It increasingly looks like Barack Obama is going after bigger and bigger stakes — and (hopefully) a bigger and bigger win. After recently putting down no less than $2 million on 30 minutes of airtime on CBS and NBC, it’s just been confirmed that Obama has released what appears to be the first in-game political advertisement. You can find the ad while playing Electronic Arts’ “Burnout Paradise” on XBox 360. National Public Radio also reported this morning that the Obama campaign is “running ads in 18 video games, targeting 10 states that allow early voting.”
The ad features the visage of the junior senator from Illinois, and has the text “Early Voting Has Begun/Voteforchange.com/Paid for by Obama for President.” It appears in the game just as a billboard would on a highway.
The company won’t say how much the Obama campaign paid for the pleasure.
“There are many advantages to in-game advertising,” Electronic Arts spokesperson Jeff Brown wrote me in an e-mail.
“We’re in close contact with a well-defined demographic — young people (mostly males) aged 15 to 35. Our average customer is a 27-year-old male. And where television and radio use interstitials that interrupt the consumer experience for an advertisement, in-game advertising puts the promotion directly into the content. We stream the ads onto billboards that players see in cityscapes, a stadium, etc. They don’t have to stop the action, to see the ad.”
He added that the Obama ad is the first political ad the company has run in a game, but “we wouldn’t hesitate to run ads from other candidates.”
Under what criteria could an ad appear in an E.A. game?
“There are many details, but basically if it’s a a spot for a legal business and doesn’t violate profanity restrictions, we run it,” he wrote.
So how do video gamers respond to the ad? I checked in with Justin McElroy, an editor at Joystiq, a popular video-game blog. In an IM interview, he told me: “I think this is one of those cases where the medium really is the message. I think, on some level, gamers will respond to a candidate who took the time and money to put an ad in their game. It also shows me that Obama’s got some pretty tech savvy people on the team.”
Indeed it does. I know that from a tech perspective I’ve been constantly impressed with how Obama’s been able to tap the tech crowd. McElroy also pointed out the fact that Obama made a virtual appearance in “Second Life” last year — certainly the only candidate to appeal directly to the online furry community.
Other experts, like Davis Houck, a professor of communications at Florida State University, agreed. He wrote me in an e-mail that this new in-game ad would only help Obama further.
“I think it says loudly and clearly that [Barack Obama] is hip, knows his target audience’s tastes in entertainment and technology, and, contra [John McCain], he actually does know how to use a computer, operate a Play Station, and joust in the hyper-mediated realities of 21st century America,” he wrote. “In brief, this is more cultural capital he’s accruing with the younger set — the group which will put him over the top in three weeks.
“The ad’s placement is basically a part of a much larger mosaic that BO has attempted to draw. Whether it’s shooting hoops (and well), texting the country of his Veep choice (at an ungodly hour), and not being a square when it comes to pop culture more generally, this ad is in perfect keeping with his campaign’s sensibilities. Perhaps we can coin a phrase and call it ‘San Andreas Populism‘?”
That works for me. Let’s just hope that more of my 20-something generation gets off their collective video-game-playing butts and actually goes to the polls, or votes early by mail.
This election has been full of superlatives and firsts. I’ve never been prouder to be an American abroad than right now. The historic rise of this unlikely candidate, in the unlikely story that is America, fueled by this unlikely swelling of the online masses donating in unprecedented numbers, is nothing short of historic and astonishing.
But there were also a few troubling episodes on the technological front, with text messages and e-mails being used as a way to perpetuate false information.
Wired reported late last night that voters in Florida and New Mexico received a fake text message from 505-507-6041 that says things like: “Due to long lines if you are voting for Barack Obama you can vote tomorrow,” or “Due to the long lines today, all Obama voters are asked to vote on Wednesday.”
The AP adds that there have been reports of similar “robo-calls” and fake texts in Missouri and that the Missouri secretary of state and U.S. Attorney’s Office have been notified. I’m glad that this wasn’t widespread enough to have made a difference, but it’s still a troubling development.
But that’s not all. Thousands of students at George Mason University received an e-mailspoofed to look like it was from Provost Peter N. Stearns saying that “election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.” Apparently the FBI is on the case.
Still, we as a country really need to have a single standard for federal elections, get rid of these awful e-voting machines, and streamline this whole process so we don’t have to deal with this kind of crap anymore.
On a more personal and professional note, I share with you the news that this is my last post in Machinist, which is going on hiatus beginning tomorrow.
I thank all of you for reading and for your thoughtful and critical comments. If you’d like to follow me and/or any of my other work on public radio or elsewhere, you can do so on my blog: cyrusfarivar.com (where I’ll be announcing the result of our little trial voter-verified election), and/or you can email me at cfarivar [at] cfarivar [dot] org.
Among the wackiest technologies that I’ve seen during this election night is CNN’s hologram technology — something that was predicted back in the Star Wars era.
There’s not much info as to exactly how this stuff works, other than what USA Today has reported:
CNN will have 44 cameras and 20 computers in each remote location to capture 360-degree imaging data of the person being interviewed. Images are processed and projected by computers and cameras in New York. There’ll also be plasma TVs in Chicago and Phoenix that will let the people being interviewed see Blitzer and other CNN correspondents. Bohrman says the network can project two different views from each city so Blitzer can appear to be in the studio with two holograms.
Jessica Yellin was the first CNN reporter to be “beamed” to the New York newsroom, where Wolf Blitzer interviewed her — and she reported that there were only 35 cameras pointed at her, and that “talk to the cameras in New York.” Apparently representatives in the Obama campaign in Chicago and the McCain campaign in Phoenix will be interviewed as holograms later in the evening.
It’s still unclear who makes this hologram technology, nor how much it costs, nor how exactly it works — nor when I’m going to get it in my house. Man, and I was just getting used to Skype video chat. Still, scope out the video below.
At the risk of being a bit premature, I decided to poke around the Internet to find what tunes I could spin to spice up my Obama victory party tonight. After consulting Wired, About.com and this massive list on YouTube, I’ve come up with my Top 10 Obama songs:
This is without a doubt the best Obama song that I’ve seen so far. It’s got catchy lyrics — Viva Obama! — snappy outfits, a line about healthcare, and that female violin player? Muy caliente!
Jamaican reggae star Coco Tea recorded this tune earlier this year, earning a small writeup in the Jamaica Observer at the time.
As he told the newspaper:
“If you notice, Obama is getting a lot of support from the young people, and when the younger generation begin to call for change, it usually comes, as they and the future, and Obama’s future is in their hands. Support for Obama is also coming from other quarters including the Kennedy family, as he is seen as the man with a plan, therefore I was guided by Jah on this one.”
This tune comes to us from Cameroon, and if you believe what the Docta says on his Web site: “The video has quickly becomed a big hit on Youtube.” Indeed.
Mighty Sparrow is the world’s leading calypso singer, hailing from the island of Grenada. Cop a read on the lyrics over here — I’m sure this is the first time that the phrase “Foreign Relations Committee” has worked its way into a calypso song.
This song debuted just two days ago at a rally in Cleveland, so if you drop this joint at your fiesta, you’ll definitely be about 75 percent as cool as the Boss himself.
Although college a capella may get mocked on Stuff White People Like, this cover of the famed will.i.am song is perfectly pulled off by Barackapella, a group from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. (Also, don’t forget the parody, by john.he.is!)
If you’re like me, you’re going to spend Election Night pretty much glued to the Internet, waiting for news to pop up wherever it might — on Twitter, blogs, YouTube and, yes, that good ol’ stalwart, the mainstreammedia. Usually I don’t watch television, but there are a few instances — like today — when I actually do want to watch something like CNN with the graphics, the analysis, the whole shebang. Further, I’m abroad, so it’s not like I can simply hop over to my local bar to watch election results (here’s a handy map showing when the polls close). So where can I go to watch live coverage online?
CNN is offering live coverage here and here. I’ve also found CBS‘s coverage to be working well so far — as of this writing, CBS has a camera trained (sans commentary) on a gym in Chicago where Obama is voting. (See photo at top.)
Oh yeah, and don’t forget about the ever-reliable C-SPAN.
Apparently ABC and MSNBC will be offering live coverage online as well, but I haven’t been able to find the respective sites yet.
There’s also this gray-market online streaming site, Channel Chooser, which offers both American channels and foreign ones, including BBC, France 24, Al Jazeera English and Sky News Australia.
Alley Insider has a bunch of live feeds from the McCain and Obama camps and some conservative Christian groups as well.
The New York Times has built a neat little election dashboard that updates every two minutes, and Google has gotten in on the action with its own map-based results page.
The French seem to be all over all kinds of new, far-reaching digital policy.
First, the French Senate “voted overwhelmingly” (297-15) late last week to create a sort of digital three strikes law, which after the third strike, would cut people off from the Internet. It’s not entirely clear how a law like this would be enforced, especially considering the fact that people can access the Internet from home, from their workplace, and also from free, public Wi-Fi hot spots, not to mention at other locations such as a public library.
The bill now heads to the French National Assembly for final approval.
If enacted, the law will put France on a collision course with Brussels, which rejected a call to impose such “three strikes” laws across Europe in April 2008.
Throwing people offline, it said, conflicted with “civil liberties and human rights”.
Second, late last month Eric Besson, a Sarkozy cabinet minister in charge of the “development of the digital economy,” presented a new 81-page Digital Plan 2012 for France, which apparently was one of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign promises.
If enacted, this would be one of the most ambitious technological policy plans in Western Europe in recent years. (And while I don’t mean to harp on Estonia, the Baltic powerhouse has had a few of these items, like digital ID cards and health records, for some time now.)
Among other things, the report says that “high-speed Internet,” like water and electricity , is “essential.” And as such, 2 million to 4 million French citizens are without it — and the government needs to work such that by 2010, every single citizen has 512 kbps that costs no more than 35 euros per month. Further, every French citizen should have access to high-speed mobile Internet as well, which only covers 85 percent of the citizenry as of today.
Other proposals include:
- allowing the old analog television signals to be opened up to wireless and mobile Internet access.
- an electronic national identity card for each citizen starting in 2009 (Estonia already has this).
- a doubling of cyber-crime law enforcement agents by 2012
- the promotion of telecommuting in the public sector
- a digital medical file for each citizen by 2012
- a Green IT and Cleantech prize
- a migration away from the American-dominated ICANN toward a more multilateral and international organization to run the infrastructure of the Internet.
As of yet, this remains but a proposal — but an interesting and ambitious one — and if Sarkozy is serious about keeping his campaign promise, especially while France holds the the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of the year, it could be a boon to France.
