The Face(book) Of Online Privacy’s Future

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The big Mark Zuckerberg takeout in New York magazine is getting lots of attention, but even more interesting is this sidebar, headlined “No, Facebook Has Not Already Peaked.”

Nut graf:

There’s a technology called OAuth. When you go to Spotify, or comment on many big websites, or rate a movie on Netflix, you are usually given the option to connect with your Facebook I.D. This works well because people hate maintaining separate user names and passwords; our brains just can’t deal. The catch is that now you’re logged into Facebook’s network, and will probably stay that way, even if you never again go to facebook.com.

Any company can provide an OAuth service. It’s just that Facebook has the most users. And now Facebook knows how many of them are logging in to any site that uses an updated version of OAuth. (I mean, I have no inside track on how they use the data, but how could you not look?) Facebook also has a CEO concerned about rivals usurping it. If you had a huge pile of data about websites and services that might pose a competitive threat and billions of dollars in cash at hand, what would you do? Right: You’d buy Instagram. And you’d be able to make a very informed decision without consulting anyone, because, well, math.

So what’s happening is that Facebook has an extraordinary window into the activities of other up-and-coming social networks and other competitors. (The same is true for Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Foursquare; it’s just that Facebook has a much bigger window.) With its remarkable war chest, it can endeavor to buy even more of our time and data than it owns today.

In other words, Facebook has its tentacles in an unending series of social sites, which it can either purchase or just datasuck at will.

Conclusion:

Peak Facebook, when it does arrive, is something that Facebook-haters should fear, not welcome. Facebook’s platform has been so overwhelmingly successful that the company hardly had time to do anything but grow. Yet when the growth of the network itself slows, as it too inevitably will, Facebook—as a publicly traded leviathan whose mandate is to increase profits—will need to find new ways of slicing and dicing humanity into groups that will respond to marketing. That’s what lurks on the other side of peak Facebook, and it is going to suck.

Make that, datasuck.

 

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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Obama $25 Million Ad Campaign Says Let’s “Go”

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Barack Obama’s reelection campaign just launched this ad (with a knee-buckling $25 million media buy) in nine swing states – Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Transcript:

“Some said our best days were behind us. But not him. He believed in us, fought for us. And today our auto industry is back, firing on all cylinders. Our greatest enemy brought to justice by our greatest heroes. Our troops are home from Iraq. Instead of losing jobs, we’re creating them – over 4.2 million so far. We’re not there yet. It’s still too hard for too many, but we’re coming back because America’s greatness comes from a middle class. Because you don’t quit, and neither does he.”

The spot was described by Politico’s Morning Score this way (cobblestoned grammar and all):

Starting with a reminder of how dim things already were when Obama was inaugurated, with 20 seconds clips of clips from 2008 and a cameo by raging tea partiers in 2009, the last 40 seconds evoke an uplifting mix of Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning Again in America” ad and Clint Eastwood’s “It’s halftime, America” spot from the Super Bowl.

But this comment from MSNBC’s First Read is far more interesting:

[T]he ad is the campaign’s first positive ad, and it might be gone in 60 seconds. Will we see another positive ad (at least in English?). It’s very possible he doesn’t run another positive ad the rest of this election.

Fasten your seat belts – it’s going to be a Barack-y ride.

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Dr. Ads Does The Cher-ing Thing

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

 

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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Jake Tapper And David Axelrod Are Full Of It

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

On ABC’s This Week yesterday, Jake Tapper asked Barack Obama’s consigliere David Axelrod if voters are less enthusiastic about Obama this time around.

Via Mediaite (with video):

Tapper brought up a recent event Obama held where the 18,000 seat arena was not filled to capacity and over 4,000 seats were vacant. He asked Axelrod if this was a sign that “fewer people are excited for the president” in this election cycle. Axelrod said that at other campaign stops, they still have events that end up going over capacity. He also claimed that 14,000 people was the kind of crowd Romney could only wish he had at his campaign events.

Axelrod posited that Romney’s negative attack strategy in the race so far is what’s kept him from getting the kind of enthusiasm behind him that Obama does.

Failing grades all around here.

Demerits to Tapper for picking the wrong event to highlight: Drawing 14,000 people doesn’t exactly scream “enthusiasm gap.”

And thumbs down for Axelrod’s dodging the question (which is a legitimate one – and a serious problem for Obama) by diverting the issue to Romney (who also has an enthusiasm gap, but that’s no answer to the question).

Welcome to politics as usual, 2012 style.

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The T Is Like Somebody’s Hobby

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The Missus and I decided to trundle down to the South End Open Studios yesterday, so we went to the Green Line’s Brookline Village station about 1:30 to catch an inbound trolley.

And we waited.

And waited.

And waited until around 1:55 a trolley pulled into the station and . . . pulled out, not bothering to stop.

(Full disclosure: There was a Red Sox game yesterday afternoon – at 1:35.)

Five minutes later a single-car trolley – fully loaded – arrived, opened its doors, and announced, “Another trolley is coming right behind this one.”

(As my old man used to say, Yeah – so’s Christmas.)

Regardless, the Missus and I crammed into a back door and endured a – full disclosure – free, but crappy, ride to Copley.

Go to any other major city – New York, D.C., Paris, Munich – and the transit systems might have their problems, but at least they’re run by professionals.

Here, the MBTA=Massachusetts Bay Transportation Amateurs.

It’s an embarrassment, and a disgrace.

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Let The $4 Billion . . . Or $6 Billion . . . Or $9.8 Billion Rumpus Begin (MISTIA Edition)

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

How do you run against a president who’s personally popular, even if his policies aren’t?

MISTIA – More in Sorrow Than in Anger.

From the Weekend Wall Street Journal:

Anti-Obama Ads Take Elegiac Tone

Conservatives, Wary of President’s Popularity, Try Spots Rife With Disappointment, Lost Promise

A young man recounts how inspired he was by Barack Obama’s “promise to change Washington’s corrupt culture.” A woman recalls how she voted for Mr. Obama “because he spoke so beautifully.”

Fans of the president? Hardly.

Both people star in television spots attacking Mr. Obama, and both help answer a question that has vexed conservatives for months: how to go after a president whose personal popularity remains unusually resilient, even amid lukewarm ratings of his job performance.

The answer: Acknowledge the potency of Mr. Obama’s 2008 appeal. Then steep the ads in disappointment and lost promise.

They’re called “soft attack ads.”

Representative sample #1:

The hardworking staff’s favorite frame:

Representative sample #2:

The hardworking staff’s favorite frame:

We especially like the time-lapse photographs of Obama going dimmer.

That’s all in keeping with Mitt Romney’s Obama’s a Nice Guy But theme, which is intended to make Romney seem like a nice guy,

But . . .

He’s not.

And we say that more in sorrow than in anger.

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WSJ’s Caro Di Tutti Cari Interview

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Excellent Robert Caro interview in the Weekend Wall Street Journal:

Robert Caro: Political Power—How to Get It and Use It

Asked to define “political power”—the motif of his multivolume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson—historian Robert Caro falls silent. “I don’t think anyone ever has asked me that,” he says. Sitting in the office near Columbus Circle where he writes, Mr. Caro stares at his silver-buckle shoes for a few seconds. Then he offers: “It’s the use of the power of government.” The corners of his mouth twist in disappointment; he’s dissatisfied with the answer.

And yet, whatever political power is, Mr. Caro knows it when he sees it. His subject, the 36th president of the United States, possessed it in abundance. The more interesting question, from Mr. Caro’s perspective, is how did he get it? For the past 36 years, the 76-year-old scribe has been answering this question, documenting every scheme Johnson perpetrated in his upward climb. This week, publisher Alfred A. Knopf released the fourth volume of his biography, “The Passage of Power,” which covers Johnson’s sudden catapult from the vice presidency to the White House.

If his book suggests an answer, it’s that Johnson gained power through sheer ruthlessness.

And Caro has chronicled it through sheer doggedness.

Well worth checking out.

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A Romney Surrogate Who Actually Delivers

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

From Tagg Romney’s Twitter feed (tip o’ the pixel to Politico Playbook):

 

 

 

A surrogate? Is that kosher (or whatever they call it) for Mormons?

Via Politico:

Tagg Romney, Mitt and Ann Romney’s oldest son, announced the birth of twin boys Friday — born through a surrogate.

It’s not a rare practice for much of the country, but it could raise some eyebrows with parts of the anti-abortion movement — and some in the Mormon church.

Not surprising, Grandpa used a surrogate to comment on the blessed event:

 

 

 

 

Whatever. We’ll just say . . . mazel tov!

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Scott Brown Shot One-For-Five? Hey – So Did Barack Obama!

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The Boston Globe’s Glen Johnson had this scoop on the celebrated half-court basketball swish by Sen. Scott Brown (R-It’s Not Girly To Shoot Underhand):

Brown’s ‘amazing’ basket came after four missed shots

Sinking a half-court shot is the latest testament to “Downtown Scotty Brown’s’’ basketball prowess, but it turns out it wasn’t quite the lucky basket it appeared to be.

An aide confirmed for the Globe Thursday that Brown sunk the shot, but on the fifth attempt.

The shot heard ’round the Web:

 

But before you pass judgment on Brown, consider this:

Barack Obama did exactly the same thing.

Here’s the Preezy of the United Steezy sinking a three-pointer (see 1:50) at the White House Easter festivities, compliments of the Obamaganda West Wing Week:

 

And here’s what really happened:

 

Braack Obama: One-for-five.

Scott Brown: One-for-five.

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

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Necrofilmia: The Michael Jackson Edition

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Back in 1991, it was Paula Abdul dancing in a Diet Coke commercial with the long-gone Cary Grant, Groucho Marx, and Gene Kelly:

 

Now it’s Pepsi resurrecting Michael Jackson, the Wall Street Journal reports:

Pepsi Brings Back the King of Pop

PepsiCo Inc. PEP -1.51% is resurrecting Michael Jackson to try to pump life into its flagship cola, three years after the singer’s death and more than a quarter century after the pop icon’s landmark sponsorship deal to become the voice of the brand.

Following an agreement with Mr. Jackson’s estate, the beverage and snack giant said Thursday that it will roll out a billion Pepsi cans with a silhouette of Mr. Jackson—who died in 2009—as part of its newly launched “Live For Now” global marketing campaign.

File under: Live For Then.

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