Internet Marketing & Advertising

We’ve gotten a great response from people who want to help out with the political site, so thanks! One of the first orders of business for the project is to decide on a name/domain. If anyone has any ideas, please post them here or send me an email at michael at campaignstream dot com. We welcome any idea, even bad ones. Domains that are already registered can be listed as well. Some may be parked and available for purchase, or will spark ideas for alternates.

Here’s a starter list, as well as keyword prompts. Ideally we’d get the com, org, and net to protect branding:

• redpurpleblue
• redorblue
• redbluepurple
• obamaormccain
• whatsyourcolor
• truecolor
• truthhasnocolor

red, blue, purple, mccain, obama, elephant, donkey, vote, side, truth, bias, bent, slant, poll, decision…

We already have a few people signed up to help and we’re working on the plan for putting together the team, figuring out who else we need, divvying up the tasks, and fine tuning the concept.
 
Here’s who’s signed up so far:
 
Joe D. - He specializes in user interface design, flash, and project management
 
John F. - He can handle technical tasks like Flash, UI dev, backend dev, etc
 
Oscar T. - Interface & Logo Design
 
Donald W. - He can handle UI Development, backend dev, and help w/ IA
 
Armando G. - Will assist with developing the concept into a user friendly but interesting form to have people not only come in but share with their friends.
 
Luis M. - Has a degree in government, and keeps an eye on several political websites. He’ll help with gathering facts on both sides and keeping it fair and balanced.
 
Vidya A. - Will help w/ development and marketing
 
Veronica Jorden - She will help gather content and quiz questions, get permission, etc
 
Rich Harrell - Videography and editing, has all lighting, audio and video equipment
 
Mandi Leman - Assist with wireframe & interface design, user experience design, and marketing plan (would love help w/ all of these!)
 
We still need:
 
Project Manager
Fact Finders/Info Gatherers (from other quizzes)
Information Architect
User Interface Designer
User Experience
Developers
Flash Designer/Developer
Writer
Bloggers
Marketing Pros
Videographer & Editor Help
After Effects for video
Script Writer for video clips
Actor/Actress to explain what each issue is about for the video clips
 
If you’d like to be a part of the team let me know and I’ll set you up with a Basecamp account to access the project, if you’d like to just peek in and see what we’re up to you can login at https://mediarich.projectpath.com username: campaign password: 2008
 
This is what was posted in Basecamp today:
 
In order to know who all we need on the team, we need to know what platform it’ll be built on. I was imagining that we’d have the interface created in flash so that it’s very tactile, easy to use, and most of all entertaining so that it’s more likely to go viral.
 
Most of the quiz sites I’ve seen are dry and boring and some look intimidating and probably scare people away from taking it. I was thinking something along the lines of Indecision2008 Quiz but not silly so that it’s taken seriously… I’m not married to it being in flash, so please tell me your thoughts.
 
User Experience Ideas:

• I was imagining we’d show only one question at a time
• Up front we’d ask them if they were to vote now, who would it be for. This way we can track how many people ended up different than they thought – this will be a very interesting stat.
• You’d have a sliding scale of sorts to answer the question according to how strongly you agree/disagree or if you are neutral
• There would be an option to watch a video that describes each issue in a non-partisan way so that people can understand the issue before answering
• I’d like to have as few questions as possible in order to get an initial result, you could either abandon at that point or keep answering more questions to get into more depth – like how will each of their plans impact you directly (we’ll need to discuss how we’d get this data – but, the more personalized the data, based on their situation, the better)
• In the end, would be neat to allow them to add their color (red, magenta, purple, indigo, blue) flag to a US map – i’m open to other ways to show where you stand other than color… It just seems to lend itself well since there is a gradient between stark red and blue.
• There would definitely need to be a way to forward it to a friend
• I’d like the user to have the ability to post their results on their myspace, facebook, and other social media sites – maybe create an icon for their twitter account… Also, website badges linking to the app would be good… iPhone tie in – lots of possibilities here…
• They could opt in to receive new questions based on new events and speeches. By answering those new questions, their color may shift some.

These are just some initial thoughts. I’m anxious to hear your ideas. Some of the bells and whistles like the video, ability to add to facebook, etc can be added in later. I’d like to get something out there as a beta asap.
 
Based on the above requirements and other concepts you all may have, please let me know what all tech people we’ll need. The idea is to get enough people on the team so that not one person is having to do too much, but not so many people that we’re stepping on each others toes… So, please try to get the word out so we can find more people to help us get this going!
 
Even if you don’t have the time to create the actual site, we’d love your ideas to make this a great site and make it viral.  Please send us any comments, suggestions, or ideas!