The Web on the Candidates

• Mitt Romney's appearance in YouTube's Spotlight series has been a a big success, writes the TubeMogul blog. His video views have skyrocketed -- "looking at Mitt’s own YouTube views, it almost looks as if he wasn’t online prior to that video – he went from about 3K views a day to 125K on 4/13!" It's interesting that although Romney's videos have peaked at around 125,000 views, they've since fallen to around 40,000 views a day. "From a little analysis you can find that the majority of Romney’s views were for his one video asking for information, not on videos where planks of his platform are espoused. Will Mitt be able to continue the debate on YouTube with the energy he just started?," TubeMogul writes.
• At the National Association of Broadcasters/Radio Television News Directors Association in Las Vegas, Jeff Jarvis heard some interesting news about the state of political advertising on television and online. At a panel on which he appeared, a "political media man" said that while he was used to spending 80 percent of his money on TV, he was now spending 60 percent online. And at the same session, Joe Trippi "said that the Hillary Clinton 1984 commercial was viewed 4 million times on YouTube but probably 50-60 million times with broadcast included. A message that clicks can be made for nothing and seen by the nation."

The Candidates on the Web

• John Edwards is the second candidate to participate in YouTube's Spotlight series, in which the candidates ask a question of the American people and ask them to post video responses. The idea, of course, is conversation. This week, Edwards asked the question, "what are you going to do to bring about change?" He says that by "beginning this conversation, and bringing lots of ideas to the process, we can figure out what all of us together can do to try to bring change to this country." The way Edwards turns the question back on the audience, neglecting to ask anything quite substantial, is similar to the Romney's spotlight video, in which he asked us to tell him what we thought was the biggest issue that America faces. On one hand, it's nice that they want to hear from ordinary Americans and may respond to them (Romney has responded to a number of submissions), but why this reluctance to say anything substantial themselves? The strategy does allow them to respond to a broad range of questions and, ideally, to promote their stances on more than one issue. But on first listen it simply sounds like they're playing it safe by not actually saying anything. In any event, as TubeMogul and our charts have shown, Romney's video views have seriously spiked in reaction to his Spotlight video, so we're curious to see the reaction to Edwards.
• The news media is widely reporting the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Some of the candidates have posted reactions on their sites. Hillary Clinton posted a reaction against the ruling, and is the only Democratic candidate to do so online. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, and Sam Brownback all posted reactions in support of the decision.

In Case You Missed It...

OPEN THREAD: Republicans v. Dems online
by David All

Are Democrats beating the Republicans online? I'd argue so...and I'm a Republican.

Weigh in on this thread. Tell me I'm wrong. Argue other points we're all missing. Stand up and be counted in this important debate.

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