VasGk | Κοινωνικό Νερό

I really want to commend Benjamin Netanyahu on his initiative to engage with people online. It is truly remarkable that a head of state is coming out openly and accepting questions from a global audience! The office of the Israeli PM states that: This will be a unique project since Prime Minister Netanyahu will be the first head of government to be in continuous contact will (with) websurfers, and will not suffice with isolated interviews only. ( small misprint there ) I have previously blogged on Israeli politics and social media, and the overall theme is that is clear, straightforward and open. Just like social media needs to be; especially when dealing with global political communications, or international political leaders being active in New Media. It's about being clear, honest and fully transparent. I am planning to address a question Benjamin Netanyahu soon, and hopefully he will respond. On a last note, I want to suggest a bit of housekeeping. ...

According to Bill Maher the logo of the Mitt Romney campaign for 2012 looks like a toothpaste ad; and yes funny enough it does. My assessment on the logo is different. When you look at it, it clearly represents the number 2. Most noticeably the middle white number 2, but also the left red and the right blue. Isn't it obvious? Any respectable logo designer or copywriter will tell you so! Now, you don't put the number 2 on the logo of someone aiming for the office of the President of the United States.  Is it just a bad logo design? Here you can watch the Mitt Romney "Believe in America" Video:

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, came out with a video on April 15th in asking people to send YouTube videos and tell the GOP why they "Can't Afford 4 More Years". The winning submission will receive a $100 gift certificate to the GOPStore.com and could be showcased in the GOP.com website. My first comment is that this contest seems outdated. Yet another example of a safe political communications strategy in trying to copy-paste tried ideas. This has already been done before, it's not innovative or cool anymore, and by the looks of it, with 3,355 views of the Reince Priebus video in 6 days, the Video contest is not going to be a success. It all seems really amateur in setting up a YouTube contest. But worry not, I am sure the GOP online communications team is only just beginning, that's right, Reince Priebus also opened a facebook page ; I bet this comes really handy in getting the video contest " viral ". I don...

So, Tim Pawlenty tweeted before the President's facebook townhall: Have a tough question for @BarackObama 's Facebook townhall today, submit questions that are unlikely to be answered here When I saw this I thought that it would link to the facebook live page so that people would actually ask the President all the " questions that are unlikely to be answered " but no... it linked to a page at the T-Paw website with a condescending photo of Obama asking people to: "Use the form below to let us know what questions need to be addressed but won't be asked at tomorrow's campaign event." This is so wrong in terms of new media communications in Politics! If T-Paw actually directed people to the facebook live page it could have been a really great tactical move to actually get his followers to ask the questions that " need to be addressed " at the actual event that they could have been addressed! It could have been a really smart move by T-P...

In the age of 24 hour Blogging and Social Media, debunking a smear can be proven to be a near impossible task. You can address or "put the record strait", however you cannot make the smear disappear. When you make it an issue, it becomes an issue. Back in June of 2008, Barack Obama, launched http://www.fightthesmears.com/ a website to report, explain and debunk smears concerning Obama. At the time I wrote : It is a move that has got mainstream media publicity and a great tool to defend against Internet rumors becoming campaign issues. Lately, I came across http://www.icorrect.com/ which is something like http://www.fightthesmears.com/ for celebrities and people in the public domain. However,  Smears exist not because the truth is not available! You can watch a very interesting interview of the founder of http://www.icorrect.com/ on the Colbert Report here: This time around, and with the 2012 campaign coming up, it is still very difficult to once and ...

When I updated the Organizing for America app in the iPhone, it transformed to the 2012 election app. It is a pretty straightforward app, with news, multimedia, local events and a donation button (although you have to leave the app to make an actual donation). Using the app, I came across the local events function, I found it really interesting when the app stated that: "Obama" Would like to Use your Current Location . Maybe the choice of words isn't the best, I think that "Organizing for America" Would like to Use your Current Location is the correct phrasing; but I might be wrong. Currently I am in Athens, Greece; but this iPhone app does not offer me any events in my local area, although there are programmed events . I know that http://www.democratsabroad.org/ are really active in Europe, they have "Country Groups" which organize, promote events , register voters, and encourage U.S. citizens to vote early and post their votes. Maybe it's s...

From the 7th to the 10th of April the Greek mainstream Media is on strike. This means that almost all journalists, reporters, technical staff and other people involved in the production and presentation of the news are not at their desks. Greek Journalists on Strike It's the first time, since I remember, that the Media strike lasts for longer than a day. When I first heard of the strike, I remembered writing this post back in June of 2010, explaining why the Greek Media is at a crucial point. " Greek media crisis ". Nothing much has changed since that post. The situation in the Greek Media is going from dire to ridiculous. Most of the traditional Greek Media do not want to know what is happening online.  An explosion of News Blogs, and News Portals, that are independently owned, are not taking part in the strike. Not to mention that some people get their news from twitter and facebook. Many Greek News Blogs keep posting updates, and most of the people I talked to ar...

Shimon Peres & Benjamin Netanyahu, in two different occasions, talked about the role of the Internet in the recent events throughout the Middle East. Peres at a Chatham House Conference: Sixty Years of British-Israeli Diplomatic Relations (30 March 2011), and Netanyahu in a recent YouTube interview (31 March 2011). Both messages carry the same principles. Peres said: It's actually a revolt without organizers. Nobody knows who organized it. It arrived from an unknown combination of sentiments and knowledge introduced to the younger generation by modern communication, the internet, smartphones, Facebook. For the first time, young people in the Arab world could have seen with their own eyes the ugly face of dictatorship, of corruption, of want. And they could have compared their lot with the lot of other young people in the world. And ask themselves why they're not here. And actually, it is really a revolt, unorganized, spontaneous, against autocracy, against oppressi...