By most measures, the White House’s first online town hall meeting was a smashing success.

A whooping 104,081 email submissions and 3.6 million votes later, today, the US irreversibly gained a whole new level of citizen participation.

To that point, the White House actually created a namesake post exactly for that purpose.

What should come next, in my mind, would be to ensure that this new-found form of political dialog marketing will continue to be exactly that – an ongoing, productive dialog to and fro the electorate and the elected.

To that point, anyone in digital media building and growing a brand online knows, focused quality discussion across the social graph is not as easy as it sounds.

After all, the Web’s bull horn capabilities are very much a two-way street. And media outlets everywhere are likely eager to pick up on any disgruntled citizen that felt s/he didn’t get a proper response.

So beware White House, from now on be prepared to handle your incoming emails with great care.

It’s all about keeping the conversation going.

A quick update on politicians zooming in on social software for added grab attention. 

The President’s staff just announced its first virtual town hall meeting.

Right from the East Room of the White House, President Obama will respond to citizen emails.

Clearly – despite (presumably) some form of prior email filtering – the new administration continues to be anything but shy about using the wide-open Web for added dialog with its electorate. 

And then uses traditional media pundits to get talked about for days on end.

Of course, this being yet another step in the ongoing democratization of information, just wait until half of Congress will be holding similar online events. 

Or your governor will send you email invites to his virtual town hall gig.

On the Web, social software is ubiquitous.

Everyone can do it. 

The world is flat. 

Terrific! Do engage.

Who knew? Barack Obama, of all things, now as Microsoft Office Clip Art!

With almost half a billion copies of the software giant’s Office application suite installed around the globe, anyone featured here is likely seen more often than Kim Kardashian on Dancing With the Stars ever will.

Clearly, Microsoft’s clip art has the reach most media outlets crave – a real asset, especially in today’s increasingly disintermediated world.

Which brings up the question, who at Microsoft decides over who’s in (the library) and who stays out?

In lieu of an answer, I was curious enough to check what other contemporary or past celebrity made the cut according to Microsoft’s Clip Art staff.

Turns out, neither George W. Bush nor Bill Clinton are included.

Neither is Adolf Hitler. (Thought I’d check, just to be sure).

But Mahatma Gandhi is.

And so is Abraham Lincoln.

Which brings us right back to Barack Obama, who has recently received much (self-induced) comparison to the iconic 16th US President.

Is someone in Redmond having fun channeling the travails of current-day politics via cliché PC clip art?

I know I promised to keep politics off this blog. Do indulge me, though. 

Besides. It’s much more about the (digital) economy than politics.

The White House web site folks replaced YouTube with Akamai as the preferred video delivery platform for the President’s weekly online video address.

What sparked the decision was privacy concerns over how YouTube-embedded video dealt with cookies placed on the devices people used to access the popular White House Web domain.

OK. I get it! But what about the other, much less discussed issue in this context? Money!

Behind the decision to ditch YouTube for Akamai also were complaints that a tax-payer funded government site should not generate free advertising for YouTube and thus Google, the online video giant’s parent company. (The rational being that someone clicking from the White House domain back to YouTube becomes a potentially valuable set of eyeballs against which YouTube can charge advertisers). 

Well, how about this? (All completely hypothetical of course, and somewhat simplified):

YouTube – which for all intents and purposes has solved its cookies issue. Gone is the privacy concern – continues to deliver the President’s video address to the White House site. The nation’s most prominent government Web destination thus drives traffic back to YouTube as it has in the past. 

But this time, this time we go out and actually buy shares in Google stock. (Believe me, it’s cheap right now).

Yes, rather than complaining about taxpayer money being misappropriated by letting www.whitehouse.gov drive free traffic back to YouTube, how about sharing in the financial upside (and risk, I admit) in YouTube’s incremental revenue benefit from my tax-funded arrangement?

Net, net? The White House site would regain an exceedingly capable video partner; one with unparalleled online brand recognition and viral video marketing ability unlike any other video site today. 

And taxpayers? They would have opportunity to realize a potential return on their stock investment transferring right back into their own pockets. (Capital gains tax not withstanding, that is).

Wait! Does this sound too much like a mini version of the current US stimulus plan, bailing out an already lackluster Internet stock with public money?

Is this a (mini) step towards socializing the digital economy – akin to the previous administration’s proposal to let taxpayers (partially) invest their tax-funded social security, with all the inherent risk attached?

Listen, I am just a telco guy. What do I know?

But quite frankly, to me the bigger picture is that the digital economy has grown and prospered best every time we rewarded value (here YouTube’s unique video delivery expertise) and risk (my trust that buying Google stock) will pay off.

Artificially disconnecting any Web site from a quality vendor makes little sense to me.

Besides, wouldn’t we want to see our tax dollars placed where they are likely to generate the highest return?

What’s wrong with that? Especially in this economy.

PS: Yes, I own a handful of Google stock. And no, this post is not a vote against Akamai.

I know this is not a political blog. But Washington’s elected officials seems to have gone (finally) seriously digital. 

And I just can’t help myself but chime in.

I recently wrote about the Obama administration’s fervor for online social networking and viral (political) marketing.

Turns out US Congress representatives have long taken similar interest in making Web 2.0 their own. 

No matter where you stand politically, I believe this is generally good news for the technology industry, plus associated consumer software products and applications.

From mundane announcements of “one minute speeches” to instantaneously delivered results on House votes, at least since November 2007, the Clerk of the US House of Representatives regularly provides copious live updates “scraped” right from daily session inside the House chambers.

Then I got curious. Did I also miss the US Senate’s foray into micro-blogging? 

Sure enough, I did 

Although seemingly limited to Senator votes on the floor alone, Twitter has been carrying those posts at least since November 2007.

Turns out, they all nicely track back to govtrack.us, an independent Web site to “help the public research and track the activities in the US Congress.

Little did I know, D.C.’s interest in twittering created a new virtual C-SPAN if you will, sort of the “local access” approach parsed out one online message at a time.

And during yesterday’s historic session (voting on a trillion dollar support budget no less), US House representatives took to Twitter like college students (secretively, under their desks), pushing Blackberry and smartphone keys – eager to issue last-minute statements right from inside House chambers.

To top it all off, now even closed-door Presidential meetings experience their first Twitter “leaks”.

So, if this is not a political blog, why am I (still) writing about this stuff?

I am simply excited about how Web 2.0 is rapidly growing up, maturing from its early teenage “angst” appeal to a “mainstream” text and video channel – all within a couple of years.

Think of it.

As more politicians, news outlets and civic organizations thrive to adopt Web 2.0-style concepts, instant viral messaging from elected officials and others raise the legitimacy of collaborative software as a whole.

From Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Qik, or Utterz, you name it, this is good for the devices and the connecting broadband services that support Web 2.0 at home and on-the-go.

If you still think this trend is not real, the US Postal Service announced today a fiscal-year loss of at least $6 billion, due to a 4.5% drop, or 9 billion items replaced by email and other forms of digital viral communications. 

And although it is not entirely clear to me that the same $6 billion shifted into Web 2.0 software in its entirety  (most social networking and micro-blogging services are free or ad-based at best), it clearly shows a fundamental shift in how we capture and disseminate information these days.

On that note, have you twittered today?

Oops, I stand corrected. My mid-December post about US presidential interests in post-campaign viral marketing wondered whether European heads of state would follow Mr. Obama’s lead.

Little did I know (I should have checked), Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has been podcasting weekly since mid 2006. 

Kudos to her (rather early) interest in this still relatively new digital medium. But this made we wonder, whether I had missed others among Europe’s leading politicians. 

As to France, I was unable to find anything on President Nicolas Sarkozy. Maybe this is because he is still relatively new in office and hasn’t quite gotten around.

But so is Prime Minister Gordon Brown over in the UK. But at least he does have his own website.

Although so far void of regular podcasts to the nation (and anyone else, for that matter), his site at least provides YouTube links to various ad-hoc press conference. A start.

Meanwhile, over in The Netherlands, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkende has not yet taken to video podcasting either, it seems. I am somewhat surprised.

Turns out, neither does the country’s monarch seem interested in this sort of “modern” communication.

What makes me wonder is whether heads-of-state podcasts (or the lack of the same) are an indication for any government’s true commitment to bringing its country into the digital age. 

Like a CEO running a company, if you don’t try your own products, how would you know they work?

Any thoughts on this?

Be encouraged to chime in.

Last week, I quipped about president-elect Barack Obama’s recent commitment to video-taping the weekly Democratic radio address.

The more I think about this though, the new presidential over-the-top social viral video strategy brings up some interesting questions:

For starters, as the new administration is keen to leverage the benefits of ubiquitous online video distribution, what keeps the public from possible Obama video fatigue? 

As of today, we are in week five of the elect-president’s weekly video address and already audiences are dropping off faster than a second rate soap opera could on broadcast TV.

As of writing this post, the new administration’s first video address posted to YouTube on November 15 generated 247,600 average weekly video streams.

However, for Mr. Obama’s more recent weekly messages, viewer attention declined noticeably.

Videos published to YouTube in week three and two generated only 174,805 and 115,106 streams respectively – that’s as much as 46% fewer streams delivered compared to Mr. Obama’s first weekly video address.

But then again, last week’s video addressed the nation’s pressing issue of steadily raising job losses, as a result garnering a record 445,613 streams in only seven days. 

Clearly, subject matter matters as audiences have an acute understanding of what they deem important enough to log on, view, and listen repeatedly. 

The other thought I had, the idea of a regular viral presidential video address will capture eyeballs and minds not just among US audiences, but also around the rest of the connected globe.

By design in and outside of YouTube, Web video by nature is shared freely and abundantly. Mr. Obama’s taped messages make no exception.

Thus, from East to West, North and South, the first of these weekly video messages are likely spreading globally and virally as we speak.

Does that mean Germany’s Chancelor Angela Merkel will soon start her own weekly video campaign?

Are any regular video posts forthcoming from the heads of state in France, the UK, Iran, or Iraq?; prepared to deal with the resulting online feedback of citizens everywhere chiming in?

Interestingly, as little as ten years ago all of this would have been unimaginable.

YouTube and its ample offspring of amateur video snack sites simply didnt exist. Neither did the prerequisite broadband lines, nor PCs with processors fast enough to make Web video fun.

Fast forward, in one swoop the US presidential web video address legitimizes how far we have come in democratizing media in the past years.  

This one’s for the history books.

Rather than trying to avoid (undesireable) discourse and debate, the new White House resident seems to signal honest interest in point-to-point dialogue versus the age-old hub-and-spoke system of commercial journalism. 

The question remains whether the idea of open viral dialog can help jointly create something better down the road. 

Or is the Web’s innate capability of cheap and ubiquitous distribution to and by all merely a zero-sum game?

Well, history books might tell.

OK. I admit. I am pretty psyched about president-elect Barack Obama’s recent commitment to video-taping the weekly Democratic radio address.

Psyched because it seems much more than a simple “move-over-radio” battle cry; more than just postulating the World Wide Web as the latest of many presidential (one-way) bullhorns available.

For one, the “YouTube”-ization of the weekly Democratic radio address means that a rather arcane political messaging system is coming of age.

In other words, the good old weekly radio address (finally) preps to going (legitimately) video and viral and social, in the same way as anyone’s video blog out there could.

In a way (unknowingly) echoing this season’s ABC and NBC marketing slogans, Barack Obama and team invite us to “start here” and “chime in” – but this time outside the very TV broadcasting system that for so long determined what we would see, when, and for how long.

It is certainly nothing new that a publicly elected official is unafraid to engage in a form of political messaging that – once out the door – is no longer in his control.

That’s how traditional TV (or radio and print media for that matter), works. In this the Web is no different.

But it is major that aforementioned politician whole-heartedly embraces the collaborative Web and the truly conversational two-way nature of online video given that this is past his election campaign, and that he is none less than the next President of the United States going social on his entire constituency. 

Recently asked by CNN’s Sunday talk show host Fareed Zakaria about what advice if any he would give the incoming president, Al Gore’s response was simple: “Make more expository speeches. … [the] people are downloading”.

The presidential radio address as a viral video message for all to engage with plays right into that, ups the ante for you and me, the White House versus traditional media.

Let’s see if and how this will pan out.

Have you pinged the president-elect lately?

While we’re on the subject of record long tail voter aggregation and its impact on democracy, the unprecedented accumulation of small-size incremental financial contributions during the current US presidential campaign marks another success story for the long tail of citizen ingenuity.

According to OpenSecrets.org, over 90% of an impressive $640 million raised by the Barack Obama campaign came from individuals rather than corporations or entrenched interest groups.

And the bulk of that was contributions under $200.

Amazing what a lot of a little can accomplish in its aggreate value – to the benefit of all.

On that note, for all you digital media marketers out there (opportunistically speaking, of course), the current long tail campaign donation phenomenon clearly demonstrates the significant power of consumers’ take on ”motive and opportunity”.

From digital video and online books to for-pay widgets and Twitter posts, monetizing the long tail of any of these things depends on whether they truly matter to people and their lifes.

Meaning, if “the cause” is right, wallets open up.

It clearly worked during the recent Presidential campaign. What does that mean to future branded product campaign designs?

To be sure, way way before Chris Anderson’s pointed Wired article (re)discovered the right side of the curve for us, something as old, tried and proven as democracy knew to utilize the long tail phenomenon all along; to ensure that all, not just a select few partake in shaping government at large.

So, in many ways, we’re only coming full circle here.

Who knew? Democracy as an ingenious grass-root marketing campaign.

Glad it worked so well this time.

As it stands, this country is about to (re)discover the power of long tail voting.

Not since the 60s has the United States seen this kind of voter turnout. Individuals previously ignorant to the democratic process are expected to come out and vote in what clearly is a historic election.

We, members of the digital technology and media industry, have used the long tail idea gladly and often, at least since Chris Anderson’s highly recognized Wired magazine article about “the few that dominate”.

We have since flocked to the long tail concept to describe how the aggregate number of individuals previously ignored by commercial systems can populate and popularize anything from micro blogs to amateur-produced snack-size videos, or en-gross selling of long forgotten books on amazon.com.

The same “saftey in numbers” phenomenon may now be just what it took to change the direction of an entire country.

While the latter remains a promise until proven, no matter who you vote for tomorrow morning, the former is happening as we speak.

Already a record number of those previously discouraged or put off by politics have returned from their voting duties; young, first-time voters, african-americans, hispanics, immigrants, all joined by millions of others in a common believe that its worth standing in line for hours on end, convinced that the time and cause is right.

Of course our industry’s arsenal of lingo would be incomplete if we couldn’t add to the long tail moniker all sorts of related terms.

Think discovery, collaboration, and sharing. Add hyper-targeting and monetization to understand how much the past 21 months of presidential campaigning have benefited from their first dabble with Web 2.0.

Not to mention the unprecedented number of supporting broadband connections that helped to fuel the national debate.

Still, it is not entirely clear whether any side has gained on the other in its particular ability to leverage the long-tail power of the Internet.

It just might simply be a zero-sum game.

But hey. Who’s counting?

For now, let’s go and vote!

PS: For those of you eager to combine your long tail capabilities until the very last second of the democratic process, go to Current TV and fire up your Twitter and your Digg account.

PS II: To be sure, while both campaigns leveraged the long tail power of the Internet, they also knew that a linear TV feed was still a medium key enough to agree to last minute Saturday Night Live appearances or to buy millions of dollars worth of traditional broadcasting airtime to get the message out. Shelly Palmer’s recent post makes several salient points on the deliberate old-school-ness of those decisions. Be sure to check it out.