Elana Levin
Blogs heart adwords
DMI's much loved (and feared) New York State legislative scorecard "Fighting for New York's Middle Class" is one month old now. And to think you knew it when its blog coverage was but a glimmer in the eye of a post on The Politicker blog
One part of the scorecard that has made a huge splash was our Google Adwords campaign; if you google any member of the NYS legislature you'll see the grade we gave him on an ad on the search page. Initially we were only going to run the ads for a month but the response was so positive that we're extending it all year. That's right, you now can have a year of easy access to some hard facts on how your elected representative is doing on vital issues.
I've been keeping an eye on all the mentions the google adwords campaign has gathered in the blogosphere and beyond which have really outpaced the coverage we got from mainstream print outlets. We got a lot of love from the bloggers for launching the adwords campaign and I hazard to guess some reasons why bloggers specifically loves the adwords campaign so much:
* bloggers are interested in holding elected officials accountable -- this is especially true when it comes to lower profile electeds like state legislators
* they are interested in making information more accessible
* they want to increase the transparency of government (and knowing how people vote on legislation is a huge part of that)
The aim of the adwords campaign was to make sure that first thing that every New Yorker sees when googling a member of the New York State legislature is a grade on their voting record on middle class issues. Finding information about local electeds was never as easy as it needs to be. Thanks to sites like Gotham Gazette, Politicker (and Ben Smith's continuing work now at Daily News), Daily Gotham, 51st State and more finding out facts beyond press releases has gotten easier. I hope DMI's contribution to the fight for transparency and accountability makes being informed a little bit easier for everyone.
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If you're interested in finding out just who was being searched most (and least) you can check it out here
Elana Levin: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 4:05 PM, Apr 17, 2006 in
Democracy | Government Accountability | Middle-class squeeze | New York
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