New York Times' Interactive Graphs

On the day Barack Obama was elected President, the New York Times introduced an interactive poll they called the “Word Train.” It asked one simple question: What one word describes your current state of mind? Readers could enter an adjective or select from a menu of options. They could specify whether they supported McCain or Obama. The results appeared in six rows of adjectives, scrolling left to right, coded red or blue, and descending in font size. The larger the word, the more people felt that way. Throughout the entire day a river of emotions flowed through the chart. You could click from Obama to McCain and watch the letters shift gradually from blue to red, the mood change from energized, proud, and overwhelmed to horrified, ambivalent, disgusted, and numb.


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/04/us/politics/20081104_ELECTION_WORDTRAIN.html?scp=1&sq=what%20one%20word%20describes&st=cse

Recently, the New York Times created another interactive feature that harvested all Twitter chatter surrounding the Super Bowl. By pressing play on this graph, the reader is able to watch the location and frequency of commonly used words during the Super Bowl. In all, there are six different categories to choose from including, “Talking about Ads.”


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/02/sports/20090202_superbowl_twitter.html

These features have proven to pull readers closer through comments and interactivity, rendering the relationship between reporter and audience more intimate, immediate, and exposed. Of the massive 20 million unique visitors per month compared with the daily print edition’s readership of 2.8 million, the readers are flocking to these interactive features. As Jonathan Landman, deputy managing editor puts it, “We’re trying very hard to protect it [the interactive features], because that’s where the action is.”

For an advertising or marketing agency the implications for these interactive maps/graphs are big. The ability to get real-time answers about our products or services has existed for sometime now; think twitter, online forums, live chat…but not in this way. These interactive graphs create an entertainment value and coolness factor for the user while generating a visually appealing way to aggregate all their messages, emotions, or displeasure's about a brand, product, or service and communicate it back to the client in a simple way.

Here are links to some others:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/02/business/media/20090202-business-superbowlads.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/04/sports/olympics/20080804_MEDALCOUNT_MAP.html?scp=6&sq=interactive&st=cse

And the link to the article about the people who create these graphs:
http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53344/index1.html

Politics 2.0: Millennial Makeover

Current TV's Mariana van Zeller looks at the impact of the youth involvement in the 2008 presidential election, with some intriguing interviews with the authors of Millenial Makeover

Politics 2.0: Motivequest Tracks Political Brand Advocacy

MotiveQuest uses online advocacy as a measure to guage Election '08. Contrast this tool against the "expert" polls and let's see in November. At stake here in this experiment is a battle royale between the reliability of classic poll "ask" research versus online anthropology "listen" research. Whatever the outcome in November, it is increasingly clear that planners will need to balance the two measures (what they say in our survey trackers, and what they say on the web) to get a nuanced understanding of how our brands are perceived in the age of conversation/participation.

Politics 2.0: Things Younger Than McCain

I don't care if it is "age-ist", I'm loving this blog. It's not just how many things McCain is older than (I'm sure that list is much longer than any blog could ever cover off), but it's the odd things they've found that make it so entertaining.

My favorite so far? McCain is older than plutonium. I don't know why that's so funny to me, but it is.

Peep the blog for yourself and find your favorite younger-than-McCain goodie.

Politics 2.0: Yes, We Can

Will I Am (and friends) recorded a song/video inspired by Barack Obama's "Yes, We Can" speech. Obama clearly inspires folks in a way that many candidates can't really match. This is an interesting phenomenon to watch.



...and well, from the profound to, uh, ObamaGirl is back with another hit at 1.9Million views already.

Taking It To The Streets: Obey Endorses Obama

Well known (and previously mentioned) street artist, Obey/Shepard Fairey, has made a recent endorsement of Barack Obama - and has done so in a quite intriguing way. He created 350 limited edition screen-printed posters (image above), to be sold to fund a larger street poster campaign. The profits are being used to produce stickers and large posters that will be sent to those who are willing to throw down for Obama in the streets. See communication from the Obey team below:

"Thanks for reaching out and wanting to get involved with OBEY's effort to support the OBAMA Campaign. Shepard made this image for the purpose of making pasters to be put on the street, with the money coming from prints sales to help fund the effort. For those interested, we will be sending out a care-package of the OBAMA Paster plus some OBEY stickers to be put up on the street. These pasters will be folded, not tubed, and are STRICTLY for street use. We do not expect to see them for sale on EBAY or anywhere else, so we ask that only the seriously dedicated get involved!"

There will also be non-partisan posters pushing everyone to vote:


Remember, Obey is the guy who over the past 10-15 years has decorated most major U.S. cities with the iconic Andre the Giant imagery:



Look familiar?

Honestly, I see this as a significant endorsement because street artists, in general, tend to be anti-helping-the-man. They are known for being anti-this and anti-that, but rarely, if ever do we see them promoting a politician, or a presidential candidate for that matter. Not to mention Obey has quite the following. Equally, if not more significant, is that the Obama camp appears to be embracing the endorsement.

Wonder if we will end up seeing any of these posters around?

Politics 2.0: Attack on Obama Girl!

From the creators of Obama Girl (check here and here), Barely Political, peep the latest video release: blond triplets- The Romney Girls- and their vote for a Polygamous get together with Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney....

Just as I said about the Hot for Hill girl...Obama Girl is still hotter...

Politics 2.0: Post-Debate, Obama Has Work Cut Out For Him

Riding the tails of Sarah's post on the Democratic CNN/YouTube debates, an article in the Economist showed the Barack is trailing in some key markets where he should be performing strong. For example, in South Carolina, more than half of the states black primary electorate are actually pulling for Hillary over him.


The article goes on to say that this is not for lack of any star power, but his challenge is a difficult one: clearly communicating to black voters that he understands their concerns while also attracting white suburban voters.

This is really shaping up to be an interesting election, especially when compared with the last one where all we had was a choice between the lesser of two evils. Combine this with the fact that, according to CNN, the leading Republican candidate among Republican voters is none of the above, with nearly 25% unwilling to back the leading Rep candidates. And even better, none of them seemed to have gained any sort of clear advantage among the Christian right.

A last comment on the YouTube debates, I'll be very interested to see how the Republicans handle themselves when they get theirs in September.

The Launch of 'One Laptop Per Child'

Happy to see this article yesterday in MarketingVox announcing that this project will finally start mass production in October of this year. Made by Quanta Computers of Taiwan, the computers are kid friendly to the fullest-- sunlight readable, a pull chord to recharge, built in wireless...

An incredible idea and even more incredible that government red tape and bureaucratic bullshit did not hinder this til the end of time. Though my worry is that somewhere along the chain that may still be the case, and we'll see this drag on...

But that brings and interesting opportunity for Quanta. I don't know how profitable these computers can be for them, but the PR exposure and benefit to our global society they are providing are an incredible incentive for this company to push this thing through with whatever they have.

And for all of us it's a chance to connect with kids that have largely been ignored and kept out of sight from most developed nations because it's easy to put the problems of people "over there" out of mind. How cool is it that we may be, hopefully sooner than later, able to hear their voices, understand their view on the world, listen to their opinions, learn about their life. Those who have the most reason to feel rejected by the world will now have the chance to let us all know what they think. Amazing that even 10 years ago this was a relative impossibility.

Call me an optimist when it comes to this project, but with every good sign of progress I'll continue to keep my hopes up, because if it pans out I think it will be a great step forward for all of us.

Though I wonder, who will be first on the Election '08 ballot to try and use this to their political advantage?

Politics 2.0: CNN/YouTube Debates

Who watched the debates last night? For weeks, YouTubers have been submitting video questions from their couches and kitchen tables. Thirty-nine lucky submissions were selected for last night's CNN-broadcast debate. Missed it on CNN? The whole debate, question by question, is parceled out on YouTube (was this the final frontier of appointment television?).

While the questions were sifted through by some staff team somewhere, they weren't squeaky clean. Obama even commented on the fact that nearly every question was colored with a tone of skepticism. Here's a guy asking what Hilary thought of the idea of potentially 28 years of the same two families running the country, (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton) and if the other candidates found that troublesome.


And now, YouTube is looking for reactions; what did viewers think of the candidates and their answers.

This debate format is reflective of our desire to participate in, instead of just holding on to the ride of life. People from all walks of life set up their tripods and, in varying levels of seriousness, asked what they really wanted candidates to talk about. I'd say that the candidates still need a little work at this whole "genuine, authentic" thing; responses tended on the side of sidestepping, finger-pointing and the occasional unrelated answer. But I give them credit for participating in this new experiment and look forward to the upcoming Republican Debate, which will take place in the same format.

Politics 2.0: James Kotecki

We've had many a debate around here about the new wave of citizen journalists and their "lack of experience".

One side says these are just loudmouths with technological access to millions and no basis or experience to intelligently inform what they say.

The other side says, well, true, but A) what truly "qualifies" the professionals to speak on matters of state?, B) at least these citizen journalists are speaking in tones and terms that most of us can relate to, and C) quit yer whining and embrace it...or get trampled over.

Here is an enterprising Georgetown student, who is giving campaign advice for free on YouTube and his website. James Kotecki, 21, is building a name for himself as he dissects the candidates’ online vids. His message: “The web isn’t TV.” Just because you’re a politician who is “on the web” doesn’t mean you’re using the web well. So as candidates for the 2008 election increasingly put video online, Kotecki critiques.






The candidates and traditional media seem to be noticing - and some are even responding to him.

Could a 21 year old with a web camera and a DSL line actually affect the direction of America's elections? I hope so.