Road Trip! Young Republicans Blog and Twitter Their Way Across the U.S., Wired.

The Republican road trip - organized by the College Republican National Committee -- is meant to energize McCain's younger supporters. All four of the traveling quartet are blogging, and one of them, Chris Caraballo, a 24-year-old film student at the University of Southern California, is shooting video. Joining Caraballo and Jackson on the road are Kerry Donnelly, a 21-year-old Fordham University graduate, and Jeremy Harrell, 22, a University of Miami at Ohio graduate.

"One reason we're using the technology that we're using now is to draw attention to the fact that there are new, interesting, relevant, and extremely efficient ways to get information to people," says Jackson, who just graduated from Clemson University. "That's why we're keeping track of our trip ... through our blog and other Web 2.0 tools."

Rebranding via Blogging, Know It All.

CIOI: Where do you want this to go?

Henke: We all approach it differently, each of us comes from a different perspective, a different part of the coalition of the Right. I belong to the libertarian, the leave-us-alone coalition, a group that does not feel that the party is representing it or telling its story. The right side of the blogosphere is dominated by libertarians - and I don't mean that with a capital L, but the limited government, leave-me-alone libertarians. That represents where the future of the Republican Party could lie. The infrastructure could be built on line, if the Party can recognize and take advantage of that environment

CIOI: You guys are playing catch-up. How did liberals take the lead online?

Henke: The web is conducive to insurgency movements. That's been the Democrats for the last eight years. They were out of power and needed different tools. Progressives perceived that the political culture had shifted, but the Democratic Party did not shift with it, so they began telling a story about a different vision of the Democratic Party and the political system. They made fundamental criticisms of both parties and the media, and rallied a lot of people to them. They erected a very effective mechanism for bringing the party in their direction, they created a gravitational pull so the political leaders and the money people had to come to them. That has fundamentally reshaped the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on the other hand, was perceived by most in its base as being a more effective machine.

SHEFFIELD: Online, conservatives miss bigger point, Washington Times.

While more conservatism does not necessarily equal victory, it is also true that better technology does not, either. Superior technology never saved a bad candidate, as Presidents Howard Dean and Ron Paul can attest. Observing their losses, however, many on the right have drawn the wrong conclusion, thinking that the failure of either candidate to acquire the traction they needed was because engaging the Internet is not useful (beyond raising money) or that it only appeals to young people who don't vote.

That last point is one particular myth that just won't die.

Contrary to popular misconception, people who read political blogs tend to be middle-aged. This ought to be self-evident, given that younger people generally are not interested in politics, and older people are less likely to be on the Web. It's long past time we put the myth of the youthful blog reader to rest.

The Commentocracy rises online, Politico.

Web sites ranging from the smallest of blogs straight through to The New York Times are struggling to discourage spammers and bomb-throwers without tamping down the larger, productive give-and-take.

Writers and editors have become obsessed with comment tallies (even if many don’t deign to read the comments themselves), which have become a favored, albeit unreliable, barometer for determining editorial success and tapping into the political zeitgeist.

“I’ve seen great blog posts and great articles that get zero comments, and some of it is the writing,” says LATimes.com Executive Editor Meredith Artley. “I also see people try way too hard to get comments. I think it’s nice to engage at every turn but the number of comments you get on a story and blog post isn’t everything. We have to tell a lot of new bloggers that here. They get upset after a month or two that they are only getting a handful of comments a day.”

Good-bye, Google Bomb, Washington Post.

So why haven't bloggers stopped trying to game the system? Work-arounds may be one reason. So might the increasingly sophisticated nature of today's Google bombs -- what Open Left's Chris Bowers calls a "2.0 version of the Googlebomb" -- where the goal is to influence the search rank of a slew of negative news articles about a politician rather than tie his name to a keyword.

Klau said that he's "not aware of any [successful] Google bombs or equivalents over the past year" -- but the new efforts aren't Google bombs, per se.

GOP losing the new-media war, Politico.

While conservatives are devoting much of their Internet energy to analysis, their counterparts on the left are taking advantage of the rise of new media to create new institutions devoted to unearthing stories, putting new information into circulation and generally crowding the space traditionally taken by traditional media. And it almost always comes at the expense of GOP politicians.

While online Republicans chase the allure of punditry and commentary, Democrats and progressives are pursuing old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, in a fashion reminiscent of 2004. Back then, the Drudge Report and other lesser-known conservative portals played a key role in defining John Kerry and pushing back against criticism of George W. Bush, such as when conservative bloggers debunked documents purportedly related to the president’s Air National Guard service.

Young Republicans, Blue About the Prospects Ahead: Gen-Nexters Are Feeling Left Out of the Party, Washington Post.

"I think the Republican Party is staring down a very long, dark, quiet night," All says.

"It's always darkest before the dawn," says Mindy Finn, 27, who ran Romney's site.

"It's a challenging time right now, and I think there's a lot of people searching for a new identity, new leaders," says Robert Bluey, 28, a blogger who is editor in chief of the Heritage Foundation's Web site and director of its Center for Media and Public Policy. "Sometimes it will take some cleansing before it gets better."

Republicans haven't always been so disconnected. A quarter-century ago, Reagan charmed young voters and won 59 percent of their vote in 1984. In 1992, on the heels of the Reagan Revolution, voters under 30 split their allegiance about evenly between the two major parties. But every presidential cycle since then, Democrats have gained ground. This year, according to the Post-ABC poll, 44 percent of those under 30 call themselves Democrats, and only 18 percent identify as Republicans.

GOP 'Caving' on Trademark Lawsuit Threats, Wired.

Hundreds of various GOP-related pieces of merchandise are for sale on CafePress -- some favorable and some not. The GOP did not discriminate against favorable or unfavorable paraphernalia.

On Thursday, Threat Level published one of a few letters (.pdf) the committee sent to CafePress before the flap was resolved.

"Please cease and desist from allowing vendors to utilize the federally registered trademarks of the RNC or we will be forced to consider a legal remedy," Sean Cairncross, the party's chief counsel, wrote CafePress.

Alex Conant, a GOP spokesman, said "We asked them to stop selling with our trademarked logo on them. They agreed."

The agreement, (.pdf) for example, would not require a license to sell a shirt with a design portraying a GOP-trademarked elephant trailed by two smaller elephants and the words, "I'm raising my children right." Before the deal, the committee maintained such a depiction was a trademark violation.

Twitter Fight: Netroots Nation vs. Right Online, Blog P.I.

Both conferences designated hashtags for attendees to use when tweeting their experiences and expoundances. For the Twitter illiterate, a hashtag is a short code word following a pound sign — #hashtag, for example — included in the 140-character message for the purposes of associating that particular tweet with a subject others are using the same hashtag to write about. For the conferences just concluded, the hashtags were #nn08 and #rton08.

Like we always do about this time, here’s a chart comparing their use over the past weekend.

Note to John McCain: Technology Matters, Circle ID.

This is what I draw from the announcement that former FCC Chairman Michael Powell is drafting a technology plan for McCain, to be released shortly. The McCain campaign will promote it as an overdue response to the comprehensive technology agenda that Obama unveiled eight months ago. I'm sure they will position long-standing Republican ideas like cutting the capital gains tax and promoting "market forces" to encourage broadband deployment as maverick proposals. What concerns me most is what the McCain plan apparently leaves out: strong views on the crucial issues that Obama's plan covers. Immigration reform and free trade are worthy goals. They aren't a technology agenda.

I like Michael Powell. I really do. He's extremely smart and open-minded, he was a dedicated public servant, and he did some wonderful things at the FCC, especially on spectrum policy. Yet Powell always had a curious blind spot about how FCC decisions affected the world outside the agency. His infamous quip comparing the Digital Divide to the "Mercedes divide" is a good example. Even when he had the policies right (as on requiring "line sharing" for broadband access), he couldn't always get them adopted, because the FCC doesn't operate in a sealed box. It's a component—an important component—of the larger policy and political apparatus of the federal government. With the McCain plan, Powell is making the same mistake.

The Friendfeedization Of Facebook, TechCrunch.

Many of the changes seem designed to put the year-old application platform on the backburner more than anything. Facebook has had to fight an ongoing privacy, spam and competitive battle with its more aggressive third party developers, using algorithmic and policy tools.

But it’s also clear that they like what they see at Friendfeed, which expertly combined the idea of an activity stream that was first popularized by Facebook with the microblogging trend introduced by Twitter. Users constantly add content that their friends read and comment on, which creates yet new content. The virtuous page-view creating cycle continues.

Facebook still silos most of this information, although they are more than happy to have users bring in third party data to the Facebook feed. This week facebook will also launch their Facebook Connect product, which is designed to let users get that data back out of Facebook.

Reflections on Right Online, BlueyBlog.

• Michelle Malkin gave a great speech Saturday that focused on the right’s strengths rather than our shortcomings. I won’t repeat the laundry list of accomplishments she cited (hopefully I can get the video), but it was refreshing to hear someone talk optimistically and not be afraid to criticize the left’s tactics. She chided the MSM for reinforcing the “right is behind online” narrative. It’s too bad most MSM reporters were across town fawning over Al Gore and the nutroots. Go figure.

• The conference was the perfect place to plug the new RedState.com, and Erick Erickson made the most of it. With a heavy emphasis on state and local blogging, RedState is making a big push to get more people active in politics in their own backyard. On a personal note, it was the first time I saw Erick speak publicly before a large audience. It quickly became clear he should be doing more of it. He’s funny, intelligent and communicates in a way that people understand.

The TechRepublican staff is down in Austin, TX for RightOnline sponsored by Americans for Prosperity. Check back for more coverage from the conference over the weekend.

In Texas, the Right Boots Up to Gain Strength Online, Washington Post.

On Friday, a Who's Who of online conservatives will gather at the Renaissance Hotel in the picturesque Texas Hill Country here for an inaugural two-day conference called RightOnline. At the same time, less than 12 miles south in the city's downtown sprawl, the heart of the online liberal community is on its second of four days at the Austin Convention Center for Netroots Nation.

Coincidence? Of course not. RightOnline, sponsored by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, planned it this way.

"We knew that Netroots Nation was holding its conference in Austin this weekend, so we looked at it more as an opportunity to meet them head-on," says Erik Telford, the 24-year-old who is helping organize the conservative gathering.

In Online Politicking, Republicans Play Catch-Up, WSJ. (subscription required)

Even as 2,000 or so liberal bloggers swarm the downtown convention center here for their third annual gathering, a far smaller group of conservatives will be holed up a few miles away, seeking ways to equal the score.

From online fund raising to attracting Facebook friends, Republican candidates are having a dismal year compared with their Democratic rivals.

The power of new media in American politics, FreedomTalks.

As soon as a press release with the details of this hidden legislation was released, it quickly appeared on sites like Digg, Reddit and Slashdot. Within hours, members of these communities saw exactly what Senator Grassley was trying to do and used those networks to bring more awareness and perspective to the issue and take action.

Within 5 hours of submitting the press release to Digg, Senator Grassley’s attempts at playing big brother made the front page. In less than 24 hours, this story received over 1,000 diggs and was quickly making the rounds to various blogs.

You’ve Got a Friend in Barack Obama: Integrating Social Networking Tools into Political Campaigns, e.politics.

Of course, as we’ve covered many times before, relatively few political organizations will be able to set up a system like MyBarackObama, in part because of the difficulty of hitting critical mass and in part because of cost, so the Obama campaign’s outreach tactics for mass audience online social networks (Facebook, MySpace) are more likely to be useful as a model. Obama’s Facebook outreach breaks down into three elements:

GOP Asks Net For Advice, Paulites Answer the Call ... and Answer, and Answer, Wired.

But Ron Paul supporters have made themselves at home on the the GOP platform site, sounding many of the themes that turned the Texas congressman's doomed run for the Republican presidential nod into an internet cause célèbre.

"Get rid of the unconstitutional Federal Reserve, and go back to a sound gold and silver based currency," wrote Cathy, a contributor from Stevensville, Montana, in a post to the "Jobs and Economic Growth" section of the site.

It's just one of pages and pages of comments submitted by users complaining about the Federal Reserve. Abolishing the bank is one of Paul's core policy issues.

Voting For A McCain, ZDnet.

McCain’s approach doesn’t have the same verve and moonshot-like sense of aspiration.

He proposes to allow corporations to immediately deduct from taxation the cost of investments in equipment and technology. He wants a permanent ban on Internet taxes (as if Macy’s and Wal-Mart one day won’t come to him asking for a federally-mandated ban on sales taxes). He also proposes a ban on cell phone taxes (a vote winner, but a spur to innovation?). And a permanent tax credit equal to 10 percent of the wages a company spends on research and development of new products and services.

But the most notable spur to innovation is a broader pledge. He says he “will reduce the federal corporate tax rate to 25 percent, from 35 percent.’’

McCain Campaign Uses Online Spider To Ambush Obama, Wired.

The politicos' mutual stalking has reached unprecedented new levels this year: At least one side has started to spider the other's campaign web site to track that campaign pages' precise word changes up to an hourly basis.

John McCain's campaign published a side-by-side comparison of Barack Obama's Iraq War policy web pages on Tuesday using a new automated online tracking service called Versionista.

The service, which launched two months ago, allows users to track and cache changes to specific web pages up to an hourly basis, depending on the level of filtering requested, says Peter Bray, its creator in Portland, Oregon.

Samuel Coates to join David Cameron's office, ConservativeHome.

"Other blogs got there first but I am delighted to confirm that Samuel Coates, Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome, looks set to join David Cameron's office as part of the speechwriting team.

At the age of 22, Sam's likely appointment after a number of competitive tests and interviews is a tremendous personal achievement, I wish him every success. His commitment to the social justice agenda and his interest in international human rights will be just two of the significant contributions I know he'll make to Team Cameron.

"In their own words": political videos meet Google speech-to-text technology, Google Blog.

Today, the Google speech team (part of Google Research) is launching the Google Elections Video Search gadget, our modest contribution to the electoral process. With the help of our speech recognition technologies, videos from YouTube's Politicians channels are automatically transcribed from speech to text and indexed. Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find. Here's a look:

Googling the Conventions, Blog P.I.

The Google Adwords “buy your rivals” strategy can be a very effective way of putting your message in front of Internet users who wouldn’t necessarily think about your brand, product, service, candidate, issue, argument, party, or even your party’s nominating convention.

So let’s try Googling the major party political conventions. First up, the least interesting result, searching republican convention:

What is Online Strategy?, Engage DC.

What is online strategy? That’s the question many veteran political consultants, candidates, organizations, and my grandmother ask when I say that’s what we do.

The simple answer is that online strategy equals political strategy today. In a culture where everything — from planning your wedding to petitioning your government — happens online, the distinction between routine activity and “online” activity is practically unnecessary.

What do I mean? The political environment right now demands a candidate who offers a different kind of politicking, the kind where regular Joes (and Janes) feel like they are as important to the campaign as the candidate.

GOP should get serious about cyberspace, Politico.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, an appointee of President Bush, has been asking the right questions of ISPs that are blocking content. For example, Comcast was caught red-handed by The Associated Press blocking the distribution of the King James Bible. Martin launched an investigation and convened public hearings that put Comcast in the hot seat.

Another Republican who “gets it” is Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi, who has co-authored legislation to ensure that the same freedoms we have enjoyed online would apply to the next generation of networks while directing the FCC to act against discriminatory ISPs.

Like-minded Republicans are beginning to understand that we need a national policy to bring the benefits of broadband to the millions of Americans who can’t access or afford a high-speed Internet connection.

McCain Can't Use 'a Google.' So What?, Newsweek.

The only problem? This line of reasoning is ridiculous. For one thing, McCain's computer illiteracy doesn't reflect a lack of curiosity--it reflects a lack of necessity. Over the past 10 years, most adult Americans have encountered and explored computers primarily in the workplace, where the ability to communicate and find information on the Internet has gradually become a required skill. But McCain's job in the U.S. Senate--where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers--has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary). When aides are responding to your messages and briefing you on every imaginable subject, the incentive to get online sort of disappears.

NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers, NxE.

As it is often the case with technology, blogging can seem like a boys’ club to many, but the average blogger is no longer (if they ever were) a geeky, twenty-something man from the US. Strong, interesting women are taking over the blogging world. They have the passion, they have the skills, and they are here to stay. Today, we’re listing fifty most influential female bloggers at the moment.

If you want to know who the blogging world is talking about, these are the names and faces to keep in mind.

LEFT-LEANING BLOG READERS MORE LIKELY TO BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE ACCORDING TO FIRST-EVER STUDY BY GW PROFESSORS, GWU.

The paper identifies two key findings. First, blog readers are highly polarized, which shows that the Internet is changing the relationship between media and politics and welcoming people with strong partisan opinions and less emphasis on moderation. Second, blog readers are more prone to engage in politics, and left-leaning blog readers are likeliest of all to be politically active, which exposes partisan differences in the ways Republicans and Democrats are taking to Internet-based politics. This may have significant consequences for the current election.

Democrats lead the way in cyberspace, Washington Times.

O Captain! My Captain! Rise Up and Read the Blogs, Blog P.I.

When Morrissey pulled up stakes, he took his entire readership with them. They didn’t have much of a choice, as typing in the old captainsquartersblog.com URL will swiftly deposit you at Hot Air without displaying so much as a redirect page first. In fact, initially it seems Hot Air grew by an even greater number of visitors than were lost at CQ, accounting for the growth in traffic Morrissey experienced in his last month blogging solo. This rapid growth has leveled off and even dipped slightly, but it’s clear now that Hot Air is twice as big as it was before. The move appears to have paid off exactly as they hoped.

McCain Says He's Learning How To Use A Computer, Wired.

John McCain told the New York Times in an interview that appeared in Sunday's edition that he's learning how to use a computer. But yet again in his blunt fashion, he informed NYT readers that "I don't e-mail, I've never felt the particular need to e-mail.

The admission is surprisingly frank given that most people on Capitol Hill constantly keep up with both work and each other via their BlackBerries.

Who listens to blogging heads?, LA Times.

In fall 2006, political scientists, including us, representing about 30 universities conducted a survey of 16,000 Americans, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The survey asked respondents whether they read blogs and, if so, which ones. We analyzed the answers, and the result is the first detailed portrait of political blog readers.

About 34% of the respondents said they read blogs, but only 14% named at least one blog that focuses on politics. Who are these political blog readers?

Compared with those who don't read political blogs, they are more likely to have a college degree and, obviously, are more interested in politics. They are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans, rather than as independents, and are more likely to call themselves liberals or conservatives rather than moderates. Political blog readers are more likely to vote, give money to candidates or simply talk about politics. They live and breathe politics.

Launched: YouTube's Conventions Program , CitizenTube.

Through unprecedented partnerships with both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, we just debuted a video contest that will send one talented winner from each side of the aisle onto their candidate's campaign trail, and ultimately into their party's national convention in Denver or Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The call to action is simple: submit a video explaining why you're a Democrat or Republican in 2008 - the five most compelling and creative videos selected by each Convention will be voted on by the YouTube community who will determine the final winner.

DOD to start using Web 2.0, Politico.

Robert Carey, chief information officer of the Department of the Navy, said that the ability to put information out in a public place and use many brains to make a fast decision is made easier with Web 2.0 — the trend toward more information sharing and networking.

"Our collaboration, our bringing multiple brains to task on a product is really powerful. Do we do that? Not as well as we could. Are we heading there? The answer is yes," Carey said.

Phil Bond, president and CEO of the Information Technology American Association, said the young Americans now being recruited by the military have grown up using these networking tools. And when those same young men and women are up against a foe, they will want to use any resource available at their fingertips, Bond said.

The Daily Show’s Double-Shot of Internet Politics, e.politics.

And not even the Daily Show to keep us distracted — those lucky bastards took two full weeks off around the 4th of July holiday. Never fear: escape is close at hand, since the Daily Show site now hosts full episodes. And you have a good excuse to go, since the June 24th show featured a double-shot of online politics. The excitement starts around minute 8:40 with a look at John McCain’s online game Pork Invaders, and quickly moves on to some online gaming options the candidates haven’t taken, namely Fetus Pong and The Obama Universal Heath Care game, Yes We Cannon (see Jon running up the score below).

FCC seeks to punish Comcast in Internet probe, Reuters.

Comcast has "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access, regardless of the level of traffic, and failed to disclose to consumers that it was doing so, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told the news service.

Comcast has denied it blocks individual traffic and said the use of network management is essential to avoid congestion and impairment of online video applications like Veoh or voice-over-Internet Protocol services like Vonage.

Martin will circulate an order recommending enforcement action against the company on Friday among his fellow commissioners, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on Aug. 1, the news agency said.

Pelosi: New Bipartisan House Rules Won't Quash Free Speech Online, Wired.

All the online outrage eventually elicited the following response from the 68-year-old Pelosi on Thursday, who used the opportunity to show-off her Web 2.0 street cred by boasting that she herself is an fluent user of social media.

In a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner, a congressman from Ohio, Pelosi noted that she has a blog, and accounts on Digg, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. (Boehner has his own Twitter account,)

Mr. Capuano’s initial recommendations are an effort to establish standards that permit Members to publish web videos on external web sites, a broadening of the rules that currently prohibit posting videos on external sites.

High Cost of Driving Ignites Online Classes Boom, NY Times.

The vast majority of the nation’s 15 million college students — at least 79 percent — live off campus, and with gas prices above $4 a gallon, many are seeking to cut commuting costs by studying online. Colleges from Massachusetts and Florida to Texas to Oregon have reported significant online enrollment increases for summer sessions, with student numbers in some cases 50 percent or 100 percent higher than last year. Although some four-year institutions with large online programs — like the University of Massachusetts and Villanova — have experienced these increases, the greatest surges have been registered at two-year community colleges, where most students are commuters, many support families and few can absorb large new expenditures for fuel.

Former Republican operatives turn to blogging in attempt to rebuild party, The Hill.

“We’re all interested in building the apparatus, the new conservative apparatus, because we feel like the old one has broken down,” said Dayton, who was briefly a McCain staffer last spring. He noted that even if McCain wins, Democrats are likely to control Congress. “If he loses, it’s probably even worse. And rebuilding a majority in Congress is going to take a long-term effort.”

Those within the GOP, however, see conservative blogs lagging behind liberal ones when it comes to one area where they can help candidates directly: campaign contributions. ActBlue, a website founded in 2004 that takes donations for Democrats, says that it has taken in nearly $57 million in candidate contributions since its inception. Meanwhile, the Republican version, Slatecard, has raised about $410,787 since it was launched about nine months ago, according to that website.

“Blogs like RedState and others usually provide more of an in-depth philosophical view or clearinghouse on issues of the day as opposed to generating grassroots activism or financial contributions for like-minded candidates,” a Republican strategist said. “A lot of Republican-leaning blogs claim to be doing the same thing, but they are mostly ineffective on that front.”

Google Lively: Really? I mean… really??, Bivings Group.

# The platform is not as lightweight as it seems. Shoving something into a browser via plugin isn't always the way to go, and it doesn't always mean it's going to be lightweight. While it does allow the embedding of these rooms in any webpage (arguably the strongest offering of this entire product), the rooms take a long time to fully connect to (and sometimes time out completely).

# The controls are awkward. Moving your avatar, furniture, and other elements on Lively isn't as easy as one might think, and for something that feels like a videogame, lacks decent keyboard functionality. It combines the awkward interface of click-to-move with the neck craning camera angles of an uncompensated third person viewpoint.

# Limited Compatibility. Currently, there is no Mac compatibility, and the only browsers supported are IE and Firefox. Non-mainstream users (read: people who are generally interested in Google Labs releases) will have to sit this one out.

Poking Holes In The Long Tail Theory, TechCrunch.

Just because the Internet makes it possible to offer a near-infinite inventory of goods for sale does not mean that consumers will start wanting more obscure items in any great numbers. That is the conclusion Harvard Business School associate professor Anita Elberse comes to in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review that takes on some of the sacred cows of the Long Tail theory.

The Long Tail is Wired editor Chris Anderson’s theory (based on an article and resulting book of the same name) that as it becomes easier to distribute a wider variety of items, consumers will venture down the long tail of the distribution curve and find the products that exactly match their interests and idiosyncratic needs. Elberse questions this notion:

NBC to use Olympics as research lab for new media viewership, Ars Technica.

In addition to the 3,600 hours of programming on network and cable TV, NBC also plans to put 2,200 hours of streaming video on its website at NBCOlympics.com. NBC also plans to post "Olympic data" (probably game scores and times), blogging of live events, and even games to the website. Quantcast will help NBC determine the statistics of who is using the site, what are people doing there, and for how long.

Quantcast is just one of NBC's new partners in this new research experiment, though. Integrated Media Measurement Inc. has also joined forces with NBC to distribute "special" mobile phones that will track how users might view Olympic content while on the go. Finally, the network plans to conduct online surveys—a total of 8,500 for the duration of the Games—to ask about how consumers are using the media on different platforms. This will be the first time the company has tracked this kind of usage data to such a granular level, and apparently doesn't have a clue as to what to expect. "I have no idea how people are going to use this stuff," NBC research chief Alan Wurtzel told the Associated Press.