LAUNCH: New Web Site for US Senate Candidate David Hoffman

Today I launched a new Web site for US Senate candidate David Hoffman.

Here’s the blog post I wrote for the launch:

October 27, 2009

Tour Our New Web Site

Today we launched our new campaign Web site. Here’s a look at the features and content. Most importantly, we’d like invite you to contribute to it in meaningful ways.

David on the issues

We’ve heard from lots of voters that they’re ready to back a candidate that is not associated with politics as usual, but they want to hear more about what he’ll do as our next Senator. Here’s what David has to say about Financial Regulation, Health Care, and many more important issues of the day. If there is an issue that you believe should be addressed, write to us at info@hoffmanforillinois.com.

See David on video

David has been storming the state and appearing on television, talking about the issues and letting people know where he stands. If you want to get to know more about David, you can see him talking on Chicago’s West Side about how he has fought gun violence, talking to Champaign County Democrats about corruption in Illinois, and an interview with Carol Marin on Chicago Tonight.

Join the conversation with Twitter

Lots of campaigns tweet, with one-way posts that link to press releases. We see that Twitter can be an essential source for organized discussion on the Web. We highlight three types of tweets right on our homepage– from the campaign, what people are saying in the #hoffman4IL hashtag, and what people are asking using @hoffman4IL. This allows anyone on Twitter to publish directly to our the bottom of every page on our Web site, including the homepage. If you don’t have a Twitter account or have any idea what it is, they have a great video and other helpful information on their site. Please note that we welcome all voices here, but we won’t tolerate hateful, violent, spam, or otherwise off-topic tweets. Don’t worry– if we remove your right to publish to our site, you’ve still got the whole rest of the World Wide Web to work with. We’re interested in hearing about the issues that matter to you and other Illinoisans. Please join us!

Flickr feed

We think we’ve integrated our Flickr account pretty nicely. We plan more ways to show support for David and engage photographers from all over Illinois in the future. We’re a member of Illinois-oriented photo groups on Flickr like Enjoy Illinois.

Facebook

One of the challenges for a campaign like ours is getting the word out about David. The more people know about him, the more they like him. So if you visit our site and are signed in to Facebook, you may see people you know who support the campaign. Join them on Facebook now.

In real life

We know that the world doesn’t begin and end on the Internet. Our Web site is just one tool for us in winning the election in February. We need your help– here on the Web, door-to-door, person-to-person. Please volunteer to help out in any way you can.

Contact us

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me at any time– danx@hoffmanforillinois.com.

Daniel X. O’Nei
lNew Media Director
Hoffman for Illinois

And a pretty comprehensive blog post covering a major new feature:

Adventures In Campaign Twittering

by Josh Kalven on October 29, 2009 – 10:24am

As some may have noticed, our campaign coverage has taken a back-seat to some other issues in the past month. Expect it to ramp back up at the beginning of next week.In the meantime, those interested in the intersection of social media and political campaigns should check out a feature on U.S. Senate David Hoffman’s newly-redesigned website.

First some background: From a technological standpoint, one of the notable aspects of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was the large user community that sprung up around its website, my.barackobama.com. Millions of users regularly flocked there because the campaign allowed them to actually publish blog posts and interact with each other on the site.

Now, in the wake of his victory, lower-level campaigns are wondering how they can build similar engagement online. Most don’t have the resources to moderate the type of community built by Obama’s new media team. Moreover, there just isn’t the same degree of interest in congressional or statewide races as you see during a presidential campaign.

So what other options are out there?

Many campaigns are actively using Twitter to keep followers up-to-speed on the latest developments (see Alexi Giannoulias, Cheryle Jackson, and Dan Hynes as prime examples on the Democratic side). Now, with his new website, Hoffman is trying to up the ante by encouraging and exposing the interaction that happens on Twitter.

Towards the bottom of his homepage, his campaign has devoted an entire horizontal section to 1) tweets from the @hoffman4IL account, 2) tweets about Hoffman using the #hoffman hashtag, and 3) replies to his account for other users.What this means is that anyone with a Twitter account can write a message (assuming it is within the realm of civil discourse) that appears on the Hoffman homepage. They just have to reply to his account or use the #hoffman hashtag. Already one user has asked about Hoffman’s position on the “responsibility to encourage and fund the arts.” And they received a response within an hour.It’s a creative idea and something to keep an eye on.

Here’s some more coverage:

David Hoffman On the Series of Tubes IL-SEN Thu Oct 29 2009

The Illinois techie-political blogosphere is abuzz about former Chicago Inspector General and current US Senate candidate David Hoffman’s new website redesign, which includes the ability for users to post directly to the candidate’s website through Twitter hash tags–it also looks pretty damn good. Head over and check it out.

That sort of interactivity, which the Obama campaign allowed with its user pages (“demmynerd.barackobama.com”) is going to be both a major innovation and a major challenge for campaigns from here on out. How do you allow for the public to interact and take some ownership of the site without risking losing control, getting off message, or getting high jacked? Looks like the Hoffman campaign is interested in testing those waters. Good for them.