Saturday, February 17, 2007

Why Amanda Marcotte had to quit the John Edwards campaign

" The right-wing noise machine's favorite trick, possibly its only trick, is to select a target and start making a fuss, hoping that by creating the appearance of smoke, just enough people will be fooled into thinking there's a fire.
Unfortunately, it works. "

-Amanda Marcotte
Image: Lindsay Beyerstein

Amanda Marcotte relinquished too much power when she decided that "(she'd)..be happy to move to North Carolina " and work with in Edwards Campaign. She was expected to create a colossus like Daily Kos but with out the power and responsibility she needed to separate her self enough from the Campaign; so that when she did battle with the neo-con relativists, Edwards didn't catch any shrapnel.

Short Term Blog Development is a new technology, a new form. I don't have all the answers, but here's some ideas on what went wrong in this first try at a Short Run Blog Production Campaign.

This new form is pre modern; the challenge in marketing in the bloggosphere is to formulize the process. That hasn't happened yet, it's still a crafting process.

Bloggers are creative people, not Formula Badgers(Walmarts scalable retail business model). I think for the Campaign Blog to be effective, Blog Producers need to be independent creative producers. Success is in control of the site; most importantly control of the crafting of style and content - final cut if you will. Amanda Marcotte is one of a growing number of specialists, they are Creative Producers and should be paid like Producers.

I don't understand why Amanda had to move to North Carolina. The blogosphere is a virtual interactive experience - you don't need to stand up from your keyboard to build another one.

Blog Production will soon come to be seen as important as a National Campaign Organizer. When the power of the thing is fully appreciated the power and responsibility will come, that may happen with-in the next two years.

It ain't over yet Bloggers! Get back in there!


When your party taps you to create that 'Daily Kos' they want; here's some terms you might begin with:

  1. The concession earned should be based on results from site meter data over the length of the campaign.
  2. The Blog Producer should set a signing bonus; $250,000 per year for 'x' years; Producer keeps ad revenue.
  3. Fund Raising is in the Candidates name; the candidate gets exclusive fund raising rights on the site; donations transferred directly through Electronic Banking.

'Independent Blog Producer' sound good as a Title?



mh

2 comments:

  1. Great post, Michael. Yours is a fresh and original way of thinking about creating campaign blogs.

    Thanks for the link.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Lindsay,

    Sorry it took so long to get back, I'm new to this Web 2.0 stuff.

    Glad you found my take interesting.

    I like your photograph, you caught her unawares I think. Thanks for letting me use it; really draws the eye.

    ReplyDelete