New Media attempts to Bury Ron Paul's Campaign Before It's Birth

I’ve been pondering this whole “MSM ignoring Ron Paul” thing, and as much as I hate to admit it, I think there’s more of a tilt against Ron Paul in the New Media than the Old Media.  I’m not sure exactly the cause of it, but I have a few theories.

First, the facts.

Ron Paul hasn’t been given the golden boy coverage in the media that Obama, Clinton, Giuliani and McCain have, but then Ron Paul doesn’t have the celebrity status in politics that they do.  He’s more of 1999 Dave Chappelle vs. a 2006 Dave Chappelle.  He’s a cult figure to his fans, but he’s not widely known.

Therefore his few appearances in the media in which he’s been allowed to give his platform have to be treated with a certain amount of perspective, and from that perspective, I think that he’s done fairly well. The media is giving Ron his just due. I mean, how much due is just at this point, anyway? Ron's campaign is still in the exploratory stage. In spite of that, he has been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, NPR, etc., and has been invited to the first major GOP primary debate. He is being invited to major Republican events such as CPAC and the Young Republicans National Convention (right here in Hollywood). This is very reasonable treatment for a long shot candidate who has not even announced his candidacy yet.

None of this precludes that  Dr. Paul had better surround himself with some of the best media people in the business if he is to succeed, but given this early stage of the game, I think he’s doing fine, in terms of Main Stream Media.

What is disturbing is the series of rash treatments he’s recieved in the New Media. Two things do not a conspiracy make, but it is suspicious: Pajamas Media and Digg.

To the right, you see the results of an early Febrary poll conducted by Pajamas Media, a blogging network.

This from disinter:

After claiming some sort of bizarre conspiracy when Ron Paul won their straw poll two weeks ago, Pajamas Media declared Rudy Giuliani the winner. They proudly claimed that they fixed their “spamming” issue and all was well. The only problem is, Ron Paul also won last week’s poll - overwhelmingly[.]

So how did Pajamas Media respond this time? They completely removed Ron Paul’s name from this week’s poll. That’ll teach those crazy Ron Paul supporters for not following the path they are supposed to take! At least they didn’t falsely declare someone else the winner this time, I’ll give them that.

Pajamas Media did some quick backpeddling and interesting excuse concoction that made it go under the rug and seem slightly justifiable, if not infuriating to Ron Paul’s supporters.  I wrote an angry letter to Pajamas Media and thought little of it since.

Then, today while looking through Digg’s Election 2008 section, I came across this article. Basically, the original document linked in the title states that 42% of all stories submitted about Ron Paul end up being ‘buried’, which in the world of Digg means that enough people picked the ‘this story is lame’ feature for it to be taken off the site. There is some interesting statistical data to back up these claims linked in this Google Spreadsheet Document.

After perusing the discussion on the Digg comment board (which was suprisingly intelligent and cogent by Digg standards), there were some other statistical leaps that made the list potential culprits behind this behavior come into focus a bit. McDuckov created this spreadsheet to highlight his analysis. I’ve included the pertinent parts below.

The culprit looks like Obamaism.  For all the rampant claims of Ron Paul flunkies inflating his presence online, there certainly appears to be a (as McDuckov puts it) Obama Love-Fest going on with Diggers, with 841 stories about Obama submitted, versus 530 stories about Clinton, a supposed neck-and-neck competitor.

Despite the fact that only 10 stories about Ron Paul have made it to the front page versus 16 of Obama’s, almost half of stories concerning Ron Paul have been buried.  Who else has a figure similar to this?  Clinton, with 60% of front page stories being buried.

The data points to Obama flunkies. But what about elsewhere, like in the Pajamas Media where they buried and played down Ron Paul’s performance in the poll? What’s the mitigating factor there? It’s hard to tell.  I’ve often used Pajamas Media in business proposals that have to do with the promotion of New Media as a success story.  I’m not certain of their internal financials, but I’ve always admired the integration of media formats, conservative commentary, and good content. That said, I don’t know much of the acual members of the organisation, who is responsible for running the poll, and very few bloggers who’ve talked about the subject seem to have any biting insight as to why they decided to cut Ron out.

Almost every online poll shows Ron Paul as a Republican winner, and almost every offline poll shows Ron Paul in at best third place. There is no doubt that there is a hugely strong grassroots movement for both Obama and Paul on the internets.  The question, I suppose, is which of these warring factions will ultimately prevail.

/rizzn

Amazingly Simple Piggyback Site

I’m still working on the RAMP program that I talked about last week, but I’ve put it on hold for a couple of days.  I won’t actually need the codebase for my own purposes for at least a month or two, so my self imposed deadline hasn’t reached the procrastination point that truly causes motivated programming, yet.

I have, however, stumbled upon a real winner of a site idea after reading this month’s Wired Magazine.

There was an article in there about ‘gaming digg’ that really caught my attention. Kevin Rose really hasn’t done much for me lately, and since he’s gotten so big for his britches he doesn’t respond to me or even his former friend’s emails, I feel like I can fly sufficiently under the radar with this idea.

Other social networking sites have created structures so that the users can be compensated for their participation, as have many of the video post sites as well. Digg, in a very Cimmarian-esque move, decided that all it’s userbase should do it ‘for the love of the story’ or some sort of thing. Granted, I believe that should be a highly mitigating factor in one’s motivation to be online, but you’ll develop high levels of burn-out eventually, if you’re the average user. Newsjunkies burn out – I know this from personal experience, and fluctuating levels of digg’s popularity will probably show this to be true.

There are a number of really good stories and really good things to promote that are out of reach for the average digger because they don’t have a community of 52–125 (the concensus of the ‘magical number’ to make it to the front page of Digg) of their closest friends to help promote their ideas. That’s where this new idea comes in.

Essentially, as a digg user, the site will deliver to you either via email or personalized RSS feed a series of digg stories to digg up on the site. You can either do so for monetary reward or points in the system. If you accrue enough points, you can submit your own stories to be dugg up by the community, or simply digg stories for monetary reward.

Really, this project comes from the growing frustration I have with Digg itself in that I enjoy spending small amounts of time on there reading and digging stories, but I’m quite tired of creating articles for Digg and having it noticed by about ten or fifteen users max. Digg is of sufficient size that the user experience need not extend further than the front page for enjoyment to occur, and to even be noticed by the community, you need the boost to front page or near front page status to get readers.

This isn’t intended to be a marketing tool for the “Buy Vi@gr@” people or anything – for this to work as a marketing tool, the articles submitted to this mini-community to digg up need to be at least interesting. I think it’s worth a try.

I’ve got about 40% of the programming done on it already, and I expect it to be done by the end of the week, and then I expect there to be about a ramp up period of getting users and submitters on board, and the project should flourish on its own.

I know that once I post this, the naysayers will come forth and talk about how I’m destroying New Media.  For New Media to flourish, though, there has to be money to grease the wheels, and Kevin and company are holding all the money to themselves, while at the same time ignoring a large portion of middle of the road stories that deserve attention. The system isn’t broken as of current, but it definitely bent.

I’m not without my scruples, either.  When BlipMedia became something other than what I had envisioned, I took it down and sold it for scrap, despite it’s popularity.  If this simply becomes a tool for scammers and spammers, I’m obviously not going to want to be a party to that, despite how much money it may or may not be bringing in.

Or it could be a complete flop and not do anything.  But its something to do in the intervening days between projects, and definitely worth a shot.

/rizzn

Interesting New Chat Web 2.0 Thingy

I found an interesting chat applet. Come talk to me on it.

--
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
For my blog, profile, wikipedia and digg entries, simply Google "rizzn"
--
intelligent discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/rizzncom-v83/

Interesting New Chat Web 2.0 Thingy

I found an interesting chat applet. Come talk to me on it.

--
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
For my blog, profile, wikipedia and digg entries, simply Google "rizzn"
--
intelligent discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/rizzncom-v83/
--

An Interesting News Weekend.

There were a lot of things interesting about this weekend’s news, aside from the endless barrage of Anna Nicole crap, and the Barrack Obama lovefest. I know I’m not the only one who thinks of Alfred E. Neuman every time I see this joker, but to prove it to you, peep this:

At any rate, I was woken up to the news this morning that Jesus’s divinity had been totally debunked by James Cameron. Yes, I repeat, James Cameron.

The upshot is that James Cameron has such a hard-on for the factually inept DaVinci Code that he roped the rubes at the Discovery Channel into giving him some money to dig up some 2000 year old graves in Jerusalem so he could get DNA evidence that Jesus did the nasty with a whore, had some kids, and therefore was not a worthy sacrifice for the sins of all humanity when he died on the cross, so we’re all going to go to hell.

Thanks a lot, Jim.

This sounds like a messed up dream or something, but it’s not.

I won’t go into debunking Jimmy-boy’s idiocy but to say that most of what he said and posited is debunked in your standard book review of the Da Vinci Code.  Check out this link for a good starting point.

Then there were the Oscars. Al Gore won for Best Powerpoint Presentation, a new category I intend to enter next year with my presentation on Rizzn.Com Stats Analysis: A history of a mediocre website.  Move over, Al, I’m gunnin’ for ya!

Then there is this ‘Super-Size Tuesday’ thing, a move to completely eliminate the slim chance that minor candidates have in achieving success on a national presidential bid. This is another step in destroying the process. In America, the idea is that anyone can be an elected official, and the longer we progress with the current establishment doing things like this... the close we become to a class system – where you have to play ball with the corrupt 'aristocracy' to get elected.

It hasn’t always been that way. It used to be more of a meritocracy, but it's not that anymore. If you had the skills in the past, you could get elected. Of course, you had to come from some kind of upper class background to get the skills. Now, everyone has access to get the skills. But they move the bar so that you have to have massive amounts of money and skills.

Ah, well. Plenty of stuff to make my hair go grey lately.  Just throw this up on the pile.  See ya later, folks.

/rizzn

Headlines from the Year: 2029

I wrote a little utility this weekend that displays headlines via RSS feeds that come from The Future(tm). Check out some of the stuff it pulled down.

• Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia, formerly known as California. White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.
  
• Baby conceived naturally. Scientists stumped.
  
• Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.
  
• Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
  
• France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica.
  
• Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.
  
• George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.
  
• Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.
  
• 85-year $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise is the key to weight loss.
  
• Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.
  
• Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.
  
• Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.
  
• Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.
  
• Average height of NBA players is now nine feet, seven inches.
  
• New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.
  
• Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.
  
• IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.
  
• Florida voters still having trouble with voting machines.

/rizzn

Ron Paul Watch

http://blog.lewrockwell.com/

Ron Paul has accepted an invitation to participate in the first national presidential debate in New Hampshire on Wednesday, April 4. It will be hosted by Wolf Blitzer and will be carried on CNN TV, radio, and cnn.com from 7-9 p.m. EST. (Thanks to Johnny Kramer.)

Politico.com and MSNBC have invited Ron Paul to join their first GOP presidental debate at the Reagan library on May 3rd.

Ron's race will not be ignored. Laughed at and otherwise attacked, perhaps, but NOT ignored. He will be invited to nearly all the debates if he announces his candidacy and will be including in polling and straw polls. I spoke with Ron the other night (at an RLC teleconference) and he was excited about having campaigners at the national YR convention in Hollywood and said he might try to get down here for that in July.

I worked like crazy for Ron in 1988 and saw him ignored nationally, although Sean and I made sure he was not ignored in Gainesville, Fla. But he won't be ignored this time. For one thing he will be in a major party primary and secondly he will be a Republican antiwar candidate, a fact the media will love. So far, the only antiwar GOPers exploring a run are Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Chuck Hagel. If
Chuck doesn't run, Ron will own that issue.

-- Philip Blumel, www.rlcfl.org

/rizzn

New Marketing Tool: RAMP

Status: In Development

I’m currently working on a comprehensive internet marketing tool I’m going to call RAMP, which stands for Rizzn’s Automated Marketing Program.  It’s a program designed to create those capture sites for the purposes of closing sales generated by GoogleAd campaigns or simply to capture leads.

A demo should be available within the next three weeks.  Sign up by emailing me if you’re interested. I’m thinking I’m going to sell it for around twenty bucks or so.  Maybe thirty.

/rizzn

Here are a few screen shots of what I’ve got so far:

XM and Sirius to Merge

This morning I got this in the mail:

February 20, 2007
Dear XM Radio Subscriber:

We want to share with you some exciting news:  Yesterday, in Washington DC, we announced XM Radio will be merging with Sirius Satellite Radio to form the premier digital audio service.

The merger will create a satellite radio company that will provide consumers across the country with more and better premium radio programming. The combined company will be able to compete better in what has become a very complex and dynamic entertainment market.

Where today our exclusive contracts mean you had to choose between baseball and football or Oprah and Martha Stewart, the new company will seek to ensure that in the future, you will be able to access both companies' programming.  And, once we are fully integrated, those of you who have factory-installed satellite radio will no longer be limited to the programming provided by the exclusive satellite radio service chosen by their car manufacturer.

This merger should be completed in late 2007 or early in 2008.  Throughout the year, we will provide updates on how the merger is progressing and information will be available at our website, www.xmradio.com.

Between today and the merger date, as well as during the period immediately after the merger date, all of your services will remain the same.  The channel lineup, the customer service number, the great music technology, and the XM Radio web site will all remain unchanged and there will be no disruption to service.  But, if you have questions, information will be available and maintained on our website, and you can contact our Listener Care team at 800-XMRADIO, with questions and concerns.

XM Radio continues to be committed to providing you the highest quality audio entertainment and customer service available today.  After the merger, our new company will be able to offer you the most exciting listening experience in radio.



Sincerely,

Hugh Panero
CEO, XM Satellite Radio

Then there was some mumbo jumbo about Forward Looking Statements, as required by the SEC, which isn’t really all that important except to say that it disclaims them in the event that the merger might not happen or if they do merge and no longer want to offer their customers the benefits mentioned in the letter.

My discomfort and alarm in regards to this letter is that we have another megaconglomerate that has entered into Big 9 arena. Instead of what meager competition we had in the Sattellite Radio business, we now have one large conglomerate which will inevitably sell out to a larger megaconglomerate, and MSM will own a new emerging media. As a result, our emerging new media landscape will look and sound just like the dying ones of old.

I know, it sounds a bit morose and supposes a few things that are several years out, but look at history.  Newspapers are dying and terrestrial radio isn’t far behind. Then we’ve got the death of network and cable TV a few more years out.  The MSM, if it wants to survive, will want to diversify and invest in new media – and believe me, with that much money and that many lifestyles at stake, it will want to continue that gravy train.

Meanwhile, us the consumers of media, are left with the same boring personalities, the same slanted news, and the same idiotic reality shows with no real creativity and interesting programming.

/rizzn

Interesting Weekend

We had a great weekend, the family and I. Iris's Birthday was last week, and we went to a Car Convention on Sunday Afternoon. John Schneider (of Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville) was in attendance. Photographs by my 5-Year-Old Stepson, AJ.


Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins, Iris Hopkins, and John Schneider @ ETCC

Photo Album of Iris's Birthday and the rest of the East Texas Car Convention.

Jacob Li Hopkins: More Baby Pictures

In my continuing effort to inform the entire world that I have a son on the way, here are even more pictures of my unborn child... this time, an entire gallery of them.



In this collection you can actually see his face, and his profile. I did a little bit of Photoshop work on them once I got them home, so they're a bit easier to understand what you're looking at.

/rizzn

Announcing: Jacob Li Hopkins

Well, folks: for those of you who knew already that my wife was expecting, you knew this day would come - the day where I turn the widely lauded website of Rizzn.com into my personal baby album. That day has arrived. This morning, we found out that my wife Iris is having my son!

And you know I've got pictures to show. Check them out... and click on them for much more high resolution versions.

Also, Happy Valentine's to all you out there. I hope you are at least one small fraction of as happy as I am right now.

/rizzn

All of you darn johnny-come-lately's

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re a Johnny-Come-Lately to the blogosphere, in relative terms (to one such as I, who have been blogging since before there was a blogosphere, or even a blogotrapazoid). Very few people, though, can say they are newer to the blogosphere than Jane Hamsher. She’s the creater of firedoglake.com, a blog devoted to the Scooter Libby trial.

The liberal elite are just all a twitter over this trial, while most of the rest of America are ambivalent at best. I, myself, am only slightly interested, having been exposed to the story by NPR, bits of CNN, and now US News and World Report.

The trial is a bore, and as it turns out, it’s strongly looking like Scooter isn’t going to be convicted of anything, and neither is anyone else in the Bush administration – but still that it’s in the headlines at all is doing great things for the anti-Republican, pro-Democrat sentiment, so the media props this story up and keeps it alive for all to see.

What is most interesting to me is the ways they are choosing to do so. It’s like the MSM finally got wind of this whole New Media thing, and now they are in a race to see who can do more New Media-friendly stories. Just the yesterday they launched into this whole spin-off story about how bloggers are being considered real journalists now, and how they are being mistreated by the judicial process (jailed for years without being charged for contempt of court and these sorts of things).

And now US News and World Report is writing about Jane Hamsher like she’s the first blogger to ever recieve press credentials.

Honestly, I don’t mind that stories are written about bloggers – I rather celebrate it. But when quotes like this are published:

“The Hollywood gene kicked in. It's very Shakespearean. There's Dick Cheney, the oily villain sitting there with a sneer on his face. There's Scooter Libby, the loyal soldier. There's the beautiful spy, her dashing ambassador husband, the journalists. It was such a good story. It did become, for a variety of reasons, the signature story of the blogosphere.”

Quotes like that burn my hide a bit. Just because you are a blogger and you’ve been thrown into the MSM doesn’t make you an expert on New Media. Have a bit of a sense of history, woman! The blogosphere was around much longer than you were, and it’ll be here when you’re done grinding your liberal anti-Bush axe.

How about all the old stories that define the blogosphere?

• Memogate
• Kate Moss’s Cocaine Thing
• Christopher Walken for President
• The 2000 Election
• The 2004 Election

I’m just saying. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

/rizzn

By the way...

Um… no?

End of the Week - Finally.

It’s been a busy week, and I’m undertaking a new slew of projects for UT (hopefully – pending a meeting on Monday to wrap up old business). Additionally, I’m writing some proposals to go to work for my landlord.

Yes, I’ll be employed by Powell Properties - the same fellow I had the run-in with over my cigarettes last year.  Real good Rizznites will remember what I’m talking about.

I don’t have a whole lot of time to talk about it right now, but I promise this stuff isn’t going away, and I’ll tell you all about it on Monday.  I’ve got to get about four pages of junk written in the next 20 minutes and head home – Iris’s girlfriends from Dallas are in town, and we’re going to go bowling, apparently.

/rizzn

BlogJet Problems

I’ve found a few problems with BlogJet so far.

• AutoReplace stops working sometimes.


• Sometimes a post will not post for no discernable reason and must be re-typed.


• Publishing as a Draft does not work




• [19:47] rizzn.dourden: there's a nother bug in blogjet
  [19:47] rizzn.dourden: i told it to publish as draft.
  [19:47] rizzn.dourden: damnit
  [19:47] smokehouse: nobdoy drafts a blog, Jon ;)
  [19:47] smokehouse: <runs>


• Apparently talking to me is like being involved in Watergate.


• BlogJet inserts smilies.  I’ve got to turn this feature off.


• Currently Playing doesn’t work with my version of Windows Media Player.

Let’s hope these get fixed in the next update.

/rizzn

Back in the Saddle

I’m trying to figure out a few errors in the way BlogJet is posting to the system.

For some reason, a few of the features are buggy, as well as sometimes for no apparent reason, certain types of text (I haven’t narrowed down what kinds yet) don’t like to post to the system.

messed up!

/rizzn

Test Post

Slight Design Update. Again, ignore this post.

Dead Air, brought to you by Lloyd James Funeral Home

Brought to you today by the always awesome 55-Words:

She coughed nervously. He fumbled with his napkin.

"So, you work in radio?" she said. "Um, how is that?"

"Uh, it's good," he said. "Frantic, though. You want constant, top-notch content, but most importantly you want to avoid dead air."

"Huh," she said. "Dead air."

"Yeah."

"Huh."

They scanned their menus for the hundredth time.

A Relatively Uneventful Day

This morning, after Iris left for work at Birthway, a good long lost buddy of mine named Matthew Finkelstein called. Hadn't heard from a Finkelstein in a while, so it was good to get the update. He called on his way back to the airport after having visited Joel for a week. He sounded refreshed and ready to attack the world again.

We had a good conversation about my family life, and the interesting bits of goings ons in both our families. Alas, our conversation was cut short by a tunnel on the train he was riding into the airport.

I got to the office and made it a point to complete my email correspondence I had been neglecting all week long.

Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with my landlord. I can't get into all of it right now, but I promise I'll talk about it here in the near future. Those of you who remember my past run-ins with Bert will be shocked and amazed.

There have been an over-abundance of opportunity thrown at me this week, and I'm not sure if I'm handling everything properly. Today, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed, and there's about a one week gap in money that isn't affecting my bill-paying ability, but is seriously cutting into my walking around money flow, so that has something to do with it (right now, I can manage to pay all my bills, but I don't have any liquid assets to buy coffee or smokes next week - a real bummer for those that have to see me on a daily basis).

I've got a few clients who will be paying up two weeks from now that should aleviate that problem, but in the mean time, I'm going to be a bear to deal with. Perhaps it's finally time for me to give up smoking?

I've got more to say, but I also have a headache. I'm going to head home for the night.

/rizzn