Something big is happening on the Internet today, as you may have noticed. Yes, the English version of Wikipedia is blacked out, as are Craigslist, Reddit, Boing Boing and O'Reilly Radar. Google, Mozilla, Wired.com and Wordpress all have put up some kind of anti-SOPA graphic or statement. Many of those that aren't blacking out text or turning their sites off are nonetheless posting updates expressing sympathy for the movement. All of this is significant, but what is perhaps most interesting is the collective effect these protests are having: Today, SOPA becomes a mainstream issue.
A few days ago, I wrote about Wikipedia's plans to black itself out in protest of SOPA. I don't often flood my Facebook Timeline with my own tech writing, but I decided to share that story, given the broad impact the story was likely to have beyond the technology community. It got a few "likes" and from one generally well-informed, but non-techie friend, a confession: "I had to Wikipedia SOPA."
Michelle Obama's first day on Twitter was marked by four tweets (two presumably written by the First Lady herself), a retweet and more than 235,000 new followers.
For her part, Obama followed five accounts, including her husband's, three official White House Twitter accounts and the account of Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina. The account is being maintained by Obama's reelection campaign, with tweets posted by the First Lady signed "-mo."
Pop quiz: The Political Action Committee for which of the following companies has given the most in donations to lawmakers who have co-sponsored the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate-counterpart, the Protect IP Act: Microsoft, eBay, Google, GoDaddy, Yahoo! or Amazon?
Think carefully: all six have come out in opposition to the bill, which would put tight restrictions on Internet firms in an effort to enforce U.S. copyright laws (although some firms took more convincing stands than others). At least two of the companies, Google and Amazon, have said they may go dark to protest the bill.
If you guessed GoDaddy, which had a public dust up after initially supporting SOPA, you're right. Sort of. GoDaddy's PAC leads in percentage, giving 52.9% of the $38,750 it has given during this election cycle to Representatives that have signed on to co-sponsor SOPA and Senators who are co-sponsoring PIPA.
Old-line media companies are scrambling to partner with Web companies in their efforts to cover the 2012 election.
In Iowa, Fox News unveiled an exclusive partnership with Google. NBC News and Facebook have expanded a partnership to cover political polling. The Daily Beast is also working in cahoots with NBC.
Partnerships between media companies are nothing new: print publications have a long history of partnering with broadcast outlets on political polls and other news coverage. The question for these new media partnerships is who benefits? Viewers and readers, to an an extent, will always benefit from broader coverage, but in this case it may be the Web companies that are getting a bigger boost.
Six of the leading Republican presidential candidates have spent a combined $1.4 million on online advertising so far during the 2012 election cycle.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama's reelection campaign has already spent $5.8 million on Internet advertising - more than the campaign has spent on media consultants, broadcast, print and miscellaneous media combined, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sounds like a guy who really, really wants to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act.
But Romney just can't bring himself to mention SOPA by name.
At a New Hampshire campaign stop late last month, a small business owner asked Romney how he felt about SOPA. Without directly mentioning the bill, the proposed legislation that would put curbs on Web sites in a bid to crack down on copyright violations, Romney said he opposes "bills like this" that focus solely on "stopping bad acts."
"The job of a regulator is not to just to catch the bad guys and stop bad acts, it is to encourage the economy and encourage the good guys," he said in comments similar to those he's made in other public appearances.
While most of the support for SOPA is coming from members of Congress, it is possible the issue will be something the next President has to deal with. Heading into Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, which, based on polling Romney is expected to win, here are how the other leading Republican candidates stand on SOPA:
Amidst all the Iowa noise from last night and today's announcement about the end of Michele Bachmann's presidential bid, something else happened: President Obama quietly joined social photo sharing app Instagram. Obama joined with the username @barackobama and has since posted two photos. The first one is of him speaking via videoconference to Iowa caucus-goers. The second is a photo of people watching the videoconference and is captioned "You guys inspire me every single day."
This is yet another instance of the president using social media to reach and engage with the younger demographic that helped him get elected four years ago. With the GOP edging in on social media, however, will this same strategy help him win in 2012?
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won last night's Iowa Caucus by eight votes, and the consensus on what role Twitter and social media played in the contest may be just as evenly split.
Jenn Deering Davis of TweetReach, a social media analytics service by San Francisco-based Appozite that tracks Twitter mentions and reach on a wide range of subjects, said Tuesday afternoon that volume about the Iowa caucus was "pretty low."
"We track more tweets in an hour about a single TV show than we have in five days about all nine candidates," she said.
Yet if you only paid attention to the social media scorecards leading up to Tuesday's race, Ron Paul would have been your clear-cut pick to win. While Paul finished a respectable third, his finish did not live up to the pre-caucus hype on Twitter and in the tech press.
One of the reasons why social media once again failed to predict election results is that it is still, by-and-large, a way for voters to connect and follow their favored candidates. Undecided voters may still be turning to mainstream and traditionally objective media sources, and may be less likely to post comments about a candidate on Facebook or retweet a campaign update.
The Washington Post launched a new app Tuesday aimed at tracking mentions of presidential candidates on Twitter.
@MentionMachine was developed exclusively for the newspaper and was launched in conjunction with Tuesday's Iowa Caucus, the official start of primary season for the 2012 Presidential Election. The app uses Twitter's streaming API while also tracking mentions in the traditional media.
The launch of @MentionMachine is telling, in that it formally adds "social media success" to polling data, fundraising totals, ad spending and endorsements as ways to measure how well, or how poorly, a campaign is doing. For those keeping score, Ron Paul had the most mentions in the 24 hours preceding this writing, with 44,900 tweets.
Ahead of the Iowa Caucuses, Google has launched its U.S. elections hub. The site features news, calendars, maps and videos, as well as online tools campaigns, organizers and reporters can use. The Google Politics & Elections Google+ page will share the latest updates.
The Google.com/elections site's navigation allows browsing by candidate or issue. It also features a "Trends" browser, showing how candidates are doing in Google search, Google News mentions and YouTube views, and an 'On the Ground' viewer showing stories overlaid on a map.
