Speaking of politics and technology, a Washington Post editorial on November 5, “YouTube? It’s So Yesterday,” gave a nice picture of some cutting edge overlap between the two domains.
Included in the politech grocery list for 2008 were:
- Media Cameos — John McCain showed up in “Wedding Crashers” … guaranteeing he’ll continue to show up as the movie makes its evolutionary journey from theatre to DVD and Netflix.
- Corporate-style Data Mining — Catering political messages to specific demographics via email
- Avatar Campaigns — Virginia governor Mark Warner did some presidential campaign stumping in the virtual world of Second Life, possibly setting the tone for simlilar adventures in 2008.
- Underbelly Networking — Porn and gambling are the traffic centers of the Internet, so how long will it be before a candidate jumps into those networks to leverage connections of a key demographic?
- Rep Trackers — In the same way one follow fantasy baseball players or stocks, Congresspeople could soon be the subjects of activity tracking. Ratings and trends could become a measuring stick on Election Day.
- Affinity Zones — Did your truck break down in the middle of West Texas? Use your cell phone tools to locate a “blue” bar to make your call amongst fellow Democrats.