Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ben Rigby has worked as CTO and president of several new media firms developing and devising web and mobile strategies for nonprofits and Fortune 1000 companies. Rigby?also founded MobileVoter.org, an organization dedicated to using new media to politically empower young people.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Mobilizing Generation 2.0

Mobilizing Generation 2.0 is a practical and immediately useful guide for nonprofits, political campaigns, organizers, and individuals who want to better understand how to use Web 2.0 technologies. In easy-to-understand terms, this accessible book describes how readers can leverage new media (blogs, socialnetworking websites, photo- and video-sharing websites, mobile phones, wikis, online maps, and virtual worlds) to recruit, engage and mobilize young people.

Bringing together valuable guidance; big picture advice from recognized experts (Beth Kanter, Evan Wiiliams, danah boyd, Fred Stutzman, Steve Grove, Jonah Sachs, Seth Godin, Zack Exley, Martin Kearns, Jason Fried, Mitch Kapor, Katrin Verclas) as well as real-life stories of success; the book provides the information you need on the most widely used technologies like Blogger, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Second Life. Chapter by chapter, the author walks you through How Organizations Are Using It, How It Works, How to Get Started, Strategic Considerations, and Challenges and Opportunities.

The book, and its up-to-date website (www.mobilizingyouth.org), are filled with handy resources, tips, best practices, and more.

Praise for Mobilizing Generation 2.0

"Young voters, in increasing numbers, are tuning in and taking charge. This book is a great look at how to reach them more effectively."
―Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor?Committee

"Ben Rigby has pulled together the ultimate guide to using social media for political organizing."
―Micah Sifry, cofounder, Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident

"Ben Rigby helps the people working hard to create change make sense of the vast array of technologies available."
―Marnie Webb, coCEO, TechSoup/NetSquared.org

"Mobilizing Generation 2.0 is an outstanding field manual for all nonprofits."
―Holly Ross, executive director, NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network

Aus dem Klappentext

Mobilizing Generation 2.0

Mobilizing Generation 2.0 is a practical and immediately useful guide for nonprofits, political campaigns, organizers, and individuals who want to better understand how to use Web 2.0 technologies. In easy-to-understand terms, this accessible book describes how readers can leverage new media (blogs, socialnetworking websites, photo- and video-sharing websites, mobile phones, wikis, online maps, and virtual worlds) to recruit, engage and mobilize young people.

Bringing together valuable guidance; big picture advice from recognized experts (Beth Kanter, Evan Wiiliams, danah boyd, Fred Stutzman, Steve Grove, Jonah Sachs, Seth Godin, Zack Exley, Martin Kearns, Jason Fried, Mitch Kapor, Katrin Verclas) as well as real-life stories of success; the book provides the information you need on the most widely used technologies like Blogger, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Second Life. Chapter by chapter, the author walks you through How Organizations Are Using It, How It Works, How to Get Started, Strategic Considerations, and Challenges and Opportunities.

The book, and its up-to-date website (www.mobilizingyouth.org), are filled with handy resources, tips, best practices, and more.

Praise for Mobilizing Generation 2.0

"Young voters, in increasing numbers, are tuning in and taking charge. This book is a great look at how to reach them more effectively."
—Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor?Committee

"Ben Rigby has pulled together the ultimate guide to using social media for political organizing."
—Micah Sifry, cofounder, Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident

"Ben Rigby helps the people working hard to create change make sense of the vast array of technologies available."
—Marnie Webb, coCEO, TechSoup/NetSquared.org

"Mobilizing Generation 2.0 is an outstanding field manual for all nonprofits."
—Holly Ross, executive director, NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Mobilizing Generation 2.0

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either. -Senator Trent Lott, December 5, 2002

This statement from a Mississippi senator at the one hundredth birthday of former South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond may sound like benign birthday flattery-if it weren't for the fact that Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign promoted racial segregation. A young ABC News reporter assigned to cover the event concluded that Lott's comment might imply that he also supported segregation. The reporter thought he had a major news story. But ABC's senior staff disagreed, deciding to run the story briefly on television at four-thirty in the morning and to publish a short piece about it on its Web site. By the next day, the story was effectively dead in the mainstream press.

But it did not go unnoticed in the "blogosphere," that massive decentralized group of people who publish online personal journals. Several politically oriented bloggers read the story and began to investigate. They found that Lott had voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act; opposed the Martin Luther King holiday; affiliated himself with the Council of Conservative Citizens, classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League; and wrote articles for publications espousing white separatism.

Bloggers filled in details that were missing from the original report, and the story spread rapidly across the Internet. Within a week, thousands of bloggers had republished it, and many called for Lott's resignation. Sensing a grassroots groundswell, the mainstream press ran the story again, only this time reporters added the historical details that bloggers had uncovered. The press turned the issue into a full-blown scandal. Lott quickly lost the support of the White House and his Senate colleagues; he resigned as Senate Republican leader on December 20, 2002.

Bloggers had arrived: their intense focus on an obscure story forced it to national attention. Mainstream media were no longer the sole conduit through which current events became News.

For many people, particularly youth, blogging is more than a source of political news; it is a mechanism for self-expression, identity formation, and entertainment. According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life survey, about twelve million Americans keep a blog, and fifty-seven million Americans read them. Over half are under the age of thirty, and most view blogging as a creative way to share their experiences with others. The impact of blogging in the political and social spheres has been so sudden and wide reaching that social scientists, marketers, politicians, and many others are struggling to understand how it affects their domain.

Although blogging's role in modern life is complex, its premise is simple. Blogging software makes Web publishing easy. Once the province of highly technical webmasters, Web publishing is now about as difficult as sending an e-mail. Within ten minutes, anyone with access to a computer can create a blog, publish an article, and call themselves a blogger. One key innovation of these publishing systems is that they allow the reader to talk back. After every article, a "comments" area invites written response. Popular blog articles have become long conversations between readers and the original author.

Over the past several years, blogging has evolved into a distinct literary and media form. Although there is no official body that determines what qualifies as blogging, bloggers generally value personal and authentic language, are willing to listen to and allow criticism in comments, write frequently, and participate in the community of bloggers by writing comments on related blogs. The first blogs took the form of personal diaries. Today, however, businesses, politicians, and nonprofit organizations use blogs for a variety of purposes. Growth has been explosive: fewer than fifty blogs existed in 1999, but now over seventy million populate the Internet.

This chapter explores the ways organizations have used blogs to achieve mission-related objectives and build relationships with bloggers. Bloggers can profoundly affect public perception of a candidate, issue, or organization. It's vital to establish credibility and connection with the blogging community in order to have a voice in this increasingly important forum.

How Organizations Are Using Blogs

Starting an organizational blog is one of the fastest routes for telling the story of your candidate or cause, demonstrating expertise in your field, and engaging supporters in conversation. They are easy to set up and inexpensive to maintain. For many organizations, blogging may be the ideal gateway to participation in the Web 2.0 movement.

As a point of introduction to blogosphere vernacular, posts is the term used to refer to blog writings. The word is used interchangeably as a noun and verb-for example, "Don't bother me, I'm working on a blog post" or "I'll be ready to eat dinner after I post to my blog." I'll employ these linguistic conventions throughout this chapter.

Providing Limited Participation in a Story

Mitt Romney's "Five Brothers" blog lies at the heart of his presidential campaign's Internet strategy. In shades of the Brady Bunch, Romney's five sons write about their dad, the issues they face, and life on the campaign trail. Tagg, the eldest at age thirty-seven, loves the Red Sox and has three kids. Craig, the youngest at twenty-six years old, would like to meet Conan O'Brien someday. On the day I visited the blog, Josh, thirty-one, had just posted a photo of himself and his two children visiting a state fair in Iowa. A funnel cake stand was illuminated in the distance. You could almost hear the American flag flapping gently in the wind and the sounds of the carnival rides. Without sounding scripted or "spun," the blog reinforced Romney's key campaign message: family values.

From a communications standpoint, the Romney campaign has scored a big hit. The blog medium helped the campaign deliver a message that sounds (and probably is) authentic. At the same time, it's also a message that has been carefully crafted to contrast Romney against his twice-divorced competitor, Rudolph Giuliani, who no longer speaks with his adult children.

The mainstream media have picked up on this angle in dozens of articles and television spots. They echo the family values sentiment in such statements as this from the Times Online: "The brothers are so handsome and wholesome that they bring to mind the Osmonds," and this from the Washington Post: "Wholesome does not really begin to describe the five adult children of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who for the past few weeks have been sharing such details on Five Brothers." If nothing else, the blog serves as a continuous feed of the family values message to the press. But it's also a hit with supporters. According to rankings from Alexa.com, the blog is the most popular part of Romney's Web site outside the home page.

From a technical perspective, the Romneys are using blog software to publish content to the Web. It provides...