeles Fire Department, which opened a channel on Twitter to inform the public during times of disaster.

Rubel Strategy #3 - Make everything portable.

Rubel writes, “Traffic is becoming something that happens elsewhere, not just on your site.”

In other words, find ways to embed everything. Instead of hoping that our web content will drive people out of their way and onto your website over and over again, think about ways that your visitors can take pieces of your website with you, embed them on their desktops, and share them with their friends.

For political candidates, associations, and advocacy groups, this may mean developing a widget that shares breaking news about a candidate or an issue with your supporters.

For the Los Angeles Fire Department, this may also mean using widgets to send that disaster-related micro-content off a web page and onto mobile devices and desktops.

For a Congressional office, this may mean developing a platform that allows constituents to chart the progress of their requests.

Rubel trumpets these strategies as way to market products better, and we certainly agree. But they aren’t entirely new in the corporate space.

Where they are unique, however, and where thy pose the greatest potential to shape the way we live is in the political space, not merely to market future leaders, but to make the way we lead more efficient and effective at meeting the needs and queries of their constituents.

Twitter is all the buzz recently, ever since it was embraced by the bloggers at SXSW.

Here’s how Twitter works: it’s a mobile blog that allows you to share what you are doing at a given time. You log in to twitter.com, and on your main page, you fill out the open form that asks “What are you doing?” You can write whatever you want in the field. And that’s it — that’s the point. You tell the web what you’re doing.

Other users can add you as a friend to see what you are doing. The real application is when your users activiate the mobile or IM options that allow them to update their status and view others’ status from their cell phone or AIM, Gtalk, or Jabber.
And it’s so easy to change your status. You can either login to the site, e-mail twitter@twitter.org, or send a text message or IM. Your friends will also be notified.

If you check out Twitter, you’ll see that a lot of users tend to post what they ate for lunch, that they’re sleeping, that’s they’re in a taxi, etc. So how can this be used for politics?

What easier way to let your base know where you are and what you are doing? When you’re on a way to a vote or in a meeting on an important issue, or when you launch a website and want people to check it out. It is a way to interact with your supporters, not just telling them where you are but what you are thinking and allowing them to keep tabs on your campaign or activity.

Democrats John Edwards and Joe Biden are the only two presidential candidates that are using Twitter. (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both have accounts but no activity.) To be fair, Edwards is a part of a ridiculous amount of social networking sites, many of which the campaign barely uses. But this is one that he actively uses.

Twitter is a great way to be transparent, make people feel a part of a campaign, and keep supporters actively involved in your politician. The open form allows you to write whatever you want and have it sent directly to your “friends’” phone or IM service, directly at their fingertips.

How do you use Twitter? What do you think the best practices are? Leave us a comment and stay tuned to an extended discussion on the political uses MoSoSo (mobile social software).