Dr. DigiPol

While for many the social web seems but a few years old, I have long argued that it has its roots in the pre-web internet. Not only have many of the key online organizing tools (email, chat, and discussion forums) been around since the internet was a text-only platform, but political and issue groups have been using them since those early days. By the late 1990’s, the web was well established and being used much as it is today on Facebook and Twitter, though with somewhat more primitive tools.

One of the more disturbing examples of early online social network organizing involves the Aryan Resistance, a white supremacist movement in the United States. In a 1998 essay by Milton Kliem, Jr. tactics that will seem all too familiar to today’s online organizers were spelled out to help the Aryan Resistance spread its message and recruit new followers.

I found a great article on tools for monitoring social media. There are 13 of these tools listed. Some I am familiar with, others I need to explore.

But as we get deeper into engaging the social web, these tools will be very useful. The full article is here and the 13 tools are below:

When I was growing up in Maine, we had four networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. When I was a young adult, Fox joined the list. Then cable came along and the number of networks exploded. Sure, cable networks were small, compared to the big 5, but with the reach of cable, even small networks like WGN out of Chicago turned people all over the world into Cubs fans.

These days, we have a new crop of networks. But unlike the last explosion, these networks are not on television. They are on the internet. Yes, the internet; that collection of websites and other platforms that deliver us all sorts of information. We are talking about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube. We are talking Yahoo, Google, lions, tiger, and bears, oh my… oops… that was an old habit slipping in.

Check out this video story from NationalJournal.com the featuring clips from the March Internet Advocacy Roundtable on Video Strategy for Advocacy.

At the risk of being inflammatory (no offense meant Jon)… come on folks… aren’t we past the days when we refer to a tool (or a communication channel) as a strategy? The internet is not a strategy. A blog is not a strategy. And neither is Twitter.

Join me at the 2009 Politics Online Conference, April 20-21 in Washington, DC! I am moderating two panels you should definitely attend:

Panel #1

Title of panel: Advocacy 3-D

Panel #2

Title of panel: Academic Research on Internet Tools in the 2008 Election

Executive Tweets
On drug policy no less
tech president creeps

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