New Progressive Politics

Our friends at the Democratic Leadership Council today published their American Dream Initiative. This has been a year-long research project lead by Senator Hillary Clinton, and in which NDN is proud to have been a partner organisation. The main proposal from the initiative is a plan to help many more Americans attend college over the next ten years. There are also a number of articles on the same subject in the latest edition of the DLC's Blueprint magazine, including an overview by Clinton and others. These documents are an important part of the ongoing thinking happening in all parts of the Democratic family in advance of November, and on the road to '08. Just as excitingly, the Brooking's Hamilton Project will have a big launch tomorrow profiling some of the latest thinking on Economics. NDN - or rather, I - will be attending the launch, and i'll report back on it tomorrow in more details.

The New Politics Institute has been talking about how the use of digital video off the internet could impact politics this year. In fact, on Thursday we will be holding on event on Capitol Hill on The Powerful New Political Tools of 2006, which features how to use viral video, among other tools.

However, a story in the San Francisco Chronicle this week gives a good sense of how the whole internet video space is exploding as we speak. It overviews the whole space and references 240 websites that are organized around video. This business story focuses on how the proliferation of sites in this sector is reminiscent of the 1990s and how a shakeout can be expected, with larger companies buying the best of the smaller ones, and venture capital money trying to scale a few of the most promising.

The story is useful even for the casual reader because the frenzied business environment usually prefaces a more stable environment for consumers and users. Get ready to start using these sites.

The online story also lists the top 10 video sites with links. YouTube tops the list, with more than 40 percent of the traffic, but others are worth checking out too.

Peter Leyden

Want to learn how people involved in politics can better allocate their media dollar? Use blogs? Optimize search? Connect with young people? Make a mobile phone a tool for your message? Understand the exurbs? Reach Hispanics? Use influentials to spread the word about your work?

Then you will want to check out www.newpolitics.net, the website of the New Politics Institute, a think tank helping progressives master today’s transformation of politics due to the rapid changes in technology, media and the demographic makeup of America.

Over the last year, NPI’s network of top professionals in these fields have developed a compelling body of practical, useful reports that will help you get your message out more effectively today. We’ve also put on a series of events in Washington DC, many of which can be watched on digital video that is archived on the website. Taken together, they form a very 21st century toolbox for progressives.

The next event on “The Powerful New Political Tools of 2006” will be Thursday, July 20th, at the Phoenix Park Hotel. The two-hour lunch program will feature short presentations about best practices from top innovators and experts in half a dozen critical areas:

Paid Search Advertising: With Jim Lecinski, Midwest Regional Director for Google, who will explain why Google sold $6 billion in paid search ads last year and how political actors can start to use this outlet too.

Viral Video on the Internet: With Julie Bergman Sender, a longtime motion picture executive and producer who produced the well-known viral video in the 2004 cycle starring Will Ferrell playing George W. Bush with horses on a ranch.

Blogs and Next Wave Internet Innovations: With Jerome Armstrong, coauthor of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, and the internet strategist for Governor Mark Warner.

Mobile Phone Media: With Tim Chambers, who recently served as Sony Corp of America’s Senior Vice President of Advanced Media Platforms and just started his own company, Media 50 Group.

Getting More from TV Ads: With Theo Yedinsky, NPI’s Senior Advisor, who will speak about shifting more ad spend from broadcast television to targeted cable buys.

Speaking in Spanish: With Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN who has been leading a national Spanish language media campaign using soccer and the World Cup.

Feel free to spread the word of this free lunch event to colleagues in the DC area. And if you won't be in DC next week, look for a video of the event off our website a few days later. In any event, you can always check out the tools in our tool box on our website.

There are a wide array of new tools and new media being used by early adopters in the public and private sectors that are totally ready for prime time in politics not someday, not next year, but right now. The more progressives who understand how to use them, the better. Please spread the word.

Last week, my space officially became the most popular website in America.

"MySpace commands 4.46 percent of all visits, according to new research by Hitwise. That's a greater market share than Yahoo's email service (4.42 percent), Yahoo's home page (4.25 percent), and Google (3.89 percent)."

"Within the social networking sphere, MySpace's dominance is uncontested with fully 79.9 percent of the total number of visits. The next biggest network is Facebook (7.5 percent share), followed by Xanga (3.8 percent)."

You can read the full story here - free subscription.

Would love to hear thoughts about the new online social networking tools and the presidential campaign in 08?

There is a story in Ad Age this morning - free subscription - about how the TV Networks will be altering the data used to determine cost for upfront ad buys for next season to account for DVR's and commercial skipping....interesting development.

If you have not had a chance to check it out yet, read the new Wired cover story on Rupert Murdoch, MySpace and News Corp. Murdoch, a 75 year old conservative republican, starts the interview with this....

“To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media – which, incidentally, is what really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.”

It's a fascinating read and good insight into an old media company trying to get ahead in the new world.

The New Politics Institute is putting on a terrific event in DC on Thursday, July 20th. Please come if you are in the vicinity, but even those outside the area might want to take a look at this lineup of topics and people, many in the formal NPI community. And we might be doing a simultaneous webcast, though we will know more about that later. What follows is the email we sent out to locals:

The Powerful New Political Tools of 2006
An Event on How Progressives can Leverage an Array of New Tools and New Media Right Now

There are a wide array of new tools and new media being used by early adopters in the public and private sectors that are totally ready for prime time in politics not someday, not next year, but right now. Come and learn about what they are and how progressives can use them at a New Politics Institute free lunch event from 12 noon to 2 pm on Thursday, July 20th at The Phoenix Hotel at 520 North Capitol Street, NW.

The New Politics Institute will give an overview of the new political opportunities emerging today based on the latest wave of new tools and new media. We then will have short presentations from top innovators and experts in half a dozen critical areas, followed by a strategic conversations between them and the audience. The topics include:

Paid Search Advertising: Jim Lecinski, Midwest Regional Director for Google, leads advertising and operations for Google's major Midwest clients, with nearly 20 years of integrated marketing and online advertising experience. He will explain why Google sold $6 billion in paid search ads last year and how political actors can start to use this outlet too.

Viral Video on the Internet: Julie Bergman Sender is a longtime motion picture executive and producer who produced the well-known viral video in the 2004 cycle starring Will Ferrell playing George W. Bush with horses on a ranch. She will talk about harnessing the explosion of professional and bottom-up digital video on the internet.

Blogs and Next Wave Internet Innovations: Jerome Armstrong is coauthor of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, and is internet strategist for Governor Mark Warner’s presidential campaign. He will talk about a range of new internet innovations that are just emerging.

Mobile Phone Media: Tim Chambers is an NPI Fellow who recently served as Sony Corp of America’s Senior Vice President of Advanced Media Platforms and just started his own company, Media 50 Group. He will talk about how those in politics can get onto mobile platforms.

Getting More from TV Ads: Theo Yedinsky, NPI’s Senior Advisor, will speak about what is still a new imperative within progressive political circles: to shift more ad spend from broadcast television to more cost-effective and targeted cable buys.

Speaking in Spanish: Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN who has led a national Spanish language media campaign using soccer and the World Cup, will speak about using Spanish language media outlets to get progressive messages out to a vital and growing constituency.

This event is one of a series presented by the New Politics Institute, a think tank helping progressives master today’s transformation of politics due to the rapid changes in technology, media and the demographic makeup of America. NPI is building a working network of top technology, media, and demographic professionals who want to help move best practices and new innovations into progressive politics. We are developing a body of useful reports that can be found at: www.newpoltiics.net

For more information on the event contact: Tracy Leaman, 202-842-7213, or tleaman@ndn.org

Feel free to spread this announcement around. The more progressives who understand the powerful new tools and new media we now have at our disposal, the better. Thanks.

Peter Leyden
Director, New Politics Institute
leyden@newpolitics.net

The New Politics Institute's new fellow Jennifer Nix has written an excellent case study in the most recent The Nation about how progressives can leverage the new tool of quick books. Her How to Create a Liberal Bestseller is a magazine article, but it could also be considered as part of NPI's growng body of work on how to use a burgeoning array of new tech, new media, and new tools. She explains, among other things, how she was able to take advantage of the progressive blogosphere to catapult Glenn Greenwald's new book How Would a Patriot Act? to a New York Times bestseller. Nix has now refined a proven approach to get big ideas from progressives quickly into relatively small, readable books that can immediately impact the public debate.