PardonMyFrench

Reading The Google Political Tea Leaves as of 9/30

A lot of political amateurs put weight into Google's ability to predict outcomes in elections based on search trends.  Personally, I've always used Google's search traffic as a trailing indicator of strength and of course as a way to capitalize on the traffic for marketing. Whether it is straight paid search, YouTube, or display ads in Google's display network a sudden increase in traffic offers opportunities to either defend your positions or increase membership/donations.  So let's take a peek at the last 90 days in Google Search for a few of Republican presidential candidates plus one more.

So what do I see?

1. You can see the double spike for Michele and Rick Perry on August 13.  Obviously that was the Iowa Straw Poll win for Michele and then Perry's announcement.  Both of those were tremendous fundraising opportunities
2. Perry's traffic really takes a steep slide after the announcement but in the past 90 days he has the most amount of search traffic (you can see the strength by the color coded bars). I don't know what their online advertising activities are, but from what I've seen it's zero.
3. There were two Perry spikes around the early and mid September debates.  Those were around the debate attacks he was getting around his HPV executive order and other points brought up concerning his conservative track record.  Those were defensive, rapid response activities  (that links to an old post on how to use search for rapid response) that were missed or fundraising opportunities for other candidates (see this clickz article).
4. At the end of September there are two very interesting spikes.  The first one is around Herman Cain and this should represent fundraising opportunities for him but like Perry, I haven't seen any online advertising since the Iowa Straw Poll.  To put the Cain spike in perspective the height looks a lot like the height for Perry's announcement, Michele's Straw Poll Victory, or Michele's announcement back in June (not shown on this chart). Cain should be getting a lot of donations now and names of people interested in joining his campaign - however, like a lot of these sudden spikes, he needs to capitalize on the short term opportunities.  
5. The other spike is the Chris Christie spike, which until this week the search traffic was pretty vanilla.  I personally don't believe my Governor is running for President in 2012 but that spike at least represents huge interest or the pressure he is under.  If they had a PAC advertising around his name this would represent a great opportunity to fundraise or gather names of potential supporters.
6. Finally, Mitt Romney's search traffic is uninteresting and represents his enthusiasm gap

Google search traffic is a trailing indicator of events that have occurred or are occurring in real time.  It represents good marketing opportunities if you know how to capitalize it.  Oh one final Chris Christie note, if his search traffic spikes to the August 13 traffic spike, you can pretty much be guaranteed that he opted to run for President.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Reasons Why Obama's Attack Watch Site is Scary

On a YouTube Politics panel I was on, I was asked by the moderator, Google Account Executive Robert Saliterman, if I had any advice for President Obama's ad campaign.  I did and it turned out to be a little controversial.  I do admit that I was trying to add a little pizazz towards the end of the panel, but I really do believe my arguments are sound.  

Basically, I think that the President of the United States should not be running a site called "Attack Watch" where someone can go to report an attack, track "false" reports and facts, and read all sorts of Obama propaganda.  It was wrong when President Nixon had a list and it is wrong when President Obama makes a list (unless you are one of the media agencies, then it can be helpful 'Natch).

When challenged by my panelists during the panel and afterwards, I do believe that the President should not be running a site like this, especially with the data collection capabilities available in 2012.  Basically if you report someone or sign up for emails, President Obama can do the following with your data - personally identifiable and non PII data linked together.

When you visit Attack Watch take a look all the way at the bottom for the Privacy Policy Link. Then take a read through it.  If you don't have the time, here are the low-lights that prove my point, that the President should not have this data available to him....BTW - in case they change the policy, I copied and pasted these links on September 17, 2011 so they were LIVE when Attack Watch was launched.

• WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT: Such information may include personal information, such as your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, and credit card information. Personal and demographic information may also be collected if you provide such information in connection with creating a profile or group, leaving comments, posting blog comments or other content, sending an email or message to another user, or participating in any interactive forums or features on the Sites. In addition, from time to time we may collect demographic, contact or other personal information you provide in connection with your participation in surveys, contests, games, promotions, and other activities on the Sites.
• In addition, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) may require us to collect personal information from donors. For example, the FEC requires us to collect (and disclose) the name, mailing address, occupation, and employer of all individuals whose donations exceed $200 per calendar year.
• Passive Collection: When you use the Sites, some information is also automatically collected, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your operating system, the browser type, the address of a referring web site, and your activity on our Sites. We treat this information as personal information if we combine it with or link it to any of the identifying information mentioned above.
• In some cases, third party vendors may collect personal information from you, such as your name and email address, on other web sites and provide this information to us, or OFA may collect personal information that you enter directly within an advertising unit. 
• We may share personal information as follows:  with vendors, consultants, and other service providers or volunteers who are engaged by or working with us and who need access to such information to carry out their work for us; with candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives;

Basically, what does this mean?  Simple.  President Obama can:

1. collect your web surfing behaviors on and off their sites
2. combine it with personal information like credit card, employment, phone number
3. use the combined data for anything it wants
4. and then provide that information to anyone it wants - that information can include the information you reported on a friend or neighbor  

Do you really think the President of the USA should have this information?  Do you really think the President of the USA should have a site to report neighbor and then combine this information?  I don't.  I might not be so scared if they didn't offer up that they could combine the PII with non-PII data, but they can according to their privacy policy.  

I think it is one thing for a candidate to collect this type of marketing information.  However, it is not appropriate when your Government does.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Remembering 9-11 with more photos

***This is a repost from many years ago. See 2011 note below and check back later*** 

I thought my post from the other day would be enough for me, but with my kids asking questions while we are watching the football game I feel like making a post.  Instead of the normal paragraph form, I'm just going to list out random thoughts that I'm having...

• No I never worked in the WTC and in fact the first time I even ventured into the Path Station was probably in the mid-90s
• No I didn't know anyone that was there that day
• When I joined CSFBdirect and had my office "downsized" I chose a cube by the window because at least when my AT&T friends called me I could say I had the greatest view in the world
• WTC became my beacon when I finally came out of the covered roadway after being stuck in traffic on my way to the Holland Tunnel
• I absolutely loved heading over to WTC during lunch to browse the Border's Book Store
• For some reason, I still carry a Hale and Hearty Soup frequent buyer card in my wallet, punched last on 9/7 at the kiosk that used to be in front of the Path
• I was supposed to have a meeting the morning of 9/11 in AOL's lower Manhattan offices that was canceled the day before - I still keep the copy of my calendar from that week
• We used to go for drinks in Moran's some times after work even though it had over priced drinks
• My last time through (9/7) I was in a hurry and didn't stop by the Warner Brother's Store to pick my son up a stuffed Bugs Bunny; 5 years later I don't let time get in the way any more
• My wife had a doctor's visit to determine whether she was pregnant (which she was); that still creeps me out when you hear about all of the people that didn't know they were pregnant that day and lost someone  
• My last normal time in NYC was watching the ladies US Open Final between the Williams sisters on 9/9; I haven't watched tennis live since then
• It helped me to write down what little things changed that day so I could remember what it was like before 9/11

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

P.S. 2010 update.   I think a lot of folks have wiped from their memory how horrific these attacks were.  So I added this photo from my own personal collection of pictures. As you can read above, I worked right across the river and a week after the attacks I was down at Ground Zero while everything was still burning; 9 years later I can still see the flames, the smoke and remember the smell 

P.S. 2011 Check back tomorrow.  I will add a link to more personal photos I took a few weeks after 9-11-01 when I walked around ground zero. It was still burning that day and a week later I came down with my only case of pneumonia.