Speaking as someone whose political views are decidedly left, I never thought I'd say this, but would Moveon.Org just put a plug in it already?
As an Internet phenomenon, MoveOn certainly demonstrated how to mobilize public opinion. Indeed, the organization, founded in 1998 by a married couple of nouveau-riche techies, Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, acquitted itself well during the Monica Lewinsky uproar.
Unlike a sadly servile mainstream media, which insisted upon playing to the lowest common denominator, a spunky MoveOn appeared seemingly out of nowhere to rally online opposition to the sham taking place in Washington.
But no matter what you thought about the nature of Bill Clinton's actions leading up to Lewinsky-gate, MoveOn's organizational activity represented a textbook example how civil society is supposed to function in a republic. This was interest group politics at its best--as American as apple pie and Federalist Paper No. 10.
MoveOn has played a big role in Congress' (still-to-be-decided) Net neutrality debate, while its pressure tactics also helped stoke opposition to Facebook's ill-considered
Even before then, my enthusiasm for MoveOn's shtick had begun to wane. I think it was the "
Nobody in this country should be above criticism--and that includes appointed military leaders. But the ad unfairly smeared Petraeus, a dedicated professional and one of the most capable U.S. officers ever to serve in Iraq. MoveOn's lame response was that the ad was "successful" in its intent. To wit: "Call the credibility of Petraeus' testimony into question. It garnered more coverage than any ad that MoveOn.org has run in years. Every time Republicans debated the ad, they helped raise questions around reliability of the General's report."
When I read that, I could only murmur sotto voce a disgusted, "you've got to be f---ing kidding me."
Now it's Obama-grams seemingly every day arriving in my inbox from the MoveOn crowd. Enough! I'll make up my own mind. Barack Obama's a fine candidate, but I think Hillary Clinton would make just as capable a 44th president.
Blades and Boyd made a bundle by convincing a sucker to pay millions for the flying toaster screen servers and other forgettable pop-culture bric-a-brac turned out by their company. But business savvy doesn't always translate into political acumen. (If they want to give me an argument, I'd only point to Dick Cheney's multimillion dollar payday from Halliburton as Exhibit A.)
Whether or not Facebook kills its much-derided Beacon program, the controversy surrounding intrusive marketing surveillance deserves to flourish.
You remember the old story about the frog placed in a pot of water that was slowly heated up, until it was cooked? When I read the about Facebook's reaction to the anti-Beacon protests, my first impression is that Facebook's concessions are essentially along the lines of, "OK, we turned up the heat a bit too much on this one, so we'll turn it back down a little bit--for now." Are marketers counting on the fact that we'll get used to the warm bath, then the hot tub, calibrating their fine-tuned ability to stop just short of the lobster pot?
CNN.com contributes a story, "Ad targeting improves as Web sites track consumer habits," which covers the Facebook issue among other case studies. Marketers are studying the sensitivity level of consumers to intrusive advertising and adjusting their programs accordingly. For example, CNN.com reports, "Most Web sites and marketers have been shunning the ultimate targeting--ads that greet you by name. Yahoo could easily do that using registration information, but 'I'm not sure people would like that or not,' said Richard Frankel, Yahoo's senior director of product marketing."
The CNN story continues:
"Users' comfort with data profiling has indeed shifted over the years. Google faced criticism when it introduced an e-mail service that paired ads with the words inside private messages. Millions of people now use Gmail with scarcely a blink.... Read moreUsers will eventually embrace the latest tactics, too--and by then, they'll complain about even deeper levels of intimacy yet to be invented, said Tracy Ryan, professor of advertising research at Virginia Commonwealth University
'You want to have enough targeting that a consumer notices the message and pays attention, but you don't want it to be so obvious that they are thinking (there) is targeting,' she said. 'That would be scary.'"
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