And now, for the OTHER side of the story, Oliver Willis (Like Kryptonite to Stupid) argues that the Blogger bubble is just like the Internet Bubble, but without the money. He makes some good points but his assertion that candidates aren’t spending any of their personal time blogging, or answering bloggers questions and concerns, is because they represent an insignifincant percentage of the elecctorate doesn’t hold water.
During the Presidential Candidates Bloggers session Dave Winer asked if any of the Candibloggers would commit to getting their candidate to answer ONE question from their campaign weblog each day. There was a lot of hemming and hawing and jawboneing about how tightly the candidates are scheduled.
But 10 minutes a day, which is about what it would take to personally answer one question or make one honest, heartfelt blog entry, even if just to say how exhausted he or she was, would represent about ONE PERCENT of a candidate’s waking day. If, as reported by several campaignes, over half of the green grease that keeps the campaing train rolling is coming from the internet, why can’t the candidate devote 1% of his or her time to directly adressing the concerns of those providing it?
Simple. Answering the question of the audience won’t yield any NEW money.
They’re already committed. The time is better spend getting other people’s money.
Pure logic of resources.
I didn’t get to chat with you — You were so busy running around with the microphone during the conference. ;D
I was waving my hand frantically during that session, but Dave called time before I could speak.
What’s so special about bloggers that they deserve to have their questions answered daily? Why not answer the questions of inner-city schoolteachers or union members or any other group that’s larger and more demographically significant than the miniscule percentage who happens to blog?
So what makes bloggers so special to make such demands on presidential candidates, aside from the fact that Dave Winer has convened a group of them together?
[I was seething at Dave Winer by that point in the panel; no matter what everybody else in the room wanted to talk about, he kept hijacking the discussion back to that one point he wanted to make, just ruining the possible effectiveness of the discussion for his hobbyhorse.]
Will Dave commit to answering ONE question from his weblog each day?
See also:
http://dannyayers.com/archives/001929.html