It's May Day, and to celebrate (and make up for our almost month-long silence) we're podcasting at 9:00 PM Pacific Time on BlogTalkRadio.
Special guest? Perhaps. Topical conversation? Maybe. Lots of fun? Bet on it!
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As promised, I appeared tonight on Rod Adams' podcast, The Atomic Show. While the tone of the debate stayed sub-critical, among other things we delved into one of the darker sides of tech policymaking: who funds interest groups?
Other subjects included whether or not Nuclear technology is "new," how clean coal is like "kosher bacon," the who and how behind the anti-nuclear movement of years past, and what could have been done differently to set us on a better path than we took with our energy policy over the past 50 years.
Mr. Adams also shared some interesting insights he gained as a veteran of our Silent Service, serving aboard several nuclear subs as an engineer.
Unlike our podcasts, Rod has some awesome theme music.
Thanks for having me, Rod. Let's talk again soon.
Thanks to Rod Adams I will be a guest on his podcast around 6pm EDT.
We will be discussing the history of Nuclear technology, luddism, and their relationship to public policy and entrepreneurship.
Listen in at Atomic Radio Podcast
Tonight we'll recap Day 2 of the Tech Policy Summit over at Blog Talk Radio.
So head on over to www.blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley at 9pm Pacific/ 12am Eastern and listen live.
Even better idea? Call us at 347-945-5989 and let us know what's up.
So head on over to www.blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley at 9pm Pacific/ 12am Eastern and listen live.
Even better idea? Call us at 347-945-5989 and let us know what's up.
We just wrapped up our BlogTalkRadio podcast. We went over a little of the goings on at the Tech Policy Summit. This podcast was special because we were joined by Mark Hopkins of Mashable.com. For those of you who aren't down with Mashable, it's a blog with a focus on all things Web 2.0.
As is the norm with our podcasts we had a wonderful road map of where we were going to take it and then went wildly off course. The most notable and, I think, interesting topic that we talked about was the ability of blogs to target niche audiences as opposed to old media outlets like newspapers and magazines who need to appeal to a lowest common denominator. I mean, when's the last time you picked up a magazine or newspaper and read every article? While most blogs won't attain the sheer number of visitors that a major media outlet site might they tend to generate a higher quality of visitor. They type of visitor who visits the site multiple times per day. The type of visitor who has to has to has to take in all of your content. That also got us talking about how good content is the key.
Another topic we talked about was focus. How, for instance, ads on web sites aren't really as targeted as they'd have you believe. Sure, an ad on Facebook will shove products that you should like because your friends bought them, but if you were really interested in that product you'd seek it out on your own. How often have you seen an ad on a website and actually bought a product that, until seeing that ad, you weren't really aware of. Another focus issue is the direction your site or company takes. Look at Twitter vs Facebook - Twitter does one thing and does it really, really well. Facebook seems to have something new going on every 10 minutes, most of which have an update or a fix coming out the next day.
Tonight's podcast is here.
For all of the Capitol Valley podcasts check out blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley.
As is the norm with our podcasts we had a wonderful road map of where we were going to take it and then went wildly off course. The most notable and, I think, interesting topic that we talked about was the ability of blogs to target niche audiences as opposed to old media outlets like newspapers and magazines who need to appeal to a lowest common denominator. I mean, when's the last time you picked up a magazine or newspaper and read every article? While most blogs won't attain the sheer number of visitors that a major media outlet site might they tend to generate a higher quality of visitor. They type of visitor who visits the site multiple times per day. The type of visitor who has to has to has to take in all of your content. That also got us talking about how good content is the key.
Another topic we talked about was focus. How, for instance, ads on web sites aren't really as targeted as they'd have you believe. Sure, an ad on Facebook will shove products that you should like because your friends bought them, but if you were really interested in that product you'd seek it out on your own. How often have you seen an ad on a website and actually bought a product that, until seeing that ad, you weren't really aware of. Another focus issue is the direction your site or company takes. Look at Twitter vs Facebook - Twitter does one thing and does it really, really well. Facebook seems to have something new going on every 10 minutes, most of which have an update or a fix coming out the next day.
Tonight's podcast is here.
For all of the Capitol Valley podcasts check out blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley.
Alex and I are in the same time zone! You can listen here and even call in at (347) 945-5989!
Call in and chat!
(347) 945-5989
Tomorrow! Live! Via Blog Talk Radio!
Oh, yes. Alex and I will be talking about all kinds of things: the 700mhz auction, open access, net neutrality, the upcoming Tech Policy Summit, Larry Lessig's "Change Congress," the NCAA tournament, how cool the Badgers are, and Michigan Athletics scandal that I've been writing about. We'd also like to talk to you!
Feel free to call in, (347) 945-5989 at 11pm EST, 8pm PST this Monday, March 24th.
Talk to us!
(347) 945-5989
Remember when I wrote about WashingtonVC and Grassroots.org? I talked to one of their people today, Angela Siefer. She answered some questions, and I'm slightly less skeptical.
Alex and I will be live, for one hour, tonight at 10:30 PM EST / 7:30 PM PST. We'll talk about SXSWi, how awesome we are, and how cool anyone who listens to us is. Also other stuff.
Tuesday at 11AM ET I will be interviewing author Andy Beal about his book on managing reputation online.
Check it out live (and then the Archive) at Blog Talk Radio
Campaigns, like many things, are about supply and demand. There is one candidate, and the candidate goes where the demand (and hopefully the votes) are.
Social Networking sites have been a force for this campaign. Howard Dean's campaign was boosted by the rise of MeetUp groups, and since 2004, Facebook has tried to make themselves a player in the Political arena.
However, joining a "One Million Strong for Barack" doesn't really mean much when it's a Facebook-wide group.
Eventful Politics takes the level of online support for a candidate and channels it into a demand: show up here. One of the heaviest users of this service has been Barack Obama, who has actually made campaign stops based on Eventful demand numbers.
On Tuesday, I spoke with Tim Breidigan, VP of Business Development at Eventful on how they are really changing the game of how online support can translate into real life boots on the ground.
I was initially skeptical of talking to someone about Yet Another Social Networking Site, but the more I learned, the more excited I got. These guys are anything but. I learned that for every person who wants a candidate to appear, they bring on average, 3 friends.
Eventful has been used by rock stars to plan tours. When a politician is like a rock star, why not go where the fans are? Sometimes the market does work best.
In the interests of fairness, after hearing the presentation of the IFPI "Best Practices" whitepaper this morning, I reached out to one of the authors, Rena Shapiro, of Google. I mentioned that I had written about Yahoo!'s political advertising program yesterday, and magically, I received a series of calls from an incredibly nice Googler in New York asking me to meet with someone at Google's DC office about their political ad initiative. In the interests of equal time, I of course accepted, walked a few blocks from the conference hotel, and arrived here:
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After some security formalities (first NDA I've ever had to sign to get into an office that didn't belong to a defense contractor) I was met by this man:
That's Peter Greenberger, the Team Manager for Google's Election and Issue Advocacy group. Mr. Greenberger was gracious enough to spend around fifteen minutes talking to me about Google's political ad strategy, which you won't be surprised to say isn't your run of the mill ad program. Very nice guy, and any attempts by me to summarize what we talked about will just mangle the big idea horribly, so I'll let his words speak for themselves:
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I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Rick Kessler, President of Dow Lohnes Government Strategies, and former Chief of Staff to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). For those of you on the west coast who don't know the names of members by heart, Dingell, who is in his 53rd year in Congress, is currently the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Many thanks to Rick for his time and enthusiasm.
As you can tell from the picture, Rick is a very busy man, so I was quite pleased that he took time from his hectic schedule to talk with me for an enlightening fifteen minutes on a range of topics, including how evolving technologies have changed politics and grassroots campaigning over the course of his career (or not), how the technology sector can "do" Washington right, and even a little bit of music.
Many thanks to Rick for his time and enthusiasm.
