Quick Hits returns! The best damn reading list for online politics and advocacy on the planet…or any other. This catch-up edition features a few links that have languished in the queue for months, along with plenty of more-recent content. Look for Quick Hits to run on Epolitics.com on Fridays in the future, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.
- Digital tools are becoming more and more central to the process of winning your vote. Just how far can technology reach? C.f. The Red Queen’s Race, and Media Entropy in Campaigns.
- House Of Representatives Banned From Editing Wikipedia. C.f. How Wikipedia is Cracking Down on ‘Paid Advocacy Editing’, even as @Congressedits Hopes to See More Wikipedians in Congress.
- U.K. Intelligence Agency’s Bag of Tricks Includes Ability to Manipulate Online Polls.
- Netroots Nation is going to Arizona, Daily Kos is not.
- Political Groups Start Trickle-Down Tech Training for Midterms.
- FCC’s awful website crashes on last day for initial net neutrality comments.
- The Trouble with Patenting Political Ad Technology.
- Staffer Uses White House List To Seek Votes For The Hill’s “50 Most Beautiful” List.
- New Meme: Everybody Is Going Crazy Buying Up Weird .gop Domains, but Republican Group Shrugs Off Hazing of Latest Tech Effort: .GOP.
- Iran’s Ruling Elite Embrace Facebook, While Ordinary Citizens Are Arrested Over It. C.f. New Media Sites in Iran Blur Lines Between Citizen Journo, Professional Journo, & Activist.
- Fired Iowa GOP Staffer Changed Passwords on way out the door. Oopsie!
- In Flashy New World of Campaign Tech, List Rental Is Still a Political Force.
- Debunking 3 myths preventing campaigns from embracing digital ads, and 15 GOTV Myths Busted.
- Digital GOTV – An Evolving Medium.
- Meet Sean Haugh, the Libertarian pizza guy who may deliver a Senate seat in N.C. So far, campaign primarily exists on YouTube.
- Bloomberg’s anti-gun group plans data-heavy operation to identify sympathetic voters.
- Political data, once the reserve of presidential campaigns, is spreading to local races.
- Meet the former Microsoft employee who wants to liberate liberal data.
- Direct mail another legacy of ’64 Goldwater campaign. Data-driven politics is 50 years old!
- How a New Map of Palm Oil Plantations Could Help Save Rainforests.
- White House Develops Web App to Highlight the Impact of Climate Change, and Global warming has never been explained quite so beautifully.
- Indian parties (were) using Obama-style campaign tactics in crucial election.
- Three Questions to Answer Before Acquiring Voter Data. C.f. Political Data: Three Steps to a Sparkling Clean Database.
- Using Geo-Fencing for Advocacy.
- Native Ads Are Going Digital.
- Getting Congress to Read Your Emails: Quick & Practical Pointers. C.f Email Design Best Practices and Click here! How to write advocacy emails that work.
- Reason number 24,601 to Not Use Free Email as Your “From”.
- What Nonprofits Can Learn From the NYT Innovation Report.
- Beep-Beep, Click-Click: Driving Commuters To Political Action.
- The Future of Mobile Data Discovery.
- How to Monitor Social Media in a Crisis.
- How To Track Your Twitter Engagement.
- Nonprofit Social Media Checklist.
- 12 Valuable Tips From an Outrageously Successful Crowdfunding Campaign.
- 5 Ways To Make Your Donors Feel Like Heroes.
- 5 Things Brands Can Learn From President Obama When Implementing A Continuous Personalized Campaign.
- Content Marketing for A Non-Profit.
- Using your AdWords and Google Grant as one big focus group.
- How to Raise $5 Million Online For Campaign Finance Reform: Why MayDay PAC Succeeded.
- Martin O’Malley did a Reddit AMA. It didn’t go very well.
- The Role of a Digital Political Consulting Firm.
- Matt Mahan: ‘Tech and politics definitely need each’.
- Nonprofits Spending More on Software.
- Does “Disruption” Belong in the Nonprofit Sector?
- What does the Facebook experiment teach us? Growing Anxiety About Data Manipulation.
- Can Online Campaigners Fight Online Harassment?
- Mitt Romney’s Former Right Hand Talks About the Future of the GOP, as The New Nihilism Threatens GOP’s Growth.
- Galt.io and the Road to Online Suckerdom.
- I watched all the terrorist beheadings for the U.S. government, and here’s what I learned.
- The Real Origins of the Religious Right. “They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.”
- The Plots to Destroy America. On the power of conspiracy theories.
- Facebook product director furious at Facebook’s effect on news.
- And finally: The solutions to all our problems may be buried in PDFs that nobody reads. Not remotely surprising.
– cpd