Howard Dean steered by ‘the blog people’
by henrycopelandTuesday, December 30th, 2003
Until I read Ed Cone’s post, I had skipped past the lead quote in Wired magazine’s story about Dean and the Internet, assuming it was from some Internet-soaked sod like me. But it was Howard Dean himself who said, “If I give a speech and the blog people don’t like it, next time I change the speech.” Interesting.
I enjoy Dean’s populism and love what Dean’s doing with the Internet, but think many of the issues he excites Democratic activists with — anti-war drumming, re-regulating of telecoms, stifling corporate options, raising trade barriers — may alienate the middle of the political bell curve. If so, Dean risks being tagged as Dukakis with rabies.
Update: Here’s the cover of today’s USA Today:
They used to be known as the boys on the bus: the big-name columnists, network TV producers and reporters for large-circulation newspapers who had the power to make or break a presidential candidate’s reputation. Now they’ve got competition. In the 2004 election, the boys (and girls) on the bus have been joined by a new class of political arbiters: the geeks on their laptops. They call themselves bloggers. (Via Buzzmachine)
The article focuses on the editorial competition bloggers pose, which misses an important half of the story, the half that begins with a $. (A story traditional publishers would rather not tell?) Don’t forget folks, many of the bloggers mentioned in this story (Atrios, TPM, DailyKos with more on the way) are selling ads. You can buy ads running for five million page impressions on blogs (a month’s worth) for under $2000… impressions that pack a political wallop that far outweighs $200,000 spent on an equal number of page views in the traditional press. Gee, could you even round up 5 million primary-focused page impressions on NYTimes.com in one month?
December 31st, 2003 at Dec 31, 03 | 8:43 am
yeah, sure…. buy ads. but what makes or breaks you is what people blog, not the ads that someone buys next to it. or did I get it all wrong ?
December 31st, 2003 at Dec 31, 03 | 1:36 pm
good point, especially if you are talking about presidential candidates.
but good blog karma is the end of a process. first, you’ve got to get people to notice you. and for lots of products and causes, you don’t get noticed unless you buy an ad somewhere… the rolling stone, the new york times, matchbook covers, superbowl intermissions, canoe paddles, skywriting…
check out the advertiser testimonials page. some great companies/ideas/candidates might wait a 1000 years for bloggers to notice them… or they can take the initiative and buy $1000 worth ads and start filling orders.
January 3rd, 2004 at Jan 03, 04 | 5:27 am
>> In the 2004 election, the boys (and girls) on the bus have been joined by a new class of political arbiters: the geeks on their laptops <<
Sure they have … the press acts like a geek hasn’t been the richest man on the planet for the past 10 years. Having conquered business, was politics not soon to follow for the geek class? (Al Gore inventing the Internet notwithstanding.)
May 18th, 2004 at May 18, 04 | 11:57 pm
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