November 7, 2010

I've moved

I migrated my blog recently to http://cyoungworks.com, so this blog is now inactive and collecting cyberdust. Please visit my new site!

January 26, 2010

Geotagging stories and delivery

Imagine being in an unfamiliar city. As you move around, your cell phone beeps, and delivers stories from local media outlets about places or events physically close to you. You could select certain types of stories you're receptive to getting, like restaurant reviews, crime stories, real estate, etc. Something like this is already happening in Canada: http://ow.ly/10jvj
Metro, a free daily, partnered with Foursquare, a location-based social networking software that you use on your cell phone.
I think in the relatively near future all news outlets will offer this service. It shouldn't be hard to program it into the content management systems we use. I wonder if standards will be reached on which software subscribers would use to get the content. Will everyone adopt some augmented reality app? Will it be open source with an API so a variety of Foursquare-like apps can be used?
Shouldn't be too hard to deliver advertising along with the content... I bet start-ups will just syndicate AP copy or other wire copy and beat the traditional media companies to the punch, again.

November 17, 2009

Virginia governor's race and the Google blast

I haven't come across other stories on the 'Net localizing the impact of technology on state or local political races, so I wrote one here, for the RTD, called "Online ads in Va. gubernatorial race ‘set the standard’"

Basically a lot of campaign consultants said that Virginia's governor's race was the first time we saw every candidate use online advertising in an integrated, focused way. Politics in Virginia is huge and there's a ton of voices out there, which you can see by the volume of political blogs, Facebook interactions with Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds' fan pages, and money pumped into online ads.

Both candidates for governor used a Google network blast to saturate the web with their faces right before people headed to the polls, Deeds in the democratic primary and McDonnell in the general election.

They won.

So is that a winning strategy? Maybe, maybe not.
One consultant told me that when you're ahead, you might as well spend a few tens of thousands of $$ to brand your guy online in a final push. I didn't really get to this in the story but at least it's a start.

November 6, 2009

Targeting us: political ads source lists

This article by Kate Kaye of Clickz looks at voter files, the lists of potential voters that campaigns keep. In the online world, a campaign can target likely voters or some demographic group with ads that drive the viewer to donate or vote. The methods of compiling a robust list use traditional public sources like secretaries of state, Kaye says, but also include behavioral clues from web searches and online keywords. Interesting....

The Political Ad Practice Insiders Want to Keep Secret - ClickZ

November 2, 2009

Facebooking their way into the Governor's mansion

My print contribution to our news coverage of the 2009 race for Virginia governor. Just like in every official poll, Bob McDonnell was beating Creigh Deeds on social media sites:

Gubernatorial campaigns rely on social media | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Preview:

As the two men campaigning for Virginia governor make last-minute sound bites to get out the vote on Tuesday, the virtual cocktail parties they host on their Facebook fan pages have exploded in activity.

Both campaigns have rolled out Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube videos and other social media tools to reach voters over the course of the race, in addition to their primary Web sites....