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Obama's MySpace Drama
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed May 02, 2007 11:02 AM
from the highway-robbery-i-won't-pay-it dept.
from the highway-robbery-i-won't-pay-it dept.
fistfullast33l writes "TechPresident, which is covering the use of technology by Presidential Campaigns for 2008, has a very interesting article on how Obama's MySpace page is currently the subject of an underground battle for control by the campaign itself and the volunteer who created it in 2004. Joseph Anthony worked with the campaign initially and grew the site to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends that the campaign could use to reach out to. It currently is the main Obama page in the Impact Channel on MySpace. However, as Obama's campaign became more centralized and formal, the decision was made to attempt to acquire control of the site from Anthony. They asked him for a price, which he offered up as $49,000 plus part of the $10,000 fee paid to MySpace for the Impact Channel. Obama balked at the price, and decided to start afresh rather than pay the money. The fight broke out into the open when Anthony posted a response on his blog to rumors that the campaign was spreading regarding him wanting to cash out. MyDD has more."
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Obama's Space Drama (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone have a better candidate for President? How about Steve Jobs?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I second Bill Richardson. As a former NM resident, I know how hard he worked/is working for the state, and the country. He has a broad depth of experience (foreign/domestic), can go toe-to-toe with anyone, and is frankly a lot easier to digest than your garden-variety Democrat. He seems to surround himself with good people too, which I think is half the trouble any President has -- the last few have been surrounded by "yes men".
Re:Obama's Space Drama (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Bill Richardson (Score:5, Informative)
Richardson on some issues. [richardson...sident.com]
As far as Patriot Act: Governor Bill Richardson and Attorney General Patricia Madrid Oppose U.S. Patriot Act provisions [state.nm.us]
Prohibition? I am not sure what you mean there. Do you mean the drug war? Well he signed the Medicinal Marijuana bill in NM, and he has pushed for drug treatment before prosecution. But he has also pushed for minimum sentences for dealers, and supports parts of the war on drugs. So I guess maybe he is in the middle of the road with regards to the drug war.
I am not sure about IP.
This site has a lot of information, although I cannot say if it is to be 100% trusted as I didn't look too hard to see who funds it. On The Issues [ontheissues.org]. It also appears that some of their information is a little out dated.
Bill Richardson is the most qualified and most electable candidate we have at this time. Obama, or Clinton would be disasters.
Parent
Re:Obama's Space Drama (Score:5, Insightful)
The Obama campaign solicited a figure from him.
It's not a cut-and-dried case of squatting -- Anthony had actually worked with the campaign on the profile. The campaign had password access, so that they could maintain some kind of control over the content just-in-case.
It isn't about money, IMO. This guy built a significant amount of grassroots support for Obama, then found out that presidential politics is big business, and there's no room for the little guy. How would you feel if a 2.5 year labor of love was pulled out from underneath you? The campaign told him to make an offer... he did, based upon an approximated value of the time he spent on the profile this year. They scoffed, and went around him.
I don't blame the creator of the profile. I don't blame the Obama campaign, either -- centralized control is necessary for presidential campaigns today.
It's politics, sometimes people don't get what they want and feelings get hurt. Same as it ever was, same as it ever will be.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obama's Space Drama (Score:5, Interesting)
And if he were a paid professional in stead of a volunteer working on it, that would possibly even be fair value.
Suppose on a lark I bought a beat up motorcycle, and let you, a volunteer work on it for fun. Then one day I decide to race competitively, and offer to compensate you for your time.
So you calculate all the hours you spent on it, lookup what pro pit mechanics are paid an hour, and suggest I pay you for 800 hours at that rate. I'd probably 'balk' at that too.
Volunteers are usually paid nothing. The fact that the campaign was willing to buy him out was the right thing for them to do. Him deciding to value his volunteer time as if he were a contracted professional was probably out of line.
That said, I agree. Its unfortunate that it couldn't be resolved amicalby, but that's life.
Parent
Re:Obama's Space Drama (Score:5, Informative)
Except your analogy is flawed because the "motorcycle" in question, a myspace.com profile, never belonged to this guy in the first place.
Everything on myspace.com belongs to NewsCorp, and they say so very openly. Taking the 30 seconds to register a username on myspace doesn't give you ownership of the page that is generated with that username in it anymore than registering a username on slashdot.org gives you ownership of slashdot.org.
Myspace.com has an established history of taking usernames that are the same as celebrity names and simply handing them over to the celebrities. The issue is even in their TOS.
Obama's campaign didn't steal anything here. It belonged to myspace.com all along, and myspace.com did what they did in every other case where similar thing happened. They took the famous name and gave it to the person who is actually named that. This dude just made the mistake of believing that his little piece of myspace.com was actually his, when it never was to begin with.
Parent
Re:Obama's Space Drama (Score:4, Informative)
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:Just another sleazeball politician (Score:4, Insightful)
I do. You don't take what isn't yours. It's a pretty old principle last time I checked. If it was really important, they would have built up their own MySpace page instead of hijacking someone elses.
How you treat the people underneath you in your daily interactions says a lot about you. How you run your campaign is the same thing. I'll be looking at what Mike Gravel has to say now, thanks.
Parent
What did you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your comment mangles what really is going on here. The guy asked for compensation and to become a paid consultant to the campaign. The campaign countered by saying they wanted a one time payment and full control. He gave them an offer and they balked. He's b
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's beside the fact that numerous posters already explained that he isn't extorting anything. $49k for a good portion of 2.5 years of work is cheap. Do you think the rest of his upper-level campaigners are working for free? They may not be getting cash now, but you better believe they expect 6-figure salary jobs in the Administration when he's elected. That, or government contracts or some other form of power/money.
Parent
Republicrats are all the same. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that they made it clear to him that he would NOT be part of the future of the page. The one time payment was just a trap, and the guy fell for it. No matter how crooked they were in going about it, they can destroy his credibility by saying he was just in it for the cash. Even if he had said no to the payment offer, they would have muscled him out one way or another.
The polite thing to do would have been to split the different and give the guy some chump change for his costs and an invite to a few events as a special contributor. Would a few dinners really dent that $28 million dollar campaign?
Anyways, who cares. Obama is nothing more than a republicrat. He's riding the Bush bashing coat tails like all of the democrats but he hasn't shown anything of substance for how he is going to do things better on his watch. Preaching to the choir that Bush sucks is great and all, but what does he actually bring to the table? 4 more years of political foot play at the tax payers' expense.
Nah, if you want real change... Gore/Edwards in '08, now THAT would be an exciting 4 years.
-Rick
Parent
Re:Republicrats are all the same. (Score:5, Funny)
In all honesty, the best suited people for political jobs often refuse them.
A local radio host (Tom Sullivan) was asked to run for office at the last election (US assembly). He declined. Would have been a damn good Assemblyman, didn't want to do it, felt he "could do more good on the radio in a week than he could accomplish in an entire term in office" (or something like that). IIRC he was pushed to run for governor when we had a recall in CA. Didn't run for that. In the case of the president and vice president, I honestly believe Penn and Teller would be better than anyone who is currently even thinking of running. I could just see the veto stamp now:
Ahhh dreams.
-nB
Parent
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then instead of providing a counter offer, they simply accuse him of profitering and proceed to hijack the site from him. That is short sited anyway you look at. They are doing this because they thought he's an individual nobody. What could he possibly do to retaliate (read "typical big guy squish little guy think"). And now they are getting bad press because of it (read "short-sighted"). He's already sustained his loss (MySpace page was hijacked) which won't change his life really. They are only now going to begin to discover the loss to there credibility, which could potentially be very damaging. (Well, for the few people that are naive enough to give any credibitlity to any candidate.)
Parent
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well
If you're a MySpace user, after clicking on http://www.myspace.com/barackobama [myspace.com] feel free to click on "Send Message" and let him know how you feel.
Also, whether you Are or Are Not a MySpace user, feel free to click on "Block User". I'm sure those metrics might make their way to his attention (or at least the mainstream media's).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I completely agree. Politicians are horrible. Why can't we go back to the good old days before annoying campaigns and bothersome voting. I just want to be told what to do by clergy and nobility, and have the strength to be able to do it. Why bother thinking?
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what's the issue here?
You obviously didn't RTFAs. The Obama campaign literally STOLE his myspace account from him. If they had just agreed to part company, there would be no issue.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the dirty trick? He spent his own money to make a myspace site. Candidate tells him great job, I'd like to centralize control of the thing, I'll buy it off you for your trouble. Guy names rather high number. Candidate tells him to forget it, and starts his own myspace page from scratch. Which is his right to do.
So what's the issue here? Guy gets greedy, and/or overestimates his own value, and loses?
The issue is not that the Obama campaign started up its own site (that's fair game) but that they convinced MySpace to disable Anthony's access to the site he created and redirect the URL to the new Obama campaign site. When Anthony balked at this (rightfully so) MySpace offered to give back the content to him, but at a different URL.
Imagine if you had registered obamarocks.com and gained the support of hundreds of thousands of individuals for Obama. The campaign team gets interested, offers to buy you o
If you vote for me...... (Score:4, Funny)
50K doesn't seem that much I guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
But why would you need money for this, anyway? Compenstation for work already done?
Anyway, considering the millions raised for campaigning, 50,000 is not so much.
It's All in the Name (Score:4, Insightful)
When I first read about Obama's MySpace fight, it looked like Joseph Anthony had been wronged. After all he did create and maintain the MySpace account. Then I noticed the name of the profile. The profile name is not "PasadenaForObama" or "ObamaFans". The profile name is "BarackObama". Anthony knew (or should have known) that his claim to ownership of the profile would always be weak to nonexistent. The amount of time and effort he spent working on the account is irrelevant.
The Obama campaign is not without fault, though. They should have never even solicited a financial offer from Anthony. Instead, the campaign should have offered signed books, buttons, shirts, and a handwritten thank you letter from Obama himself.
As a contributor to the Obama campaign myself, I would have been annoyed to see my cash pay for Obama to purchase his own name. I am disappointed that the Obama campaign made the mistake of solicited an offer, but the bottom line is that Anthony was not wronged.
Parent
404 Not Found (Score:3, Informative)
This is what happens (Score:4, Interesting)
They say politics is like sausage. You can't simultaneously appreciate the taste of sausage and know how it's made.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you are a realist. (?!)
Welcome to the real world, step right in!
$19 Million on Hand ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting the feeling that I'm not hearing the whole story here. Nobody's doing anything wrong though, this is clear cut capitalism. The man has the only supply for the product
Re:$19 Million on Hand ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is about principles. I have done alot of grunt work for a political party in Sweden, maybe it is different for the Democrats in the US, but in general, you don't get paid. You do it on your own free will because you want your party to succeed. A select few functionaries get paid, usually the minimum salary for their competence level possible and are still expected to do lots of volunteer work. I would be surprised if any of all the telemarketers that do the real work in Obama's fundraising campaign are paid anything above the minimum wage.
Only when you get higher up in the party hiearchy can you expect to earn a decent living doing political work. But even then you are severly underpaid compared to what you can earn in other sectors. Even Bush and his appointed staff could probably earn a much higher salary working for a private company than working for the US.
From that point of view, it really does not make sense that this person should be able to cash in on his volunteer work while thousands of other volunteer worker gets nothing. Sure, give him back his 10 grand he invested, but he really can not and should not expect to be able to earn money doing volunteer work.
Parent
The true Obana makes a showing (Score:5, Insightful)
Trouble at the polls.. (Score:5, Funny)
Why Exactly Do We Care About This? (Score:4, Funny)
Character (Score:3, Insightful)
Foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
After a while, Origin came along and asked how much I'd be willing to sell it to them for. My answer? Tell me what you think is fair. After all, its their game not mine. They picked a number, I agreed and that was that.
I could have picked a number that was representative of the manpower I put in to making the site. I could have gotten in to a big fight where they accuse me of copyright infringement and I accuse them of bullying, etc. etc.
I could have, but I didn't. I didn't build the site to make money and at the end of the day it was their game, not mine. So I smiled and said, "thank you," sent them a zip file of the content and put a redirect on my web site that pointed to the site's new home.
Joseph Anthony is nobody. Its Obama's myspace profile; Anthony is just a fan. He should have turned it over along with a list of expenses and said, "pay me what you think is fair."
Re:Foolish (Score:4, Insightful)
Joseph Anthony is nobody.
Yeah, but, in theory, that's not supposed to matter under our system.
Parent
Re:Foolish (Score:5, Informative)
Guys, step back and read the actual text
This whole "Anthony is a greedy schmuck" and "the Obama campaign tripped up" debate is a bunch of malarky. Read what was actually written:
(1) Campaign staffers had become concerned about the currency and accuracy of information on the site.
(2) Anthony was overworked and suggested that they should make him a consultant.
(3) They said they would rather have a one-time transfer, and he should name a price.
(4) He picked a number. They said no and went to MySpace management for resolution.
(5) MySpace came up with an eminently equitable solution. Mr. Anthony has been given the opportunity to build the site again with a different URL and full transfer of his friends list.
It's as simple as that. He's not a greedy bastard. They asked him to pick a number. Obama staffers are not bumbling idiots; they tried a couple of approaches, things weren't working out, and ultimately they decided to run the site themselves.
MySpacegate, indeed. Surely we can focus on the actual issues, and not this cyber-distraction?
Parent
Not Scum (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a lot like Valve and the mods that came out of Half Life. Valve in that case hired the Counterstrike and DoD teams and gave them jobs. Obama decided they didn't want to do that and instead asked the guy to come up with a sum of money. As MyDD points out, it's roughly 32 cents per friend. That's not too shabby considering how much money they throw away on consultants. And it's only a one time payment. For a campaign that just raised $26 million, to balk at $50,000 is pretty crazy in my opinion.
Parent
Definitely Not Scum (Score:3, Informative)
Read the techPresident link:
http://www.techpresident.com/node/301 [techpresident.com]
Why make up data when you can find statistics? (Score:4, Informative)
From allison
Well, doing a quick Google search on 'myspace demographics' shows conflicting information. Some pages say that over 75% of the MySpace population is over 18 [1]. Meanwhile, another site is saying over half of MySpace is over thirty five [2]. Even pulling numbers out of my ass (much like you did) and assuming that a significant portion of of the people who show up as over 18 are lying, it still looks like much more than 25% of the "friends" from this page are over 18.
Likewise, looking at US census info shows just about 50% of 18-24 year olds were registered for to vote by November 2004 while around 40% actually voted [3].
So lets do some math with this new data. You said of the 160,000 friends this page had, only around 2500 will actually vote. Of the 160,000 around 120,000 (160,000*.75) are over 18. Of those, the national turnout (again, the US Census) was at around 58% in 2004. 58% of 120,000 is just under 70,000 people who, statistically, will probably vote. At the asking price of $49,000 for the MySpace page, that's less than a dollar a voter - a good buy for any politician.
But lets go a step further and look at just the 18-24 demographic (from links 1 and 2 somewhere around 18% of MySpace). So around 29,000 friends of the 160,000 are 18-24, of which around 40% will actually vote. So over 10,000 friends age 18-24 who will actually vote. That's still only a couple dollars per voter, not bad for a campaign, and ignores all the other voters who are over 24.
Now, I know, I've made a lot of assumptions doing this back-of-the-envelope math: all the data (both about MySpace and about US voters) is accurate, all the MySpace users are in the United States, and trends will continue like they did in the 2004 election. But for all the assumptions that my estimates are high, you could make an equal argument that they're low. That is, you could argue that people registered as friends of Obama are more likely to vote than the population as a whole.
My point is, your original guess (about 2500 who are 18+ and will actually vote out of the original 160,000 friends) seems to be off by 65,000 voters (not registered voters, but people who will vote). In fact, there are more voters out of those 160,000 who are 18-24 than your original guess for all people over the age of 18.
Feel free to correct my math or my assumptions. I had fun doing this, but would someone else come along and correct me than let something incorrect stand.
-Trillian
[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=11967 [zdnet.com]
[2] http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1
[3] http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voti
Parent
Flamebait? Come on (Score:5, Insightful)
God, remember when she was cool, and had convictions? National health care, remember that? Washington ruined that woman.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Flamebait? Come on (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, I feel that the Democrats believe the same thing.
Parent
Re:Flamebait? Come on (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I won't convince you, your mind is obviously made up. But perhaps others more open minded will read this, look at the evidence, and come to the same conclusions I have based on the facts.
Parent
Re:Flamebait? Come on (Score:5, Insightful)
I need to state for the record that, Democrat though I may be, I have no problem with real conservatives. That is, those who advocate a smaller Federal government, states rights, and fiscal responsibility. That is not what the current Republican party stands for. They stand for anything that benefits big corporations, the religious right, and borrow and spend lunacy.
It must suck being a Republican these days and feeling as though you have to defend the indefensible. I almost feel sorry for you.
Parent
Re:Scumbags (Score:5, Insightful)
This is some guys personal web site, that favored Obama. He set it up YEARS before Obama was announced he was in the presidential race.
Did he ask for money? NO.
This was his baby, his project to help Obama.
Then some low level staffer says "HEY, I like your idea, only I want to run it."
He responds: "No thank you, this mine. Go make your own".
Low level greedy staffer responds "I am one laze SOB. I don't want to do the work, I just want the credit. How much to buy your work?"
Honest, hard working guy responds "Well, if the Obama campaing really wants my personal Pro Obama web site, I could sell it to you. It cost me $10 grand in outright cash, and more than 3 years worth of work. If you really don't want me to run my web site anymore, and want to run it yourself, I'll give it to you for a measily 50 grand."
Read the article first, instead of getting all huffy about who did what.
Parent
Re:Obama's Blunder (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Why make up data when you can find statistics? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, doing a quick Google search on 'myspace demographics' shows conflicting information. Some pages say that over 75% of the MySpace population is over 18 [1]. Meanwhile, another site is saying over half of MySpace is over thirty five [2]. Even pulling numbers out of my ass (much like you did) and assuming that a significant portion of of the people who show up as over 18 are lying, it still looks like much more than 25% of the "friends" from this page are over 18.
Likewise, looking at US census info shows just about 50% of 18-24 year olds were registered for to vote by November 2004 while around 40% actually voted [3].
So lets do some math with this new data. You said of the 160,000 friends this page had, only around 2500 will actually vote. Of the 160,000 around 120,000 (160,000*.75) are over 18. Of those, the national turnout (again, the US Census) was at around 58% in 2004. 58% of 120,000 is just under 70,000 people who, statistically, will probably vote. At the asking price of $49,000 for the MySpace page, that's less than a dollar a voter - a good buy for any politician.
But lets go a step further and look at just the 18-24 demographic (from links 1 and 2 somewhere around 18% of MySpace). So around 29,000 friends of the 160,000 are 18-24, of which around 40% will actually vote. So over 10,000 friends age 18-24 who will actually vote. That's still only a couple dollars per voter, not bad for a campaign, and ignores all the other voters who are over 24.
Now, I know, I've made a lot of assumptions doing this back-of-the-envelope math: all the data (both about MySpace and about US voters) is accurate, all the MySpace users are in the United States, and trends will continue like they did in the 2004 election. But for all the assumptions that my estimates are high, you could make an equal argument that they're low. That is, you could argue that people registered as friends of Obama are more likely to vote than the population as a whole.
My point is, your original guess (about 2500 who are 18+ and will actually vote out of the original 160,000 friends) seems to be off by 65,000 voters (not registered voters, but people who will vote). In fact, there are more voters out of those 160,000 who are 18-24 than your original guess for all people over the age of 18.
Feel free to correct my math or my assumptions. I had fun doing this, but would someone else come along and correct me than let something incorrect stand.
-Trillian
[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=11967 [zdnet.com]
[2] http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1
[3] http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voti
Parent