Paranormal Activity

As a Halloween treat I interviewed Jordan Glazier, CEO, Eventful, about his work with the movie Paranormal Activity.  This movie was made in San Diego on a modest budget of $15,000 and has turned into an underground horror hit thanks to efforts by Paramount and Eventful, also a San Diego based company.

Using the Eventful web site, fans were able to demand that the movie be shown in their town and then were able to demand that the movie get released nationally.   Since it was released about a month ago, the movie has generated ticket sales of $62.5 million through last weekend and is expected to get another boost from Halloween this weekend.  Jordan relates his surprise at how quickly this demand campaign took off.

What does this have to do with politics?  Eventful was used in some 2008 political races as a way to determine where a townhall meeting should take place.  The more people get used to having their demands met, the more they will expect to be able to voice their opinions about actions taken by leaders as well as rock bands and movie studios.

The sound quality of this interview is not good as Jordan was on his mobile phone but I think the background noise is somehow appropriate given the discussion about this scary movie.

Happy Halloween

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Growth of Online Experience

Digital Politics podcast this week features David Kralik, California Director, Engage.  David moved to Silicon Valley a few years ago to work with Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions to be a scout for new technologies that could be used in campaigns and government.  David talks about his wildly successful online petition drive, Drill Here Drill Now Pay Less as well as his insights about how important peer-to-peer efforts will be in future campaigns.

Listen to this interview with a political insider.

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Figures Don’t Lie

Digital Politics podcast this week features guest Shabbir Safdar, founder of Virillion.  Shabbir talks about how the true metric of success is the real world result of an advocacy or political campaign and not just how many online friends or followers on Twitter.  He made me promise to stop using the term ‘viral’ in 2010 as he contends that viral is now “baked into” the online world and that is just the way it works.  I can start doing that now as I totally agree with him.  Shabbir has always been ahead of the curve.

Check out this insightful conversation which also includes Shabbir’s 3 rules for rapid response.

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Candidate as Comedian

Digital Politics podcast today with Larry Ward, president, Political Media, looks at the public perception of political humor and what kinds of funny ads and videos are most likely to go viral. Parody, cartoons, and self-mocking humor all might work in the right situation to get across a message.  Nasty jokes fall flat.

Larry has real world experience with candidates and advocates–some funnier than others.  He predicts that candidates will need to be better at making fun of themselves as well as responding appropriately to humorous attacks.

Check out the Colbert Nation in Iraq videos from this week for some political humor that is sure to offend and amuse just about everyone.

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Viral Growth of Social Nets

Podcast today with guest Michael Turk, VP of Industry Grassroots for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association starts with a discussion about naymz.com and how he “invited” hundreds of his contacts to join.  Other topics include trends in social net functionality and managing a presence on multiple social networks. Check out NYTimes article All You Need to Know to Tweet on Twitter which gets into some useful tips which Michael elaborates on.  Trend watch: Michael reports his 3 year old son is showing signs of wanting to start his own circle and is not exactly willing to join in the establish circle at his school. Time to start his own Facebook group?  Listen to the interview.

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Getting Some of That Obama Magic

My guest on the Digital Politics podcast this week is Rob Kubasko, political Internet strategist with Campaign Solutions.  Met Rob last week when I moderated the panel on web sites at the AAPC annual conference in DC.  It seemed that Republicans, Independents as well as Democrats are looking to get some of that Obama magic for their next campaigns. There is confusion however about what role the Internet really played and how that translates down to a state and local race.  Rob has some real Internet campaign experience having worked with Bob Dole in 1996 through McCain 08.  He gets the power of the social nets and warns about ignoring the few passionate supporters at a local level who can dramatically help multiple the impact of a candidate’s message.   Hear the entire discussion on SignOnRadio.

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