I love that you gave the Persuasion Architecture answer. I believe you entirely.

I am interested in how you think the candidates could best utilize the new tools that exist for this election cycle – blogs (sort of existed in 2004), embeds, widgets, YouTube, Facebook, etc…

While some of the candidates are doing different things, it is obvious that most of them are not in touch with high level Internet marketing talent (check out mikehuckabee.com).

Things I like about HillaryClinton.com:
1) Obvious calls to action. The menu on the right side of the home page uses verbs for everything. Fred Thompson does that too.
2) If you surf through her media, it creates the feeling that her campaign is about You The Voter. It struck me as powerful.
To be honest, I’m not supporting Hillary, but her website still makes me want to get involved.
3) All of the issues are framed very favorably. She is absolutely controlling the conversation, but in a comfortable manner.
4) Obama’s homepage, at least tonight, looks like it is all about 1 issue. Granted that issue speaks to his supporters, but he is not considering the particular whims of You The Voter. It comes across as, “If you aren’t with this issue then you aren’t with us.” HillaryClinton.com is much more open ended. Maybe she considered multiple personas in her planning?

Would be interested in your thoughts…

Wilson K

It’s funny you mention it. People ask us all the time whether we would work with a political campaign, and, if so, whose. (I don’t believe any of the campaigns have reached out to us, but I’m sure it would be the subject of much internal debate if they did.)

The annoying-yet-honest answer to what a Future Now site for a political candidate would look like is, “It depends on the experience their audience demands.” Persuasion Architecture™, our methodology, is based on answering 3 simple questions at each step of a website or multi-channel campaign:

1) Who is the audience?
2) What action(s) do you need them to take?
3) What information do they need in order to feel confident taking that action?

In a presidential campaign, there are usually two important actions: fund-raising and organizing. In terms of meeting those two objectives, I think BarackObama.com wins hands-down — or, at least it did until someone put up this unnecessary, conversion-blocking splash page. Still, with the help of their web strategy, they’ve managed to raise more small money donations (under $200) than any campaign in the history of American politics. Their emails are generally well-timed, well-written and persuasive. And the social networking features at My.BarackObama.com have enabled massive grassroots organization to flourish. It’s a big reason that, with little news coverage, some 20,000 people showed up to see Barack speak in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park (Hillary’s turf). Besides, he’s the only one who’s been selling campaign merchandise since the beginning. Why wouldn’t everyone else do that?

You may have a point about Hillary’s campaign site in terms of usability, but I’m curious to know why you think of it in terms of spurring action. I know they’re using similar Web 2.0-ish features, but I’d be interested to know how that’s going for them. I’m not sure she has — or needs — the same grassroots organization that Obama does.

Back in July, Howard Kaplan wrote an interesting post on fund-raising data and using Persuasion Architecture™ methodology to predict votes, speculating on (not so fast, Lindain) Giuliani’s chances. I’ve yet to write my follow-up analysis of Barack Obama’s campaign, but thank you for reminding me.

I think you hit on a larger interesting point in all of this (and that was lost on Lindain). This election cycle is entirely different due to Web 2.0.

Most of the major presidential candidates are using analytics (with the exception of Mike Huckabee. Romney is even paying for SiteCatalyst), but they don’t seem to have a vision for PPC advertising or Web 2.0 outside of imbeds and blogger conference calls.

Ideology aside, what would a Presidential campaign, epspecially the site itself and online advertising, look like if the folks at Future Now were running it?

BTW – I think Hillary Clinton has the best all round website – just based on usability and such.

Wilson K.

If you are a supporter, why are you bringing up a 2000 Propaganda claim the Republicants created?

None the matter, I think we got to the point of who created the lies and based on the realities and vision that Al Gore did.

Be well.

I linked to his Wikipedia entry — which seems to be where you got that quote — for a reason. Al Gore is a visionary for his role in speeding broad adoption of the internet, and I don’t see how this post detracts from that. Are you objecting to my saying he was “laughed at and lauded” for his statement about it? That’s a fact. Besides, I said his comments on “creating the Internet” were usually taken out of context. This post is meant as social (media) commentary, not political commentary.

(Not that it matters, but if you must know, I’m a registered Democrat and voted for Al Gore in 2000. I think I’ll pass on voting for him in ‘08, though — mostly because he’s not running. That being said, my views are not necessarily those of Future Now, Inc., or the rest of the GrokDotCom editorial staff. [Yawn])

In case you followers don’t know facts, but just like to keep reporting lies …. and on the chance you might actually care about the reality, Al Gore wrote ” High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. The bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation directly affecting the expansion of the internet.”