John Edwards ignores mainstream media
No, seriously… Running for President by courting the blogosphere. C’mon, you’ve gotta be kidding me.
Another new-new media milestone. First John Edwards announces his intentions to run for the presidency on YouTube…and for his first post-announcement interview to be on Rocketboom and not on conventional TV.
Now that is what “Exploding TV!” and “Television Disrupted” is all about. — via Jeff Pulver
Mainstream media ignores John Edwards
While the tech blogosphere, gets excited at Scoble & RocketBoom being a part of the Edwards entourage, the rest of the more important mainstream media go ahead and ignore all this blogger chatter:
But a quick scan of reports from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Reuters and the Washington Post make no mention of the YouTube clip. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, vloggers!
Bottom line? Ain’t no link love in the big time. (via NewTeeVee)
Will the 1% rule or will the mainstream majority triumph?
I guess this is all about brand differentiation. When Newsweek, pretty much sums up the battle brewing between the two primary Democrats’ candidates — Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama, it does necessitate the rest of the candidates trying to differentiate themselves (or are they trying to make themselves more marketable?) in the eyes of the voter/consumer.
Given the recent embrace of YOU & YouTube by one mainstream newsmagazine – Time, and the meteoric rise of Howard Dean via the blogosphere in the past election, John Edwards may’ve tried to position himself as a tech-savvy candidate of the masses, but has he just gone ahead and court the 1%ers (as defined by Ben and Jackie)
Roughly 1% of your site visitors will create content within a democratized community.
Taking the same analogy, roughly 1% of a country’s citizens are probably activists who stir action within a democracy. Will Edwards gamble of courting the 1%ers pay off or will they remain nothing more than a tiny ripple that’ll soon be forgotten in the ensuing Battle Royale, between presidential hopefuls Hillary and Obama.
What do YOU think will happen? 1% or the mainstream majority?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Mario Sundar's Speakeasy 
John Edwards knows a lot about poverty, after all, he’s helped throw a lot of people into it with:
– his co-sponsorship of H-1b visas,
– his support for illegal aliens,
– his vote for MFN-China
but what about stuff like iraq war and the patriot act?
well, he voted for them too
About the only think you can say for Edwards is, he spent so much time running for president that he didnt have time to do more damage as senator
You’ve got to ask yourself – ‘what did he do, with the power he had, when he had it?
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Completely stepping away from the political debate a’brewing…
I think this isn’t an either/or conversation. It’s one of understanding ALL media. Why bother announcing via MSM? Announcing via YT and RB give you a bump with those who are likely to drive your campaign into something bigger than it is on its own (i.e. Howard Dean’s campaign). MSM will absolutely pick it up later, but a scan looking for the YT reference is fairly irrelevant. That’s not the story, the campaign announcement is.
Personally I think it’s fantastic that Edwards has done it this way. Very smart, grabs the attention of everyone, rather than only one.
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Oh, as a side note – I don’t think the 1% rule applies here. We’re not talking about high levels of content creation, we’re talking about political activitism, which isn’t the same kind of thing.
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Hi Rolo,
I’d like to steer the discussion away from a personal analysis of Edwards’ candidacy to a question of how relevant (& successful) his campaign marketing is by utilizing social media.
As ardent tech marketers it is nice to see old-school, mainstream politicians understand the changes in the way we communicate with one another. I’m sure in a few years political social media marketing will be commonplace. But for now, Edwards could be considered a pioneer in this space.
Thanks for your comments.
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Jake,
I noticed how you sidestepped the debate 🙂 Nicely done.
I also agree with you that social media is more of an AND rather than an OR to add to your media mix. However, Edwards seems to have used it as an OR, leading with social media and thereby being ignored by the MSM!?
As for the 1% analogy, you’re right, I didn’t phrase that right. I believe there would be a minor % of citizens who are politically active enough to actually craft political content (blogs/snippets/multi-media ads) that could then be used to evangelize or destroy candidacies (like Macaca or the Mark Foley scandal).
My question is, will that impact the course of an election?
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Hi Mario,
While the 1-2% of a community may create content, the larger issue is that there is a larger percentage of people that read said content. I think the 1% rule that is thrown around understates that the community is much larger.
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I agree, Damon. The 1 – 2% content creators are definitely surrounded by a much larger % of content consumers who are increasingly adding user-created content to their daily mix of media
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