I really can't help myself from posting this video. A friend sent it to me and I just embarrassed myself by laughing out loud for minutes at work. It is very funny but also a bit disturbing. I hope you enjoy it.

Web video and the power of user-generated content created by cheap digital tools has taken the political world by storm in recent weeks. With that in mind, The New Politics Institute partnered with PoliticsTV.com and created a new kind of think tank product that we're calling a "video report." We've created a web video that gives an overview of the entire political web video world, breaking it down into a dozen categories that are seriously beginning to impact politics today.

Each category is explained and analyzed, and then portions of an example or two are laid out. You can watch the entire overview piece of all 12 categories taken together, or view each category as its own video piece. There's also a short accompanying written report that gives the link to every web video referenced.

NPI soon will be holding an event in Washington DC that will gather some of the most knowledgeable people on political web videos to deepen our understanding of how these powerful new tools work. More information on that event will be coming soon. For now, the report draws on the longtime experience of PoliticsTV.com's CEO and Executive Producer Dan Manatt, and yours truly.

We welcome feedback on this innovative video report, and expect to do more experimentation the year ahead. Keep an eye on the New Politics Institute website, at www.newpolitics.net, where you can find work from a community that's thinking deeply and strategizing about how politics is being changed by the transformation of technology, media and the demographics of the country. Please join us there throughout the coming political cycle - which promises to be a very interesting cycle indeed.

Cross posted at Future Majority

The compelling "Hillary 1984" video recently introduced on YouTube represents "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. "It's about the end of the broadcast era." - Full Article

This strikes me as right, but it's amazing to me that, in all the great discussions of the anti-Hillary Vote Different ad remix, no one is following this train of thought to its logical conclusion.  

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Here's ABC News lead story on the "Hillary 1984" video and the broader phenomenon of web video in politics:

"This ad represents the emergence of a new era in political advertising," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington-based New Democrat Network, an influential party advocacy group.

"It's a condition of 21st century politics," said Rosenberg. "It's a brave new world...the barrier to entry for politics has been lowered and it's much easier for average Americans to participate and engage..."

"It used to be that unless they bought tens of millions of dollars in advertising, you weren't going to be heard," said Rosenberg. "Now, if an ad catches on, on YouTube or wherever, and becomes trendy and exciting, it could have just as much impact," he said...

"This is unsettling, particularly for the candidate," said Rosenberg. "It means that increasingly, the political campaigns are going to be one voice among many, albeit a very loud one," he said.

"They're not going to be in control and there's nothing they can do about that," said Rosenberg...

"The next big thing to watch is broadcast quality video becoming available on mobile phones," said Rosenberg.

"We have no idea what the campaigns are going to look like in Fall 2008 because the velocity of change is increasing," said Rosenberg, noting that the Apple iPhone is scheduled for launch in June 2007.

"Broadband video will be in 80 million phones by 2009," said Rosenberg, "YouTube is going mobile by the end of the year. TiVo will soon allow you to record things off the Internet. Media, including these viral political ads, are going to be viewed in a rapidly accelerated way," he said.

And Peter Leyden joins Simon Rosenberg in talking about web video and politics in this Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle:

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'Progressive swiftboating'. We made reference to it at
YearlyKos after the "Mission Accomplished Man!" screening, mainly as a truth-in-jest to test the waters, and are proud to report that we're going full-steam ahead.

And after the great responses we received about the Yearly Kos Convention promos One, Two, and Three, many of our media cohorts throughout the country have signed on to do their patriotic duty.

Hence, for the election season, DefCon Films has been formed:

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