Net & Politics 2004 (Top 10)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2004
Contact: Phil Noble
Phil@PoliticsOnline.com
Telephone: 1 (843) 296-1490
or
David Abel
David@PoliticsOnline.com
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WINNERS ANNOUNCED!
5TH WORLD FORUM ON E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICSONLINE ANNOUNCE
THE 10 WHO ARE CHANGING THE WORLD OF INTERNET AND POLITICS
PARIS, France -- PoliticsOnline and the 5th World Forum on e-Democracy announces the results of its third world wide survey recognizing the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies that are having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.
In recent years, the Internet and burgeoning information technologies have inexorably altered our body politic, fundamentally changing the way we do democracy. On Wednesday, at the 5th Annual Worldwide Forum on Electronic Democracy, PoliticsOnline recognized the best of the best -- the innovators and pioneers who blaze the e-political trails.
The award selection process began in July, when PoliticsOnline asked it's 40,000 subscribers to name the people, organizations and companies that are changing the world of Internet and politics. The call yielded 292 nominations, 25 were then selected by a panel of experts for a final vote to award the top 10. There was a huge worldwide response garnering 19,662 votes.
"We are witnessing virtual revolutions in the way we do politics in the 21st century, and I'm proud to announce to the world the ideas and people that are leading these revolutions," said PoliticsOnline CEO Phil Noble, a guest speaker at the annual Worldwide Forum on Electronic Democracy. "With this announcement, we honor the most innovative ideas and the most influential individuals in the world of Internet and Politics.
"It gets more difficult every year to narrow down the list of nominations. The number of deserving nominees we received this year overwhelmed us. I would like to thank everyone who sent nominations or voted, and especially congratulate all those who were nominated," said Eric Legale, Director of the Forum. "As with any list of the best, debate is sure to follow. We certainly hope it will, and that the ongoing conversation about the Internet and politics is carried further."
Noble, PoliticsOnline and other PoliticsOnline affiliates were not eligible for recognition.
The following is an alphabetical listing of the top 10 winners, followed by 15 honorable mentions.
The Top 10
Al Jazeera
www.aljazeera.net
What began with the hiring of trained Arabic journalists, who had just been unemployed by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Saudi government almost 10 years ago is now a self-regulated online news powerhouse. Although plagued with controversy, to many Al Jazeera has been the symbol of free expression in the Middle East. The news site is now the world's foremost uncensored Arab news service. Since the War in Iraq, the news service has fought to stay online despite hackers and accusations.
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BBC News and iCan Team
news.bbc.co.uk
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website is arguably the leading global authority in political news and has continuously ventured farther into new online initiatives hoping to combat voter apathy by funding a new online experiment in grassroots activism. The iCan website helps citizens investigate issues that concern them, find others who share those concerns and provide advice and tools for organizing and engaging in the political process. The iCan site uses public forums to help connect like-minded citizens, and a "democracy database" packed with information on tips for grassroots campaigning and the legislative process.
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Bush e-campaign
www.GeorgeWBush.com
Led by e-campaign manager Chuck Defeo, the Bush-Cheney04 campaign has been responsible for numerous online innovations in campaigning. The GeorgeWBush website has been a model for online grassroots mobilization with the "Action Center" that provides online tools for supporters to get involved locally in the national campaign. The campaign has encouraged Campaign Finance transparency with a searchable online database of donors. It has also raised the bar in campaign communications outreach with its online chats and "web-video" political advertising.
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Dan Jellinek
www.headstar.com
Dan Jellinek is Editor of E-Government Bulletin, the first and best email service covering electronic public services, 'teledemocracy' and the information society in the UK and the world. The Bulletin is a free, independent publication, aimed at everyone in government, local government, the social sector and their private sector partners. Jellinek is co-Founder of the new media publisher and virtual policy think-tank Headstar. Dan's background is in journalism, writing about the effects of the Internet on society for the Guardian and BBC Online. He has written two books: Official UK: A guide to government web sites and your health and the Internet, the latter co-written with Dr Paul Lambden and Roy Lilley.
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Joe Trippi
www.joetrippi.com
Joe Trippi-heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who "reinvented campaigning"-was born in California and began his political career working on Edward M. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980. His work in presidential politics continued with the campaigns of Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt and Howard Dean. In 2004, he was National Campaign Manager for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, pioneering the use of online technology to organize what became the largest grassroots movement in presidential politics. Through Trippi's innovative use of the internet for small-donor fundraising, Dean for America ended up raising more money than any Democratic presidential campaign in history, all with donations averaging less than $100 each. Trippi's innovations have brought fundamental change to the electoral system and will be the model for how all future political campaigns are run.
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Kerry e-campaign
www.JohnKerry.com
The Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign has smashed online fundraising records never thought achievable in the 2004 elections. Though Howard Dean was largely responsible for proving small online contributions could successfully fund a campaign, the Kerry-Edwards04 campaign quickly passed the amount Dean's raised online, continuously breaking records raising over $5 million in 24 hours online. Kerry used the Internet to raise over $60 million online, one third of its total donations. The last day Kerry was legally allowed to accept contributions, his website took in over $5.7 million in online donations without server error or delay.
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Election-Europe
www.election-europe.com
Election Europe develops secure Internet voting systems by Internet (mode ASP) or Intranet for polling stations, enterprises, conferences and conventions. These services have flawlessly met the needs of professional elections including the elections of Committee Enterprise and Union delegates, Joint Administrative Committees, and for the Orders and Trade associations. The team has more than 20 years of experience in the electoral medium and technologies Internet and was a pioneer in developing the world's online primary election in Arizona, ICANN, EU-Student Vote, and other local elections in the United Kingdom.
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Liu Di A.K.A. Stainless Steel Mouse
Read about her here: www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FG22Ad04.html
Liu Di, is a prominent Chinese Internet dissident representing one of the many faces in an online revolution brewing in China. The a twenty-two year-old psychology major at Beijing Normal University, posts comments on Chinese Internet chatrooms, under the pen name "stainless-steel mouse." In 2001, she started her own a chatroom, "A Life Like Fire," in 2001 after police closed down one she preferred. Liu published several articles on the Xici on-line bulletin board that criticized government restrictions on the Internet. In 2002 she was imprisoned for allegedly criticizing the jailing of a well-known dissident, Huang Qi, and released from confinement in November 2003. Though she has already faced imprisonment, she still resumes her writing, speaking out against government corruption and calling for the release of other dissidents.
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MoveOn
www.moveon.org
The first online PAC, MoveOn.Org, gave us the earliest glimpse of the grassroots potential of the net to raise money and mobilize citizens to a cause. The International network now has more than 2,000,000 online activists and is one of the most effective and responsive outlets for democratic participation available today. In 2004 MoveOn has effectively used the web for online fundraising and mobilization in such a way it has became a household name. Zack Exley, an early team member of MoveOn.org, joined the Kerry Campaign as Director of Online Communications and Organizing, where he has help the campaign reach new heights in online activism.
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Ohmynews
english.ohmynews.com
Three years ago, a crew of four people quietly launched the South Korean "citizen journalism" Web site OhmyNews. Since then, the site's full-time staff has grown to 53 -- including 35 full-time reporters and editors -- and the number of "citizen reporters" writing for the site has grown from 700 to about 26,700. Citizen reporters submit about 200 articles every day, and about 1 million readers visit OhmyNews each day. The site mixes straight news reporting and commentary. Its influence at the grassroots level has been widely credited with helping President Roh Moo-hyun win the popular vote. San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Dan Gillmor wrote recently of the site: "OhmyNews is transforming the 20th century's journalism-as-lecture model -- where organizations tell the audience what the news is and the audience either buys it or doesn't -- into something vastly more bottom-up, interactive and democratic."
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Honorable Mentions
America Online
www.aol.com
Through the creation of comprehensive voter and government service guides - available to all online users, not just members - America Online (AOL) has helped to change the way in which the American electorate learns about and engages with politicians and the political process. Over 30 million voters have accessed their political content since the 2000 election. For the 2004 election season, the Election Guide is AOL News's overarching election product. President Match and AOL Straw Poll are separate tools that are designed to let users have fun while they either are learning about the political races or making choices related to them. These tools can be adapted to any content areas that involve multiple choices, especially complex ones.
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Bharatiya Janata Party
www.bjp.org
In February 2004, India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced the launch of an unprecedented e-campaign, forever changing the way Parties campaign in India, the world's largest democracy. The BJP used its proven organizing skills to embark on an e-campaign blitzkrieg to seek voters through telephones, television, radio and the Internet. During the campaign the BJP sent messages to almost 20 million e-mail addresses, nearly every e-mail address in the country, and electronically contacted an equal amount of mobile and land telephones.
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Franck Biancheri
www.europe2020.org
Franck Biancheri has been a successful European activist fighting for the democratization of the European Union for more than twenty years. Through his numerous exploits, Biancheri has demonstrated both his resolve and ability to further his cause and to reach out to people - the basis for any democratic campaign. His achievements include founding AEGEE-EUROPE, a student network that assembled over 12,000 members in its first three years of existence, creating the independent political party Initiative for a European Democracy (I.D.E.), launching and developing TIESWeb (the Transatlantic International Exchange System), the Newropeans Networks and the Europe 2020 Foundation.
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Blogger
www.blogger.com
Blogger, one of the most popular blog-building software companies in the world, focuses on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the world's information from the personal perspective. Blogger, now owned by Google, was started by a tiny company in San Francisco called Pyra Labs in August of 1999. Since Blogger was launched, almost five years ago, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others.
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Stephen Coleman
www.oii.ox.ac.uk
The world's first professorship in e-Democracy was recently appointed to Dr. Stephen Coleman by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). Until recently, Dr. Coleman was the Director of the e-Democracy program at the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government. In this position, he advised government and industry in the UK and throughout Europe on how to use the Internet and Web in ways that enable improved forms of political participation, such as by supporting better communication between and among citizens and parliamentarians on important policy issues. Professor Coleman was the pioneer of online consultations for the UK Parliament and also lectures in Media & Communication at the London School of Economics.
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Convio and Vinay Bhagat
www.convio.com
Vinay Bhagat is the founder and CEO of Austin-based Convio, the leading Constituent Relationship Management, or CRM, company serving the nonprofit sector. Convio's mission is to increase the effectiveness of how nonprofit organizations attract, engage and retain constituents to provide funding and other forms of support. Convio's software was used by a number of Presidential Candidates in the 2004 elections. Bhagat is a frequent speaker at national and regional nonprofit conferences on ePhilanthropy and advanced Internet technologies for nonprofits, Bhagat also is a widely published author.
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DailyKos.com - Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
www.dailykos.com
What began in May 2002 as a daily online rant for Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, has developed into a huge cult following and a pillar of the online Democrat community. In its first year, Daily Kos attracted over 1.6 million unique visits and about 3 million pageviews. It currently receives nearly four million unique visits per month. The success of DailyKos has spurred Moulitsas to also launch the Political State Report, a collaborative weblog (with over 100 contributors) tracking politics from all 50 states and OurCongress.org, a site tracking the nation's hottest races. Daily Kos was one of first ever bloggers credentialed to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention and has raised over $400,000 for Democratic candidates.
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Matt Drudge
www.DrudgeReport.com
Matt Drudge, the Internet's hottest scoopster and the one-man news bureau that broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal, runs the globally recognized website the Drudge Report focusing on political news and the business of Hollywood, where he exposed the Lewinsky scandal to the world. Drudge began 'The Drudge Report' in 1995 when he was managing the CBS studio gift shop and thought it would be an amusing hobby to use the Net to relay the gossip he overheard. Drudge's declared aim is to give 'the American people' the information he believes to be correct or important, and to revolutionize the media industry with a breath of fresh, young air. With the increasing use of the Internet as a news source for politics in 2004, Drudge's reach has expanded exponentially.
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John Hlinko
www.Grassroots.com
Long recognized as an innovator on the grassroots engagement front, John Hlinko has received numerous awards for his work and been covered by a range of media. Hlinko founded and led "DraftWesleyClark.com," one of the most successful grassroots movements in American political history. Following the successful effort, Hlinko was named as the Director of Internet Strategy for the Clark for President campaign. Hlinko was also the founder of a number of other creative grassroots efforts, including ActForLove.org, a dating site for activists. In 1998, he helped lead MoveOn.org, an anti-impeachment petition that generated over half a million signatures and several million dollars in donations.
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Joi Ito
joi.ito.com
Joichi Ito is in charge of international and mobility for Technorati and the founder, CEO of Neoteny, a venture capital firm that is the lead investor in Six Apart, and is on the board of Creative Commons. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time Magazine ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the "50 Stars of Asia" by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow" for 2002. He was appointed as a member of Howard Dean's Net Advisory Net during the Dean campaign.
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Howard Kaloogian
www.MoveAmericaForward.org
Howard Koolgian, Chairman of Move America Forward and former California State Assemblyman, made history when he launched the Recall Gray Davis Committee, an on and off-line effort which ousted Democrat Governor Gray Davis from office and resulted in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor's office. Davis was the first statewide elected official recalled in California's history. Kaloogian also led the Defend Reagan Committee another successful merging of and offline efforts, where hundreds of thousands of Reagan supporters across America to fight against what was called a smear campaign waged against Reagan by CBS, Viacom and Showtime with their anti-Reagan production, "The Reagans." So many Reagan supporters flooded the offices of CBS and their sponsors with complaints that the movie was cancelled on network television.
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Meetup.com
www.Meetup.com
What started as a way to organize a local gathering of people on a global level, has become the key tool in building online support for politicians in the US. Meetup is an advanced technology platform and global network of local venues that helps people self-organize local group gatherings on the same day everywhere. Meetups take place in up to 651 cities in 61 countries at local cafés, restaurants, bookstores, and other local establishments. Over1.3 million people have already signed up for MeetUps to discuss over 4,000 topics. Currently over 500,000 people worldwide use MeetUp's for politics and activism.
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RightMarch.com
www.rightmarch.com
RightMarch.com is an umbrella website for many conservative organizations, as well as thousands of hardworking, patriotic Americans across the United State. It's goal is to counter the well-financed antics of radical left-wing groups like MoveOn.org, by appealing to the grassroots "silent majority" to take action -- contacting government and business leaders; placing newspaper, radio and television ads; and holding the Left accountable for their anti-American antics. RightMarch.com is led by long-time conservative activists William Greene and Phil Sheldon; they've combined their years of expertise in online and offline political activism and fundraising to birth the most dynamic conservative grassroots movement ever seen online.
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André Santini
www.andre-santini.net
In the mid 1990s, when the Internet was not yet prevalent throughout Europe, Mayor Andre Santini thought of his city not just as a suburb in France, or even a city in Europe. He envisioned it as a leader in a huge, fast-moving, high-tech world; and he began taking major strides toward that vision. When it comes to information technology, the Paris suburb, Issy-les-Moulineaux, is now the most advanced city in France - and it's getting a lot of attention around the world. Santini is also president of the Global Cities Dialogue, a worldwide network of cities, which are interested in creating an information society free of digital divide and based on sustainable development.
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True Majority
truemajority.org
True majority has successfully used web savvy viral marketing campaigns to sign up over 435,000 subscribers. Through short e-mail alerts True Majority explains what's going on in Washington often asking members to send a free e-fax to their Congresspeople using their technology to generate a fax for members and send it for them. TrueMajority's has also launched the "Computer Ate My Vote" campaign to protect the integrity of America's elections by working with grassroots activists across the U.S., urging state election officials to prohibit the use of computerized voting machines until they are proven safe and have a way to run reliable recounts.
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