In what is probably my last post on the McCain girls (see here and here and here), I present some closure on the mystery surrounding the creators.

So yes, I did go to elementary school with the long-haired brunette in the video.

And the comedy site 23/6 (owned by IAC) was the producer of the content, as outed by the NY Times today.

Case closed.

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My sources tell me that this weekend we will see a premiere of a follow-up to the now legendary ‘It’s Raining McCain” video (see BoingBoing’s coverage here).

Check back here for the next release…

I told you I had someone on the inside.

In case you can’t remember the original, here it is:

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Watch this and you’ll understand. It’s like watching a car crash, or the Zuckerberg/Lacy interview. You want to turn away, but you can’t. And once you see it, you’ll wish you could unsee it. But you can’t. So you just watch it over and over again.

And I swear to you, I think I went to grade school with the girl in the black outfit. I’m not kidding. Jamie, is that you?

(Via Boing Boing.)

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Rachel Marsden’s blog post here, discusses what she sees as a ‘broken’ model for blog advertising, and how it perhaps is contributing to alarmingly low levels of online political ad spending.

Well, two things here.

First, the vast majority of blogs run some form of cost-per-click advertising like Google’s AdWords. And yes. A blogger will only get paid if people click on the ads, which means they don’t get rewarded for pageviews. But there are ways around this. There are networks like BlogAds that sell ads based upon a CPM. But the blogs that will appeal most to advertisers are going to be the most popular blogs on particular subject matters. That leaves blogs that may attract the 300 most influential people on the internet out of luck. I wish there was a way to measure individual reader value, but unfortunately, there just isn’t. The only hope is to get ‘recognized’ by an advertiser and to work with them directly. That’s what happened with TechCrunch, and they’ve been able to parlay that into a pretty good business.

The other thing is worth spending some time on. MediaPost reports that only $20 million out of $5 billion in political ad spending will go online. And half of that $20 million is going to search.

Half going to search?

This is a classic case of advertisers giving way too much credit to ‘the last click’. There are many factors that get people to search for terms in the first place. Display advertising is one of them. There are millions of undecided voters out there, and they are doing more than ’searching’ for candidates and issues. They are dedicated and loyal readers of blogs, members of communities, and creators of content. Odds are, they are spending more time reading than searching. Why spend so much capturing the low hanging fruit (search) when you can be influencing what the searches are for (display)?

I love search as much as the next guy — especially when it’s about making some kind of sale. And while politics may be the ultimate sales job, there’s just more at stake to me than the sell. There are ideals. Ideas. Our future. Somehow limiting a political message to a few lines of 17 characters seems less like a political statement and more like a political haiku. Politics should be more brand positioning and less direct response. The political message is just too complicated.

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Are you amongst the over 3.6 million people that have seen this video, fronted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas?

I dare you to watch it and not think something is happening. I’m not divulging any political affiliation or allegiance, but damn if this video actually didn’t make me feel something. It’s just another example of how the internet’s ability to galvanize, energize, and mobilize has been used brilliantly by Obama and his supporters.

The power of the web, the power of social media to tap into emotions is something that we are finally understanding how to wield. While television has historically been a great way to do this en masse, the connection that is created through TV is between the image on the screen, and the person on the couch. It remains in the person’s brain until they encounter others. By the time that happens, the feeling may be gone. On the web, the opportunity to communicate with others is instantaneous, as is illustrated by the almost 27,000 responses to the video on YouTube.

The video has also generated 49 video responses as well. So people are not only communicating with others in a ‘traditional’ fashion (via comments), but are also creating content of their own in response.

Check out this spoof video inspired by Will.I.Am’s version.

Creativity inspires creativity. And creativity online inspires creativity in more people — or at least inspires more people to act — than any other medium.

It’s because of this that one of the great promises of social media is its ability to get people to do something. To donate, to vote, to gather, to organize. Facebook’s Causes (with over 100,000 active users) is an example of this propensity in action.

As a matter of fact, as I type this, the videos mentioned above are being discussed on ABC’s Nightline, and they have just asked the question, ‘do they actually get us to do something?’

Well, they get the top news show in its time slot to discuss it. They get millions of others to realize the content is important. They drive millions of others online to view, share, and discuss. And eventually, to create more content that inspires others to act. I bet they really will also get many people to vote that otherwise wouldn’t have.

For all the vampires, zombies, music trivia, board games, celebrity stalking, trolling and lurking that we spend so much time associating with social media, maybe it would do us all some good to spend a little time thinking about the socially responsible ways that social media can make a difference in our lives. Or get us to make a difference in others’.

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So Rudy Giuliani’s daughter has declared (and undeclared) her allegiance to Barack Obama in her facebook profile, Slate reports. This is almost as awkward as this:

Combine this news with Robert Scoble’s latest bit of Facebook sleuthing, and it’s become apparent to me that you can find dirt on just about anyone these days, assuming the “anyone” is who they say they are.

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I really don’t think I need to comment on this. But as great as ObamaGirl was, I like this so much better.

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It’s a shame there’s no embed code on this, but the Clintons sure do know how to ham it up, and create a video that will certainly get some buzz.

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