Lousy Republican Web Campaigns, Finally Statistics To Back It Up

Patrick Ruffini for techPresident wrote a killer article reinforcing our previous and obvious statements that the Republicans just can't keep up with net campaigning. You can see our take on QubeTV and John McCain. According to Patrick's article, Republicans invest just as much in the web as Democrats, but not nearly as much in their web staffs. Web staffs of course being young savvy folk that create effective content. Rather, most of their money goes to technical outsourcing instead of internal staffers. He backs this up with a very interesting spreadsheet. Here are some highlights:

While Republicans and Democrats are spending almost equally on their Web efforts, Democrats are spending dramatically more on in-house staff. Approximately 36% of the Democrats' Web budgets are dedicated to staff, while less than 8% of the Republican budgets are. Overall, the Democratic candidates have 39 people working in the Web departments while Republicans have 18, spread over 9 active candidates. That works out to an average of 5.6 staffers per candidate on the Democrat side, and just 2 on the Republican side, encompassing both frontrunners and also-rans. Obama alone has 10 people on his Web staff... and it shows.

And:

Why is this important? Because it shows Republicans are largely outsourcing their Web operations to highly capable technical firms but don't have the boots on the ground to drive content, marketing ideas, and ensure that the effort stays relentlessly in synch with the campaign's message. It ensures that Republican innovation on the Web will continue to be more about applications rather than brilliant new ideas that get press, driving traffic and the self-reinforcing perception that a candidate has the momentum online.

Keep reading at techPresident.com

Human Tetris Round II

I've been in DC for a week. It was a fantastic trip. That is until it was time to fly back home. I spent two days stranded in the airport. I hate Delta. My brain is completely numb. Seriously, I feel like a retarded person. But I know that's not the reason I almost peed myself laughing from the Human Tetris Round II video. When I watched the first one I was completely coherent and still almost peed myself. This video's been up for nearly a month and hasn't cracked 400,000 views. Apparently, not everyone's sense of humor is as sophisticated as mine. This bad boy should have like 4 million views by now. So send it to your friends.

via Geekologie

Simpsons Movie: Viral Marketing Follow Up

Our previous posts about the Simpson's Viral Marketing campaigns have proven to be spot on. The Simpsons Movie has shot to number one in the box office this weekend and grossed a solid $72 Million domestically - and a staggering $168 Million world wide. Fox's Marketing department deserves a raise, a bonus...or at least some Duff beer. They've really done well with what I feel is an inherently narrow American-esque style of comedy, and made sure that everyone in the world felt the buzz.

They had the real life Simpson's intro that's been seen over 15 Million times and then more recently had the Statue of Liberty clip, the Hollywood Sign clip, and the Seattle Space Needle clip, which all three clocked in nearly a million view each.

We'll never be able to accurately link Viral buzz to box office success with quantitative accuracy, but one has to offer this as positive evidence of the correlation. Check out The Daily Variety article on The Simpsons Movie's success here.

Viral Video of the Week: Beyonce Falls On Her Ass

It's sad to say, but this week's Viral Video of the Week is going to be a clip of pop star Beyonce Knowles falling on her butt during a live show in Orlando. Interestingly enough, I found this clip below today (which has been viewed over 1.3 Million times in 4 days), but the others which I had seen earlier in the week and more clearly showed the fall - have been taken off YouTube.

At least 5 other YouTube clips, totalling over 3 Million views have been stricken from YouTube - one of which entitled 'Ring The Alarm Gone Wrong' yields a message once clicked: This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Sony BMG.

Looks like the lawyers are involved in this one, trying to do some damage control in the wake of the viral phenomenon surrounding Beyonce's fall from grace. I highly doubt BMG would be this diligent and expedient if the concert went on without a hitch.

Well, for the time being, at least you have this one to watch. 35 seconds into the clip below, you can still see the beginning of the fall. Good times...

Mike Gravel In YouTube Spotlight, Comes Out Swinging

Mike Gravel gets right to it in the YouTube YouChoose Spotlight. Not one for chit-chat, after a brief introductory video, Gravel starts slinging the mud at rival Democrat, John Edwards. Gravel connects the metaphorical dots, illustrating how John Edwards' previous employer, Fortress Investment Group helped finance Humana Health, a predatory health care provider. Therefore, John Edwards profits from Humana despite his plan for health care reform. Is there truth to it? Well, I'm on vacation so I didn't bother fact checking. Regardless, for a baby candidate, Gravel sure knows how to make lots of noise. And the YouTube is listening...

YouChoose 08' Stats of the Week

In looking at the latest YouChoose stats, we can plainly see that Barrack Obama leads the pack with a robust 11 Million channel views - a full 8.6 Million more than the next closest candidate. We still don't know how this will translate to votes, but in the meantime in an environment where buzz and press make all the difference in the world, we have to assume that the interest online will have some impact and/or correlation with outcome. The latest YouChoose stats are as follows:

Barrack Obama has 11 Million channel views and 9,400 subscribers
Ron Paul has 2.4 Million channel views and 22,000 subscribers

Hillary Clinton has 770,000 channel views and 4,900 subscribers
Mitt Romney has 690,000 channel views and 2,600 subscribers

John Edwards has 590,000 channel views and 3,500 subscribers
Rudy Giuliani has 585,000 channel views and 2,000 subscribers

Bill Richardson has 520,000 channel views and 1,300 subscribers
John McCain has 450,000 channel views and 1,400 subscribers

Joe Biden has 260,000 channel views and 1,000 subscribers
Mike Gravel has 200,000 channel views and 1,900 subscribers

CNN-YouTube Debates Review: Top YouTube Question Was Censored

I generally liked the YouTube debate and can't wait for the the GOP version to occur. But, its recently come to my attention that number one topic and question submitted to CNN/YouTube was on impeachment - and YouTube did a bit of censoring. Here is the list of what was shown.

Here's the video according to Community Counts which was not shown to us:

CNN-YouTube: The Great Goatse Hoax Of 2007

A few weeks ago, if I remember this right, Scoble was quoting someone who was quoting someone else who was asserting that we are on the verge of major backlash against the blogosphere. That amateur citizen journalism is doomed because of it's inherent lack of fact checking and journalistic ethics. I initially wrote it off because it seems all the "news breaking" is done by entertainment and gossip blogs (which doesn't really count because what's really the difference between legit pictures of Britney's cooch and bogus reports of Sinbad's death?), and everything else is merely high-horse opinion, right? Well, then came the Great Goatse Hoax Of 2007. See, I was really impressed that CNN and the candidates would open themselves up to the people for a debate. And I thought it was an impressive show. It would be a shame if it was somehow "hacked." And then I looked at today's search traffic landings for Viralroots and it was strange that searches for "CNN-YouTube Debate" had "Goatse" strung along them. So I investigated. And I immediately found this Digg claiming that a goatse pic was spliced into a YouTube question and was shown on live on CNN for 1/24 of a second. And then I saw that even Wonkette was reporting this. So it must be true, right? Well... no. Not even. Just for LOLs, a blog created this hoax and some of the biggest political sites actually started reporting it as news. Since then, Wonkette has posted a correction, but this should be a major lesson. And it looks like the drive-by-media scores a point here, cuz not for nothing, I can't find a single legit news source reporting this story. The actual video as aired on CNN is above. As you can see, it contains no objectionable frames.