Kos Traffic Numbers Inflated by 60%
by Patrick Ruffini :: October 3rd, 2007 1:20 am 
Yesterday, I had the good “fortune” of being frontpaged on Daily Kos. The post sat atop the site for two hours. According to Google Analytics, the link produced 1,164 visitors yesterday.
For the traffic behemoth Kos is portrayed as, that seems low, especially since he linked to two posts of mine. I went and looked at other notable traffic spikes this year, and this one isn’t really even close to some other blockbuster links. For instance,
- A Marc Ambinder link (linked to by Andrew Sullivan) to my 2008 Wire videowall produced 2,205 visits on June 5th.
- A link from the Real Clear Politics homepage on August 17th produced 1,889 visits.
Now, Kos was semi-complimentary in his link. He wasn’t direct in telling his readers to rape and pillage my servers. And I know well that the wording of a link and how it’s presented can dramatically impact the clickthrough rate. If there’s a site I need to link to but I don’t want to reward with lots of traffic, I hyperlink certain words and not others to minimize clickthrough (in addition to sticking in a rel=”nofollow” directive).
But this got me thinking, especially since a sub-theme in the linked post suggested Kos was not all he was cracked up to be in terms of his audience size.
Earlier today, it was pointed out to me that Kos’s average visit length was all of 2 seconds, suggesting either a coordinated attempt to bomb the site with fake traffic or an extremely low level of engagement on the part of his readers. This seemed as remarkable, given the breathless huffing and puffing about his community platform being a game changer in terms of traffic and audience reach.
So I started to do some digging around his SiteMeter stats and those of other big bloggers.
My source was right. The SiteMeter numbers are indeed fishy. But the reason is far from nefarious: a design flaw in how SiteMeter counts visits that systemically overcounts unique visitors on extremely high traffic blogs like Daily Kos… by a lot.
First of all, I looked at the Detail view showing the last 100 visitors. Overwhelmingly it showed visitors hitting the site only once, with a visit time of zero (you need to hit a second page for it to register any time spent). Contrasted with my traffic, with an average visit length of three minutes, this seemed highly improbable.
Then it hit me: SiteMeter only accounts for the last 100 visitors individually. On a site like Daily Kos, the 100th most recent visitor could have been 15 seconds ago. If you are the 101st most recent visitor and you click on a new page, you are counted as a new unique visitor in SiteMeter’s all important count. On a normal site, this wouldn’t matter, since it’s highly unlikely you’ll stick around long enough to have 100 others show up after you. On a site with hundreds of thousands of page views a day, it’s extremely likely you will.
Other corroborating evidence of this includes the Daily Durations chart and the Page View / Visitor chart by hour. During slow traffic periods (early mornings and weekends) the ratio of page views to uniques returns to more normal levels (up to about 5 to 3). Also there is an odd spike in daily durations up to 3 seconds from 2 that only happens on weekends and is very consistent — a spike that you don’t see on medium traffic blogs. What you see there is a telltale sign of the longer time horizon required for double counting (and triple and so on).
Currently, Kos’s average daily “visit” count stands at about 454,000 and his daily page views at 538,000, a low 1.18 ratio. This number has fed the huge mythology surrounding Kos that he has “half a million” readers a day (I used the number 600,000 as recently as 48 hours ago), while top conservatives are stuck in the muck at about 100,000 to 150,000. These are the numbers used to populate N.Z. Bear’s frequently referenced traffic ranking.
We now know that the only thing we can trust about the SiteMeter numbers are the page views. And from that we can arrive at a more realistic number of daily unique visitors for Daily Kos and other leading blogs.
How so? The best guide we probably have are other netroots blogs like MyDD (stats) and OpenLeft (stats) built on open community platforms. They have low enough traffic that SiteMeter’s inflationary effect is minimal at best. Using Scoop (what Kos uses) and SoapBlox respectively, both have a ratio of about 1.9 page views for every visit (itself a less stringent measure than “unique visitor”). On Red State, where there is likely a little bit of this effect, it’s about 1.8 to 1. On a Wordpress-style blog without diaries, the ratio averages 1.5 page views per visit.
Extrapolating from Kos’ page view number, a more accurate “visitor” number for Kos would be in the neighborhood of 283,000. If Kos is a stickier site than MyDD or OpenLeft (a fair assumption), that number is probably lower. That works out to an artificial inflation in the accepted Daily Kos traffic number of about 60%.
By the way, this is not some theoretical exercise. This is the number SiteMeter would show if they didn’t have this quirk in counting traffic to high-velocity sites. Sites with as more traffic than Kos show a similar skew. That includes gadget and lifestyle blogs like Gizmodo with 2 million page views and a 1 second visit length and Lifehacker at 3 seconds.
To be fair, some conservative blogs probably fall in this boat, though the skew is probably no more than 20-30% in the most extreme case simply because we don’t fall in quite the same traffic league as Kos. Most author-led blogs average about 1.5 page views per visit, and that would peg Michelle Malkin’s actual visit number at about 130,000 (down from 140K). In effect, that means Kos is twice the size of Michelle. That’s not something you’d necessarily want to hang your hat on, but it is dramatically different than the 4 or 5 to 1 number that is in reporters’ minds (and was in mine until tonight). So we still have a hill to climb, but it doesn’t look quite as big as it did 24 hours ago.
Why does this matter? Because if someone uncovered a 60% ratings inflation in Rush Limbaugh’s or Bill O’Reilly’s numbers, we’d never hear the end of it.
Tagged: blogosphere 
conservatism kos netroots
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Why the YouTube Debate Matters
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 28th, 2007 1:05 amWhy am I so worked up about the YouTube debate?
Because I want to win.
This is not an emotional issue for me. It is rather a business decision about whether or not the Republican Party will be able to compete effectively over the next twenty years or so. The media business has had to respond to the brutal realities of the digital world; in his most candid moments, the editor of the New York Times talks about the death of the print edition. Is anyone thinking about what GOP, Inc. looks like 10 or 15 years from now?
Zack Exley has long been the online bete-noire for the right. He’s had George W. Bush personally call him a “garbage man,” which of course, made him even bigger than he already was. He recounts how the Kerry campaign, which he was part of, planned to wage a conventional Democratic campaign in 2004, being outspent by the Bush machine by 2 to 1 or more. Until something incredible happened. Kerry became the nominee, and the money just started pouring in from the Internet, and it was enough to almost match the fearsome Ranger-Pioneer apparatus.
However, if any of the GOP campaign managers are expecting the same thing to happen when their guy emerges as the nominee, they’re setting themselves up for one big disappointment. What they need to realize is that the potential for online fundraising and mobilization that the Kerry campaign worked to maximize had been entirely created by the progressive movement at large: the blogs, MoveOn and other large and small online grassroots organizations and the campaigns of the other primary candidates, above all the Dean campaign.
As Joe Trippi noted the other night in Charleston: that online base-building process has not yet happened on the right. Walking away from the YouTube debate is just one more way that the Republican establishment is stubbornly refusing to get started.
Here’s that Trippi video I commented on earlier. The part that you campaign managers need to watch starts with about 2:33 left in the tape:
In 2004, the Democrats could have expected to be outspent by 2-to-1. In March 2008, it’s the Republicans who’ll have to brace for that fate. As Zack correctly notes, Democratic online fundraising has proven to be just as potent as Republican bundler programs AND Democrats now have bundlers of their own. (Sorry guys, but this was entirely preventable.)
This is the part where you’re wondering, what in the heck does YouTube have to do with money? If I go on YouTube, will I raise tens of millions? You have to be kidding right? I’m glad you asked.
At the end of the day, the issue is not YouTube. The YouTube debate snub is the symptom, not the disease. If Republicans fret about a simple debate format, which is really just the modern version of the 1992 townhall debate, how in the heck are we going to be make the really bold, gutsy decisions to transform our campaigns so we can raise over $100 million online and recruit millions — yes millions — of volunteers over the Internet?
If our campaign operatives believe the comfortable lie that 95% or more of the action is offline, we will never have the vision or the capacity or the incentive to change. We will never announce our candidacies online. We will never do a Sopranos video. We will never successfully inflict a Macaca moment on a vulnerable Democrat. We will never raise any real money online. We will never build the kind of organically grown lists of 2-3 million that MoveOn or the Kerry campaign or ONE built. We will never have the courage to empower our supporters to power us out the rough patches, as John McCain could easily have done two weeks ago.
We will instead be defensive and afraid of the new world, and that’s no way to win.
What’s the alternative? Simple. You start by setting what business writer Jim Collins calls “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGs). And then you work tirelessly to meet them. You make the online campaigns matter, in the macro sense of everyone knows that’s where the action is, and that’s where the real decisions are being made. Online, audiences follow content. The progressive Internet was dead until — holy crap! — they were actually organizing, funding candidates, and outwitting the traditional engines of the left. There’s no reason that can’t be true for Republicans. They said we couldn’t do GOTV in rural and suburban areas — until we did it. They said we couldn’t recruit 1.4 million volunteers in 2004 — until we did it. And I’m optimistic that they’ll say we’ll never know how to use the Internet — until we do that too.
If you think this is about snowmen, you are sadly mistaken. These aren’t frivolities. These are the fundamentals. Without fundamentals, we die.
So, the answer is no, I don’t want to be arguing about a stupid debate format. I want to be talking about transformational change in the way we practice politics, and a wild overreaction to a little openness in a debate is what’s getting in the way of that. The campaign objections to this debate are like a group of astrophysicists quibbling over multiplication tables.
Or maybe some anonymous campaign aide is right and I do have a “narrow focus.” But that quote is revealing in itself. I can assure you that the Democrats don’t think of this stuff as a “narrow focus.” And if you win, you’ll get to learn that lesson the hard way in seven months.
IT’S FUNNY THAT MITT ROMNEY talks about “respectfulness.” Because I always assumed that was a two-way street. The Save the Debate coalition includes many grassroots supporters of the various candidates, but two I’d like to single out are Ann Marie Curling, of the Elect Romney in 2008 blog, and Josh Hersh, who just spent his summer working his heart out for Rudy Giuliani in Des Moines. They aren’t weirdos or recluses or pedophiles, but two of the strongest supporters of their candidates you’ll ever meet. If they were ever to get off the bus — not that they will — word would spread and hundreds more, many generations removed, would follow. That’s the kind of energy that super-volunteers like Ann Marie and Josh can bring to a campaign.
And, candidates, you are snubbing them too!
That’s what so sad about this whole debate. If your campaign’s best supporters feel alienated by your online efforts (or lack thereof), or feel like you’re not giving them the tools they need to evangelize on your behalf, isn’t the issue on your end, not theirs?
But isn’t this a macro problem, and it isn’t about the Internet or YouTube. It’s not just that they won’t listen to YouTube questions. It’s that they won’t listen on immigration. They won’t listen on spending. They won’t listen on standing strong for the troops. Rightly or wrongly, conservatives’ sense of betrayal in the second term is rooted in one key theme: they won’t listen. That’s the root cause of the anemic state of grassroots activism, online and off. They won’t listen.
Listening doesn’t mean pandering or bending to the will of your audience. It does mean engaging them in a meaningful dialog, telling people why you disagree, and respecting them. It means pugnaciously tearing into the other side with logic and facts. When George W. Bush has tried too hard to seem “Presidential” and “dignified” and “above the fray” his approval ratings almost always dropped. Why are our candidates seeking to repeat that mistake?
In fact, virtually the only sustained rise in Bush’s approval ratings not related to a terrorist attack or a war came during the 2004 campaign, the time when he appeared the least Presidential, the time when he tried hardest to appeal to us as a regular guy, the time he wasn’t afraid to confront — even ridicule — his opponents.
Take note, Governor Romney. Decorum is highly overrated. I don’t want a President who’s Presidential. I want a President who fights. Especially when we are at war.
Tagged: debate grassroots online politics youtube
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Is the Press Out for McCain?
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 12th, 2007 3:52 pmThe folks in Crystal City are pushing back hard with Marc Ambinder’s “McCain-isn’t-dead-yet” meme. Townhall’s Matt Lewis makes note of it here.
They’ll get no argument from me that media narratives, especially in primaries, are fickle and can turn on a dime. I can see where McCain is a tad undervalued on Intrade. I can see where he makes a comeback, particularly with his residual strength in some of the early states. Ambinder has placed his chips on McCain as John Kerry ‘04 — a campaign of the living dead that rallies back to win Iowa and virtually everything else.
Like the Dems in 2004, the field is very unsettled, so it’s not impossible. But it’s less likely than Kerry ‘04. Unlike Kerry, McCain doesn’t just have the unstable Howard Dean to climb over. He has Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney. All of whom are very skilled politicians. Against any one of them, you might give McCain better than even money. Against all three, in the war for “Who has the Big Mo?” McCain would have to hit the jackpot.
The McCain-dead-pool narrative, though overplayed, does at least follow the fundamentals of McCain’s bid, in that McCain can’t seem to break 20% nationally no matter what the configuration of the field. As I noted before, when Rudy announced he popped. When Fred announced, he popped. Romney is popping after the debates. But when McCain announced, he went sideways, which I think reflects a fundamental lack of interest and enthusiasm for the man among Republican voters.
McCain may be better off than most in that if his tide does come in, his opponents’ first tier defenses (IA, NH, SC) crumble first. But his tide is receding, which makes it only a matter of time before McCain’s strong points are subject to the same flight. (It was once thought that money and organization were McCain strengths, but no more.) If everyone else is leaving the party, how likely is it that Granite Staters would buck the trend and stick around?
It’s a long campaign. Will one or two of Big Four implode? That’s likely. But McCain would need three out of the four to implode (assuming, of course, he’s not one of them).
Tagged: john mccain
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Chuck Hagel’s Primary Challenger
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 11th, 2007 10:54 am
Kos is wondering why no one is talking about Chuck Hagel’s primary challenger.
I’d be happy to oblige.
Chuck Hagel has drawn a serious primary challenger. His name is Jon Bruning, Nebraska’s attorney general. His website is here. If you’re so inclined, you can contribute here.
Bruning is the youngest Attorney General in Nebraska history. He was first elected by a 2-to-1 margin in 2002 and was unopposed for re-election in 2006.
A poll in early May put Bruning’s favorable rating as higher than Hagel or Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey, a potential Democratic candidate:
Hagel’s 51 percent compared to 44 percent for Bush,54 percent for Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey — a potential Democratic Senatecandidate — 61 percent for Bruning and 70 percent for [Gov.] Dave Heineman.
Nebraska is one of the most bright red states in the country, and it’s unclear whether Fahey will run. Either way, it’s difficult to see the political wisdom of national Republicans getting involved to save Hagel. This is Nebraska, not Rhode Island, so you don’t need to nominate a particular type of Republican to win. And Bruning, the state’s popular Attorney General, would have a better chance in the fall than Hagel, who has forever alienated the party’s base. Ask Chafee and DeWine whether you can win without the base once Democrats smell blood.
For the NRSC, Chuck Hagel has to be seen as more Bob Smith than Lincoln Chafee. With a good alternative in the race, it’s time for national Republicans to tell Hagel that he’s on his own.
Tagged: chuck hagel jon bruning NE SEN
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ParkRidge47 Unmasked
by Patrick Ruffini :: March 22nd, 2007 8:27 amAs about the entire Western world knows by now, ParkRidge47, creator of the paradigm-shifting “Vote Different” video, is Philip de Vellis, who until last night was employed by Blue State Digital, Sen. Obama’s web strategists.
The revelation makes sense on a variety of levels.
Just look at the narrative of the ad: Hillary’s “conversation” is really a monologue. That’s true, but it’s hardly the stuff of 1,000 GRPs. I’ve written about it. But before this video, it wasn’t a message that resonated anywhere beyond the technoconsultant class. Lo and behold, the video hailed from that select group.
Look at the closing screen with BarackObama.com, which was practically a dead giveaway that this came from someone with an interest in the Obama campaign. It was specifically designed to drive traffic to the Obama site. “BarackObama.com” is in the same typeface as the campaign logo. And it’s exactly how any Web consultant would want their client’s URL displayed at the end of an ad.
de Vellis’ video was brilliant. He has a bright future ahead of him. But the current rules of the game are such that he had to be dismissed.
Now to a more fundamental question: Was “Vote Different” too good to be true?
The short answer is yes. It tends to support the belief that “voter-generated content” is still not at the point where something this devastating can be organically produced by an independent actor. (Even the “macaca” video was taped by an opponent’s tracker, and first released to the Washington Post, not YouTube.) Sure, it’s possible that this could have been an amateur activist. But I doubt there was one amateur activist in the United States who was this obsessed with that particular message with the skills to produce something like this. That’s why people go into politics.
At the same time, let’s not kid ourselves. Professional political operatives and the online political class are slowly converging. I am on record as saying that in the closing days of the ‘04 election, guys like Geraghty, Jay Cost, and the RealClearPolitics team knew just as much about the state of the race as did I, a mid-level staffer in Bush-Cheney headquarters. Change a few slight things about where de Vellis sits, and this video can be seen in a very different light. This video wasn’t produced by an amateur, but the increasing viability of establishing oneself in the online political sphere makes it likely that future videos will be. And this unauthorized activity is certainly coming to have a decisive impact, per Fineman.
Tagged: barack obama blue state digital online politics philip de vellis video
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Campaigns Aren’t Conversations
by Patrick Ruffini :: February 20th, 2007 11:50 pm“Campaigns are conversations.” If I hear this one more time, I swear my head is going to explode. Campaign 2008 already has its most overused cliche, at least among us techie types.
“Let the conversation begin,” blares Hillary Clinton’s Web site. “Start the conversation,” says Chris Dodd’s. “This campaign is about YOU,” proclaims Barack Obama’s. Jeff Jarvis has a new blog on Presidential video dedicated to the Platonic ideal of campaigns as a neverending bull session with the voters.
Problem is, I don’t get the point of this exactly. At some level, this seems like no more than a basic transposition of Doc Searls’ “markets are conversations,” which is brilliant as applied to business because markets are inherently leaderless. It’s trickier to apply this pure and abstract ideal to politics where the voice of the people matters but where voters can and do evaluate candidates as leaders who stand on principle and don’t just do things because they’re popular.
On another level, I don’t see how any of this is new. The ideals of candidates listening to voters, answering questions, or holding town halls where even hostile questioners get their say isn’t exactly new. Politics in America has featured some element of conversation since right about the Boston Tea Party, and Iowa and New Hampshire living rooms are arguably pretty darn representative. Candidates who don’t have some sense of how to interact with regular people usually face prospects far worse than an unfavorable review on TechPresident. It’s called losing.
Candidates need to know how to converse. But they also need to know how to lead. They need to be able to stand on principle, even if that means telling everyone that they’re conversing with, “Sorry, but you’re wrong.” When America is under attack, I don’t want my President to have a conversation with me. I want him to lead.
Ronald Reagan, JFK, and FDR inspired the country with soaring rhetoric that belied the latter’s casual-sounding Fireside Chats. In the history books, they stand in marked contrast to conversational leaders like Bill Clinton, who wasn’t exactly known as a man of bold principle. Last November, I was on a panel with Robert Moran of StrategyOne, who remarked that Reagan would have made a great Internet candidate. I couldn’t agree more. Why? Because he genuinely inspired us. He came up from the people, not from Washington. And yet Reagan was the master of the set piece, not the conversation. His radio addresses that made him President and his greatest speeches once he got there were not the product of a conversation or a committee, but lonely brilliance jotted down on yellow legal pads.
In the age of new media, the worst thing someone can be guilty of is being inauthentic. That’s not exactly a new insight either, but the YouTubeization of politics amplifies a candidate’s past twists and contradictions many times over. That means you don’t have a “conversation” with someone that’s really a monologue. Most of Hillary Clinton’s invitations to “chat” are immediately followed by a fade to black. Faking a conversation is worse than not having one at all.
I’m involved in online politics because I think the Internet can help unpack the spin, get smart people involved who wouldn’t otherwise played a role, and show candidates as they really are, through a medium that’s truer and more expansive than 30-second ads or 8-second soundbites. The first rule of thumb governing all of this is don’t ever try and be something you’re not. If your candidate is a man of deep conviction with a clear sense of what they want to accomplish, don’t pretend they are going to lead by plebiscite and practice democracy by Web chat.
Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t think candidates should live in bunkers (because if you do, you lose). Blogs, wikis, social media, wisdom of crowds — all of that, I’m there. But at some point the conversation has to end and leadership has to start. I want candidates who are real, and tell me stuff I don’t already know — not just what I want to hear.
And that’s ultimately the road this new therapeutic, conversational culture is leading us down: getting candidates to bend to the prevailing winds and hence not being leaders at all.
Tagged: conversation hillary clinton online politics ronald reagan strategy
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I’m Supporting Rudy
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 29th, 2007 12:36 pmAs The Fix reported last week, I have signed on to help with Rudy Giuliani’s presidential exploratory committee.
You can read about the mechanics of this a bit further down. But first, I thought I’d say a word or two about how I came to this point as a proud conservative Republican.
When it comes to choosing our next leader, we could do worse than looking to a strong executive with a proven track record. After 2006, we need an outsider, someone who doesn’t speak the language of Washington. In Mayor Giuliani I see my generation’s Ronald Reagan – a uniquely gifted leader who can both articulate and act on first principles
The War on Terror is the defining issue of our time as the struggle against Communism was in President Reagan’s. There is no one I would trust more to continue this fight. Mayor Giuliani’s understanding of the threat is not theoretical or abstract, not did it come in passing on one terrible day. It is visceral, direct, and rooted in thirty years of experience at the highest levels of Federal law enforcement and as the chief executive of the city on the front line of this war.
I lived near New York City through the early Giuliani years. I watched his winning 1993 campaign and how things seemed to change almost overnight when he took office. Nothing he accomplished in those years came through half-measures or trimming his sails. Even then, it warmed my heart to see conservative ideas being applied so clearly and directly to the toughest problems in America. And best of all, it worked. Second only to President Reagan’s two terms, it was quite possibly the best eight year run of any statesman in the last generation.
If you’re convinced, or even a little curious, I hope you’ll join me in signing up as a supporter on JoinRudy2008.com. This is important.
Going forward, I’ll be working as a consultant on new media strategy. This blog will be one of many places that I hope to carry on this discussion. I’m not being paid to blog – but when it’s warranted, I won’t be afraid to state the case. And I’ll do it in an intellectually honest and rigorous way. Everything I’ll write here is exactly what would I write as a volunteer supporter.
I’m truly excited about what 2008 will bring. This will be the cycle that new media really makes it mark. And I hope you’ll join in. If you’re a blogger who’s interested in joining Team Rudy, please leave a trackback to this post or shoot me an email and I’ll be sure to include you.
Tagged: 2008 announcements rudy giuliani
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Asymmetric Warfare and the Way Forward
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 10th, 2007 11:09 pmForgive me for broadening the discussion a bit, but today it felt like we saw the War on Terror come full circle.
Early in the day brought word that we had possibly nabbed one of the bad guys in a Somalia strike. It’s a reminder of everything the War on Terror can be — the long arm of justice reaching and taking out evil from this life. And doing so with startling efficiency — a tribute to what asymmetric warfare and just the right touch can do.
Tonight, we saw the President explain something more difficult — a challenge that will require boots on the ground — but one that will continue to keep the terrorists constantly on the run from Iraq to Somalia to tribal Pakistan.
This war isn’t just Iraq. It won’t be over with Iraq, even with victory in Iraq. Achieving that victory and future victories requires unbending will. What is happening in Iraq is a desperate final-ditch struggle by the jihadists to preserve what influence they have left in a new Iraq. That struggle has exacted a painful toll — one that makes clear just how much al-Qaeda fears our success.
My bottom-line thinking about this war remains: “If they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.” The country needed to be brought closer to recognizing this, and that’s what the President did tonight.
Tagged: bush iraq somalia war on terror
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The Machine Whirs Back to Life
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 3rd, 2007 12:00 amIt’s time I dusted off the cobwebs and turned the lights back on.
PatrickRuffini.com is once again opening up its doors. I know I say that quite a lot, as this is only the third iteration of the site to come back after various sabbaticals. But take a quick tour, and you’ll see a site rebuilt and reengineered for the long haul. These are interesting times. And the blogosphere is where the fight will be waged, and won.
So, what’s new?
This site is now home to three new blogs. This one, On the Side (in the box off to the right), and Overclocked, a blog about all the latest happenings in technology. I’ve never been one to clutter my blog with miscellany and breaking news. Now I don’t have to. The homepage will carry in-depth political analysis, spotlighted front-and-center; On the Side will carry the stuff that’s catching my interest right now with minimal commentary; Overclocked is for you if your definition of the Big Three is Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. You can subscribe to my main feed right here or submit your e-mail address at the very top of this page to get the daily e-mail.
The 2008 Presidential Wire has been completely rebuilt. It was only the past couple of months that I rediscovered how smartly the community is driving it. Almost always, the most clicked-on articles are the most interesting ones. I got to thinking about how to better spotlight the hot articles, how to make sure you know what’s going on the instant you hit the page. I’ve settled upon a two-column design with popular stories on the left and latest stories on the right, with the headlines growing bigger as the stories grow more popular. Your feedback on this one is greatly appreciated, and I’ll be making some tweaks in response to how you all are actually using it.
And that’s just the beginning.
Also: don’t be shocked if there’s a dash or two of ‘08 commentary on the horizon.
Tagged: politics
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The Books I Read in 2006
by Patrick Ruffini :: December 28th, 2006 9:39 pmStealing a page from Auren Hoffman, here’s a list of the books I read in 2006. I’m calling myself out. It’s a skimpy list — 18 books. (Flipping through dead tree matter is the first casualty of the RSS reader.) I think I will take Auren’s advice and listen to more books this year — being away from a computer actually forces me to do it. The really good ones are in bold-ital.
The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright (currently reading)
Naked Conversations, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
Reagan in His Own Voice, edited by Kiron Skinner, Martin Anderson, and Annelise Anderson
Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Maubourgne
The Way to Win, by Mark Halperin and John Harris
Applebee’s America, by Matthew Dowd, Douglas Sosnik, and Ron Fournier
The Elephant in the Room, by Ryan Sager
Voting to Kill, by Jim Geraghty
In Defense of the Religious Right, by Patrick Hynes
Strategery, by Bill Sammon
The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
An Army of Davids, by Glenn Reynolds
Crashing the Gate, by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga
Politics Lost, by Joe Klein
The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowieki
The Google Story, by David Vise and Mark Malseed
Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
Has political writing gone downhill? All my favorites this year were business/trends books (though admittedly, I’m skimming the cream of the crop here). The Way to Win was solid, though I suspect 2008 will change things in ways the authors don’t anticipate. Read together, the Sager/Geraghty/Hynes trio is a good primer on the tripartite Republican coalition (economic/national security/social). And though thoroughly afflicted with MSMness, Joe Klein’s book is a good look at authenticity in politics, which I think is making a comeback.
What were your favorite books in the last year?
Tagged: books
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