My Energy Plan being mentioned in the Wall Street Journal

[Spider-Bite]

Aabout a week and a half ago, I started a thread on here, titled My Energy Plan.

http://www.superherohype.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269071

All of the major presidential candidates who are dunning for office, kicked off their Myspace accounts a few weeks ago. MSNBC had an article about it, and a link to their accounts. I quickly sent Friend requests to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards, and they approved my friend request, so I'm now on their friend list, and they are on mine. This gives you the ability to leave comments on their page, however you can send messages to anybody, even when they aren't on your friend list.

This is really nothin special, as they approve anybody, so long as your profile doesn't contain hateful content.

Well I posted my energy plan on my blog here.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=140324621

Then I picked 400 people off of Hillary's friend list, and sent them a message asking them to read my energy plan, and then send a message to Hillary saying they support it, and leave a comment on their page saying they support it.

The next day I checked my email and I saw that I had a message from a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, named Vauhinvi Vara. I emailed her back, and she said she wanted to interview me.

It turns out she was doing a report on how the candidates are using myspace to connect with supporters, and she noticed me from the comments on Hillary's page. So I had an interview with her over the phone.

Then the next day I was contacted by the Association of Young Americans.org. They said they saw the article and wanted to thank me for my efforts to make a difference.

Then I was contacted by an election web based team stationed in Milwaukee, who had a myspace account. They featured my entire plan on their page. I know they weren't just some dork pretending to be somebody, because John Edwards personally left a comment there thanking them for their efforts. The President of that team, I think his name was Frank something, told me he really thought my plan was great, and that they do ocasionally have contact opportunities with Hillary Clinton, and I might actually get to directly talk to Hillary about this.

 

[Spider-Bite]

The link to the article

http://online.wsj.com/public/articl...urm2rUfkT04RvWlx8dKBI_20080403.html?mod=blogs

<H1 class=articleTitle style="MARGIN: 0px">New Outlets
For Political Junkies

By PUI-WING TAM and VAUHINI VARA
April 4, 2007; Page D1

John Atkins is the kind of voter who gets tossed out of town-hall meetings for expressing his opinions too loudly. But recently, the Oakland, Calif., truck-wash manager has found a venue that's better suited to his combative style.
ONLINE TODAY

• Podcast: Hear reporter Pui-Wing Tam talk about how new Web tools are changing the 2008 campaign.

• Question of the Day: Do you plan to contribute to a presidential campaign?


Last week, he noticed that presidential candidate Barack Obama had posted a question on a new Yahoo election portal asking voters how to better engage people in the democratic process. Intrigued, Mr. Atkins posted a reply: the country should ban lifetime politicians. So far, he's gotten nine responses from Yahoo users. "On the Internet, there's no way to shut this genie down, and the words are going to get out," says Mr. Atkins, 51, whose Yahoo email is oneramblingredneck.

YouTube now has a dedicated space for videos by and about the various presidential candidates.
Presidential candidates aren't the only ones hitting the campaign trail earlier and more aggressively this election. Internet sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo are also trying to carve out a bigger role for themselves. Their hope is that providing a venue for political debate will help drive traffic -- and campaign-advertising dollars -- to their sites.
YouTube last month started a channel for candidate-created videos where voters can also post video and text responses. (So far, Mitt Romney's YouTube channel has amassed the most videos, at 70, while Joe Biden trails with 34.) Yesterday, MySpace announced that it would hold a "virtual election" on Jan. 1-2 for its 168 million members to vote for their favorite presidential candidate. AOL, meanwhile, in February, introduced a new feature that pulls together bloggers posting about the 2008 elections, among other political topics.
The Yahoo election portal that Mr. Atkins stumbled across, which was launched last month, offers links to pages for each 2008 presidential candidate and user-generated discussions and photos. Recently Hillary Clinton posed a question to the public through the site -- "Based on your own family's experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?" -- that garnered more than 38,000 responses.
But voters who expect a quick reply to their Web postings from the campaigns themselves may be in for a surprise. While many of the presidential campaigns have new-media teams that organize and monitor online activities, they typically don't have the staff to write back to individual posters on these sites. Says Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki: While "we're certainly engaged with other sites, our focus is on driving people to our own Web site, mybarackobama.com." (In his posting, Mr. Atkins challenged all the candidates to sit down with him for a one-on-one conversation about the country; he hasn't heard back from any of the campaigns.)

Politicians for years have used the Web to disseminate information about themselves and raise money. And some general-interest Web sites have been active in recent elections. During the last midterm vote, for example, some smaller Web sites with social-networking features -- including Hotsoup.com and Essembly.com -- played a part in the political debate. But big sites like Yahoo and AOL have tended to limit their election role to providing straight news and information.
Now those sites -- as well as ones like YouTube and Facebook that either didn't exist or were in their infancy during the last presidential election -- are taking advantage of a slew of now-popular interactive tools, including online video and digital photos, to step up their efforts.
"The audience is already engaged so we have to roll out new features now," says Lewis D'Vorkin, an AOL vice president.
There's also more money at stake for the Web sites this time around. Campaigns are projected to boost their ad spending, and a bigger slice of those dollars are likely going to online than in the past. During the 2004 presidential elections, campaigns spent $29 million on Web advertising, e-mail marketing and Web development. In the 2008 elections, the figure could grow to around $80 million, says the media research firm PQ Media.
Some of the big Web sites have already benefited from campaign advertising. Mr. McCain's campaign has advertised on AOL, says an AOL spokeswoman, while the Clinton and Obama campaigns have advertised on Facebook, according to a Facebook spokeswoman. Yahoo has also had some campaign advertising, though such ads are "just getting under way," a spokesman for the site says.

AOL pulls together blog posts about politics, including the 2008 election.
As part of their quest to reach younger voters, many of the presidential candidates have created profiles on the popular social-networking sites Facebook and MySpace. MySpace members can now donate to candidates by clicking on a button, or can copy an image to their own page that has a campaign slogan -- a sort of bumper sticker for the digital age. Meanwhile, on Facebook's campaign profile pages, users become "supporters" rather than "friends" (the term usually used on the site) of the candidates.
Jason Martell, a 25-year-old self-described political junkie in Lena, Wis., is using MySpace to try to contact presidential candidates about a plan he has posted on his MySpace page for reducing energy consumption. Last week, he posted a note in the comments section of Mrs. Clinton's MySpace page urging people -- Mrs. Clinton included -- to check out the plan. Mr. Martell, who is unemployed, also has sent personal notes to "friends" of Mrs. Clinton's on MySpace, asking them to pass his plan on to Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Martell, who hasn't heard back from Mrs. Clinton or her campaign, doesn't think the candidates' MySpace pages are substantively different from, say, their own campaign Web sites. "I think they're just advertising themselves," he says. Still, he says he thinks the pages nonetheless improve his chances of getting his message across to Mrs. Clinton and other candidates.
Of course, all the new online tools make it easier for critics and spoofers to get their voice heard as well. Early last month, an anti-Clinton video spoofing a 1984 Apple commercial was posted on YouTube; turns out, an employee at one of Mr. Obama campaign's vendors had created it. Since then, an anti-Obama clip also spoofing the same Apple commercial has been posted on YouTube.
YouTube and other Web sites say they don't plan to stop users from posting negative videos or comments. "There's going to be a degree of unpredictability" on the Internet, says Jordan Hoffner, YouTube's director of content partnerships. "That's the nature of the medium we're in."
Some of the sites are working on additional features that they hope to roll out in coming months. Yahoo, for instance, is developing online campaign T-shirts that a Web user's avatar can dress up in. The site also plans to launch analytical tools so that a user could type in a search query -- such as "Giuliani and taxes" -- and pull up a map to see where in the country other people are searching on the same terms. Many of the sites also plan to introduce online voter registration later this year or next year.
Jeff Brooks, a 43-year-old safety consultant in Cincinnati, spends at least half an hour a day online checking out political news and engaging in political discussions with other Internet users. "I've gotten my wife more interested in the 2008 election because of what I'm reading and discussing" online, says Mr. Brooks, adding: "I spend more time than I should on this stuff."
Write to Pui-Wing Tam at [email protected] and Vauhini Vara at [email protected]

</H1>

 

[hippie_hunter]

Congrats on being mentioned by the Wall Street Journal and hopefully your voice can be heard.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

In the future Spider-Bite will be known as "Father" and we will live in a Utopia where his edicts are upheld by robot sentries that bear his visage and shoot electro-beams from their eyes to disable infidels and litter-criminals.

 

[Halcohol]

Thank Spider-Bite somebody's finally doing something about the energy crisis. I mean, for Spider-Bite's sake, it's almost becoming the ONLY issue in the election.

Congrats on the shout-out, dude.

 

[Abaddon]

That's cool. You're one step closer to gathering a cult following.

 

[jaguarr]

Congrats, man. When I first started reading the article I was thinking that you were the 51 year old truck-wash manager but I was mistaken, and it turns out you're the unemployed 25 year old. Ever thought of trying to get on one of these candidates campaigns as an aide or something to see if you can make even more of an impact?

jag

 

[Darthphere]

Mr. Martell, who is unemployed

ROFLCOPTER!!!11!11!!

 

[SLVRSR4]

YOu are my new excuse to stay unemployed! I applaud you for using myspace for useful things!

 

[Darthphere]

"I think they're just advertising themselves,"

Wow, how did you come up with that one?


Yes, I'm jealous. Not really.

 

[Spider-Bite]

Congrats, man. When I first started reading the article I was thinking that you were the 51 year old truck-wash manager but I was mistaken, and it turns out you're the unemployed 25 year old. Ever thought of trying to get on one of these candidates campaigns as an aide or something to see if you can make even more of an impact?

jag

I begin college in August. I'll be going for six years studying economics. Then I'm going to be a public finance economist, for the government, while going back to college to study something else, to help me become an advisor someday.

The whole reason I'm going to be an economist is to help build credentials for trying to become an advisor, because you can't just go straight from college to being an advisor. I looked into it.

However it's possible that if after my first two years of college, during which I'll be getting my associates degree, I can then score high enough on the ACT to get a scholarship, I will then study sociology instead of economics, because I think that education would really give me an edge when it comes to political smarts.

But if I'm lucky enough to get that scholarship, I might also instead choose to study journalism, becuase that is what politicians look for the most, when it comes to hiring advisors. Somebody that knows how to communicate with the public.

 

[jaguarr]

I begin college in August. I'll be going for six years studying economics. Then I'm going to be a public finance economist, for the government, while going back to college to study something else, to help me become an advisor someday.

The whole reason I'm going to be an economist is to help build credentials for trying to become an advisor, because you can't just go straight from college to being an advisor. I looked into it.

However it's possible that if after my first two years of college, during which I'll be getting my associates degree, I can then score high enough on the ACT to get a scholarship, I will then study sociology instead of economics, because I think that education would really give me an edge when it comes to political smarts.

But if I'm lucky enough to get that scholarship, I might also instead choose to study journalism, becuase that is what politicians look for the most, when it comes to hiring advisors. Somebody that knows how to communicate with the public.

You've got a more solid plan than most 25 year olds. Good luck to you.

jag

 

[Spider-Bite]

Wow, how did you come up with that one?


Yes, I'm jealous. Not really.

The reporter asked me if I though they were any different from their regular websites. And I said no. She then asked me why I thought they were making myspace accounts, and I replied I think they are just advertising themselves. Even though looking back, I think the real purpose is to look cool, young, hip, and technologically savy. Myspace is extremely popular among young people.

And it helps supporters connect with each other easier, to arrange activist activities. Such as meet ups, door knocking, and such and such.

 

[Spider-Bite]

You've got a more solid plan than most 25 year olds. Good luck to you.

jag

thanks. With the education in economics I could get a job working for a corporation, and make a much better living, but **** that. I'll take my 30 grand each year, and sleep well at night.

 

[Spider-Bite]

In the future Spider-Bite will be known as "Father" and we will live in a Utopia where his edicts are upheld by robot sentries that bear his visage and shoot electro-beams from their eyes to disable infidels and litter-criminals.

LOL! I totally started laughing out loud, when I read that!

 

[Victarion]

Spider-Bite for President '08!

 

[Matt]

Your energy plan is still inpractical. And just for the record, those Myspace pages are probably made by interns and the candidates most likely never see them.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

LOL! I totally started laughing out loud, when I read that!

You mean...like a maniacal Dr. Doom "muAWhaHaAAHhhAaWaHaW!" laugh?

 

[Matt]

Also, just out of curiousity, why didn't you send your energy plan to the Republican candidates? That seems rather unfair of you.

 

[Spider-Bite]

Your energy plan is still inpractical. And just for the record, those Myspace pages are probably made by interns and the candidates most likely never see them.

I know that, however, I know somebody is reading the messages. When you look in your sent folder it says if somebody read it or not. And my goal was to get them swamped with messages from a ton of people all at once, with the same title saying they support my plan. I figured that would get somebody's attention and somebody would look at it. I also figured that if enough comments were left on her page saying they support it, it would get somebody in the media's attention, as it did.

 

[Spider-Bite]

Also, just out of curiousity, why didn't you send your energy plan to the Republican candidates? That seems rather unfair of you.

That would be like asking the chruch to start teaching evolution on Sundays.

 

[Spider-Bite]

Your energy plan is still inpractical. And just for the record, those Myspace pages are probably made by interns and the candidates most likely never see them.

my plan is technoglically, and economically, feasible, and self financing. the only people, and I mean the only people who will be hurt by this, are the top people at the oil companies and the motor vehicle companies.

 

[Matt]

That would be like asking the chruch to start teaching evolution on Sundays.

You're incredibly hard-headed.

Lets assume for a second all Republicans are evil and want to destroy the planet or whatever dillusions you have...

What makes you think Democrats are any better? Why would they actually fix the problem when they can dangle it over people's heads to win votes?

 

[Matt]

my plan is technoglically, and economically, feasible, and self financing. the only people, and I mean the only people who will be hurt by this, are the top people at the oil companies and the motor vehicle companies.

Its already been explained in the other thread why your plan wouldn't work so I'm not going to debate it with you. But I will leave you to think about this...If your plan is really so perfect...why haven't the countless scientists with multiple doctor degrees who are much smarter than you or I been unable to think of something so seemingly simple that some 25 year old kid thought of while browsing the net?

 

[Spider-Bite]

You're incredibly hard-headed.

Lets assume for a second all Republicans are evil and want to destroy the planet or whatever dillusions you have...

What makes you think Democrats are any better? Why would they actually fix the problem when they can dangle it over people's heads to win votes?

democrats are not perfect, but they are better. For example, John Kerry wanted it to be federal law that all vehicels must get 35 miles to the gallon or better.

They are also corrupt. On energy they take positions that are always slightly better than the republicans, just so they can say they are the party of alternative energy. They don't go any further than slightly better, because they are also corrupt.

Republican politicians are a lot more corrupt than the democrats. That's why they are the party of the rich. I mean when one party supports tax cuts for the rich, and the other one supports raising taxes on rich people, it really doesn't take a genius to know which party is bought off by the rich.