Otter has 1,000 Facebook friends - and it isn't even beloved Muppet Emmit Otter

Last week I was talking with a colleague about Facebook campaigns- or, more accurately, about campaign applications for Facebook. We talked about how easy it seems to now be to gain hundreds - if not thousands - of people for a cause, but how difficult it is to turn those people into activists. Today I read about a sea otter whose Facebook fan page has 1,000 follower.

Now, to be fair the otter in question - who goes by the name "Olive" - was a bit of a charity case: she was in rehab after wading through a nasty patch of oil, so many of her followers wanted updates on her treatment and re-release into the wild. However, it begs the ever-present question on social network sensations: now what? Will the folks behind the Facebook site use it as a platform to further inform Olive's followers on the dangers sea animals face from pollutants? Will it be used to raise money for clean-up efforts? Without a good strategy, te goodwill Olive promoted may not go as far as it could.

It reminds me of a story I heard once about a 1972 campaign event for Richard Nixon, who was seeking re-election in a campaign that would, eventually, mean the end of his Presidency. Eager to show that young people supported the President, buses were chartered and high-profile entertainment talent was paid to perform. It was a giant event that cost a lot of money, but no one thought to collect the contact information of the hundreds of participants - participants who, though the outcome of the Presidential contest was nearly certain, could have helped with many Congressional or other down-ballot races.

It's relatively easy to pack a concert hall with people or amass thousands of Facebook friends with the right amount of resources. But those resources will be wasted if the next step - the answer to the question, "Then What?" - is not fully thought out.

Twitter's success in simplicity

Mashable is just one of the tech/social media blogs that has fallen in love with Twitter. And Twitter goes provide an interesting case study in social media - orginially launched as a way for people to send and receive updates via text message - kind of a Facebook status beamed right to your phone - it has since become a way to broadcast thoughts, blog posts, and any other random string of thoughts that come out in 140-character chunks.

And I'm a user. You can follow my Twitter feed here (or in the widget on the right).

But, as with many internet startups over the past decade, Twitter has yet to turn a profit. There's plenty of money being thrown around - both Google and Facebook have kicked the tires on a possible purchase - because of the site's rapid growth and popularity.

There's a good lesson if you're building an online political application. As the Mashable post mentions, it's obvious why Twitter is growing so fast - it does something very simple, but has an open platform for addition. It is built to be popular and viral first, rather than creating a means to an end.

There's a way to advertise on Twitter - considering that people are constantly indicating their preferences based on who they follow or what they tweet about, it's ripe for some kind of advertising monetization. But if Twitter had been built as an advertising platform, people would have turned away. Similarly, a website that only talks about what a voter can do for a politician for something - votes, donations, etc. - won't be nearly as effective as one that advertises what a politician can do for a voter.

Come to think of it, more politicians should think like that anyway.

Post Intelligencer, post-print

With news coming this week that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print version may go the way of the Rocky Mountain News, we may be at the cusp of a new era in local news reporting.

The Post-Intelligencer (P-I) looks like it will shut down it's printing presses and release an online-only version. Aside from printing and delivery, it means the P-I will also cut out reporter travel - national stories will be covered by wire services or by other sister papers in the Hearst network.

(Sidebar: Since it's in the Hearst network, will the last printed word in the P-I have to be "rosebud"?)

There's no dwindling market for local news, as the TV ratings show. But local daily newspapers are dinosaurs - slow-moving and cumbersome. The question is how the old media outlets adjust in a new media world. Will they see the online world as a way to stave off extinction for a few years, or will they find a way to evolve?

Chances are, the P-I - and other similar papers around the country - could do very well writing stories and posting them online. But why stop there? Online, they won't be confined as they were on the printed page. They have multiple forms of media - audio, video, and everything in between - at their fingertips.

The dangerous trap here is thinking in terms of "media buckets" on a local level, as people have thought for decades: the TV stations are in the video bucket, the radio stations in the audio bucket, and the newspapers in the printed word bucket. There are no buckets online, so it doesn't translate.

The end of the P-I's print version isn't necessarily an ending, but a liberation. The P-I can now combine printed stories about Seattle with short video news segments and podcasts. It can exist on its website as well as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Ning, and everywhere else. It can serve the people of Seattle, and be the authority on Seattle to everyone else.

The dinosaurs didn't die out overnight, but eventually time caught up with most of them. Except for the smart ones; they learned to fly.

I watch the internet for the Super Bowl ads

Super Bowl ads are as big a tradition as the game itself, but this year the ads that aren't going to be ad seem to be making an even bigger splash.

PETA has famously had an advocacy ad banned because it was deemed too racy. NBC bounced a pro-life ad because they apparently don't allow advocacy ads. And Miller's one-second beer ads will last a second but appear only on local NBC affiliates - not on the national broadcast. Each of these gimmicky ads might have been overlooked with simpler standard commercials; each's unique reason for not being part of the big game broadcast is newsworthy enough to draw attention from internet users. I'd bet their cost-per-viewer is much cheaper now, too.

NBC's Super Bowl ads are going for $3 million for 30 seconds, but as of Wednesday they had not sold all the advertising space available. The idea of a Super Bowl ad means so much more than 30 seconds of highly viewed TV time now though, that even an end-run around the actual game can have viral value for a smart, budget-conscious marketer.

Two projects have launched in the wee small hours of the morning over the past couple of days that have caught my eye.

Patrick Ruffini, whose most fitting title may be "Republican organizational entrepreneur," has announced "Project Battleground" on The Next Right. The project recruits bloggers by state and Congressional district. Aside from keeping out-of-work GOP political operatives engaged and ready for 2010 and 2012, Project Battleground will help build the grassroots communications networks that will be critical to future Republican victories. And it's worth mentioning that grassroots online movements have had big election impacts in the recent past - like Ned Lamont's primary upset of Joe Lieberman.

On the philosophical side, several conservative activists have teamed together to launch TheSupermajority, a site that defies categorization. Essentially, it serves to answer the policies of the Obama Administration and his Congressional allies with "solutions" - an important development. While it's all well and good to criticize liberal and/or Democratic policies, The Supermajority offers positive alternatives. Perhaps even more important, the site offers activists tools to spread those ideas. Plus it looks nice.

ThySpace? FaceBible?

What would you name a social network for the religious? That's the question asked this week on Mashable (and a commenter beat me to "FaithBook"). The question is in response to the announcement that GodTube, which began as a religious alternative to YouTube, is adding more social networking features.

How about this name for a social network where the faithful can make an impact: Facebook.

If people are already coalescing around one site, it makes little sense to launch an identical site to compete. In the case of video sharing, it makes some sense - for instance, if YouTube tends to pull down videos with a pro-life bent, it can't hurt to post your videos on an alternative site like Eyeblast.tv. And sites like Rebuild the Party are built around specialized, specific projects.

But those seeking to build broad-based social networks will have a bigger impact if they work within the frameworks of sites that are already popular. (In fact, both of those other sites I mentioned are active in more general interest social networks, which is one reason they are as successful as they are.)

To use another example, let's say you drive an ice cream truck in a neighborhood with a community pool that's full of kids every summer day. How much sense would it make to build your own pool when you could just park your ice cream truck in the community pool's parking lot?

Saving money and living better

The silver lining to tough economic times is creativity. Wal-mart - whose cost-cutting business model makes the company seem like they are in permanent recession mode - has branched out beyond traditional advertising with some creative modern media projects. In doing so (and crowing a little bit about it) they give a pretty good playbook for advancing a cause or issue in online social networks.