The 463: Inside Tech

Campaign Videos Online: Spinning Like It's 1996

After the jump is a new sampling of interesting uses of online video in political campaigns, but first a look back.

Way back in May, we showed a bunch of the first wave of online campaign ads and predicted:

By the end of the election year, a majority of candidates in Internet-forward states, districts, and cities will be posting their campaign commercials to You Tube-like services (see examples after jump). Well-funded pols won't be the only ones doing it -- people running for the local school board will whip out their video cameras and create/post their own ads, too.

With six weeks left to go in the campaign, a YouTube search for "Congress" and "campaign" nets you 181 results. With at least two candidates in 435 districts, this is certainly not a fire hose of content. There's 182 results for "governor and campaign". And, mocking our prescience, there are only two results for "school board and campaign".

Second prediction:

Some smart consultant(s) will figure out that posting 30-second made-for-TV ads of a well-coiffed candidate hugging his kids is kind of lame and start utilizing the immediacy of the Internet. How? By using YouTube video to provide instant responses to opponent's charges; by creating a daily vlog that allows the candidate to set the agenda for the day; and, by capturing and posting all the good thing that folks from key constituency groups said that day. Conversely, you could also video your opponent's missteps and fun shots of costumed protesters and get them up and across the Web ASAP. Bottom line, instead of totally relying on your media consultants super-charged, expensive TV ads that touched the focus group just right, you can get a few ads out a day.

One word:  Macaca (photographed above).

Indeed, George Allen's ill-advised "welcome to America" to an opponent's videographer bears this out. However, we're not gyrating in the endzone just yet. Most of what is out there are those aforementioned well-coiffed 30-second spots re-purposed online. And, the lackluster online viewership of these ads is proof of their appropriateness for the medium.

It reminds us of the first wave of campaign Web sites in the mid-90's where just having a site was something notable. Now, having a cousin who knows how to post to YouTube is room to brag.

Still, there are exceptions and ways to peek into the future. Let's look...

Internet 2020: Font of World Peace or Killer Robots?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a big mash-up of competing visions and predictions about what the Internet will look like in 2020 and its impact on lives, society and governments.   Get the full report by clicking here and see the coverage at the San Francisco Chronicle, GigaOm and BBC.

Or, tag alone, as we take a pull out bits and pieces relevant to tech policy....

Mind Expansion 2.0

(Just don't ask what version 1.0 comprised.)

I'm frequently asked what blogs I read. I, of course, closely watch all the tech policy blogs in the column to the right, but also try to stretch the brain a bit by going beyond our little niche. The following is by no means an exhaustive list of   prized nuggets on the Web, but a good sampling...

Geeks on Film (Two Minutes Later)...

Lots of reaction and analysis is poring through the digital spigot about The Meaning of the YouTube/Warner deal.  A sampling...

Peter Kafka at Forbes...

It's way too early to say what the deal really means. The two companies have been stingy with details about the pact, so it's hard to assess exactly what they intend to do and how they plan to do it. More important, the deal only works for both Warner and YouTube if the myriad other companies with legal claims on the work YouTube shows decide to play along...

Rafat Ali at paidContent thinks "playing along" includes the labels taking a stake in YouTube.  AFX notes that the Warner deal is only the first to come and includes confirmation that the previously hostile Universal is indeed in the process of negotiations with YouTube.

And, if you think about it, it makes sense that equity offers will be optimized if all the labels came on board.  It would be a sticky situation if Warner had a stake in a company that Universal was suing, for example.  The whole Bertelsmann and Napster-thing didn't work out so well, despite this 2000 bit from the CNET piece announcing it...

"My message to Napster users: If you think Napster is great now, just wait," Fanning said. "We're just getting started."

Fanning and Middelhoff then embraced.

Speaking of Fanning, how YouTube's eventual filtering technology will work will clearly be a big story-line in the months to come...

Hey Doug; It's Edgar! Check Out My Numa Numa Lip-Sync!

A few days after Universal Music boss Doug Morris said that YouTube (and MySpace) were "copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars", Warner boss Edgar "The Copyright War is Over" Bronfman is announcing a deal with YouTube today to "transfer thousands of its music videos and interviews to YouTube", according to AP. 

It's an ad revenue sharing -- not an equity -- deal.  It had been rumored that Universal's saber rattling was in response to YouTube's refusal to give them an equity stake in return for a similar licensing/content deal as Warner's.

One of the more interesting aspects of this deal is (from AP)...

To make the deal happen, YouTube developed a royalty-tracking system that will detect when homemade videos are using copyrighted material. YouTube says the technology will enable Warner Music to review the video and decide whether it wants to approve or reject it.

This seems like an evolved solution to a complex issue.  But, right or wrong, we wonder what the reaction will be from users who submit a Green Day lip-synch and it gets held up for "approval" (if that is, indeed, the process).  Will they just go to another site for instant gratification?

And, perhaps even more importantly, if YouTube now is acknowledging that they have the ability to track the uploading of copyrighted content, couldn't the other labels simply demand that all their content be blocked from the site until they sign deals on their own terms? (Update:  See YouTube press release for bullet points on "Content Identification and Reporting Infrastructure).

Links to others on these issues after the jump...

Googling Washington, Again

Google has registered a political action committee, made a new lobbying firm hire and is co-sponsoring its first political fundraiser says yesterday's SF Chron...

Google filed paperwork Thursday to register its political action committee, Google NetPAC, with the Federal Election Commission. The company intends to use the committee "to support candidates who promote an open and free Internet for our users," according to Alan Davidson, Google's Washington policy counsel.

In addition, Google bolstered its clout by hiring former Republican Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana and Connie Mack of Florida as outside lobbyists. The political veterans may go a long way in building Google's ties with Republicans, a group widely considered to be the opposition based on the overwhelming preference by Google employees to make campaign contributions to Democrats....

...Google's push in Washington also involves co-sponsoring its first political fundraiser. On Wednesday, the company, along with eBay Inc. and TechNet, a technology industry group, will hold an event for embattled Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., at the Capitol Hill Club, a swanky Republican redoubt in Washington.

Naturally, most every large tech firm has their own PAC, but the Chron story notes some added, typical Google "iconoclasm" to theirs.  For example, Google will give select employees "a voice in who to give money to and how much." 

Coats and Mack work for law/lobbying firm King & Spalding.  One would presume that Google's lead DC Republican Jamie Brown played a key role in making this pick.  Coats and Brown teamed in helping Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito make it through his successful confirmation process.

BTW, Roll Call noted much of the above in a Thursday piece.  But, it also referenced that Google had hired DC lobbying and public affairs firm The DCI Group.  (Mostly) because of DCI's reported ties to an anti-Al Gore video that mocked global warming, many leading bloggers went on the attack.  Yet, the relationship is not a new one and hasn't exactly been a secret....

Universal: YouTube/MySpace Bad Cop?

Just as we get back from the Video on the Net Big Hug conference feeling warm and fuzzy, Universal Records boss Doug Morris sends out cold pricklies.

As AP, Reuters and the New York Post have reported Morris pulled a Ed Whitacre and raised the rhetorical stakes to the previously back-room negotiations between his label and YouTube and MySpace. AT&T's Whitacre words that set off the net neutrality fight last November were:

"They use my lines for free -- and that's bull. For a Google or a Yahoo! or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!"

Morris is quoted in a transcript at an investor conference saying:

"The poster child for (user-generated media) sites are MySpace and YouTube. We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars...."

He continued...

"(MTV) built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music) ... for virtually nothing. We learned a hard lesson."

When 800-pound gorillas attack, indeed.

But, we wonder if Universal is playing bad cop to the other labels good cops. After all, it's well know that that the labels have been in deep negotiations with YouTube. Perhaps, as Heather Green of BusinessWeek foretells, the labels aren't getting YouTube to agree to an equity arrangement and Morris went ballistic. From Green last week...

Online Video Regulation: Scrambled

We're at the Video on the Net conference in Boston this week.  Lots of interesting talk about the business and future of Internet video.  We'll be peppering what we learned here in future posts.

But, let's get to what you, dear reader, are most interested in:  The prospects of online video regulation.

Kudos go to Jeff Pulver and the folks at VON for allowing the issue to be raised amidst all the happy talk.  They have reason to.  VON, to most, stands for Voice on the Net and Pulver and crew have been battling VOIP regulation since the technology first scared its first traditional telco. That experience taught them that regulation is not an ethereal concept.  It impacts real, live business models.

FCC Commisioner Deborah Tate was a surprise guest at a pre-conference communications policy session...

More Doerr

“Dad, I’m scared and angry; Your generation created this problem. What are you going to do to fix it?”

So says John Doerr's daughter in a Time Magazine essay penned by her father that VentureBeat has run in full. The problem she is referring to is global warming.  Doerr notes that California's legislature made big strides forward by passing the "California Global Warming Solutions Act"-- a bill that has the support of Governor Schwarzenegger. Doerr notes that the legislation:

"caps greenhouse gas emissions across all of the meaningful economic sectors. California-where one of eight Americans live -will now require major industrial producers of such gases to reduce emission by 25% by 2020. That means cutting the annual release of carbon dioxide in the state by 174 million metric tons."

Of course, Doerr also points to the role of "clean technologies" to help California meet these goals.  Doerr and other Kleiner Perkins partners have played a major role in shaping the clean tech debate. And, we expect that their leadership will bring others from Silicon Valley to the table as President Bush launches an expected big energy initiative early next year.

In related news...

All Tomorrow's Games

The future came to my home last night. Baseball fans know that you can watch just about any baseball game you want with a subscription to MLB.com. Last night, I hooked up my computer to my LCD television and me and my sons watched the Mets-Dodgers game over the Internet.  Yes, that’s the future.

Soon (and by soon, I mean 5-7 years), Comcast and Dish Network and all of the other cable and satellite TV providers will be in a death struggle. Imagine a world where first-run episodes of “Entourage” are offered instead directly from HBO.com. That changes everything. We’ve already seen signs of this change; being able, for example, to get episodes of ABC shows on iTunes. But that’s the On-Demand model; I’m talking about never-seen-before-shows.

Imagine what this will mean....