Should a candidate pay 49K for a myspace page???

[illinoisprogressive]

Reading the comments on the Obama website regarding the dust up about the Myspace controversy Some of the people were saying that this guy wanted to be paid by the campaign $49K in fees for it.
No one in the media is reporting this because it then doesn't look at headline grabbing or wow. So, this is eliminated from the story and misleads people to believe the capaign was being rather heavy handed.
Some people from the Myspace page said this guy did not keep up the page or write new stuff.
Either way, seems there was some extortion over this. Or excessive money demands.
The one that the campaign began they started it from stratch.

here is a link to the comments so you can make up your own mind about this controversy.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvNt#comments

[Nederland]

1. Yes

For the number of supporters that page assembled, hell yes. That's dirt cheap and a no-brainer, except for the Obama campaign apparently.

[wyldwolf]

2. I've read it several times in the media

But I say "yes" to your question. He put several years into the page, donated his own time and money. The campaign could have hired him but instead chose to ask for one time fee.

People get paid far more to create from scratch what this guy did over the course of three years.

[Tellurian]

13. Spot On, wyldwolf..

They screwed the little guy. This won't play well in Peoria or anywhere else for that matter in the US.

The complainers here haven't read the entire article at length. The conclusion drawn from a well balanced detail accounting of the sequence of events puts Joe Anthony in the catbird seat. The fellow is still bewildered by the whole ordeal. He feels blindsided by slicksters who screwed him out of three years of work by telling him "the campaign doesn't have any money to pay him." "Then, accused him of looking for a Big Pay Day."

blog statement posted by Joe Anthony:

This is Joe Anthony.

This is not blackmail and I'm not a "squatter".

They wanted the profile and asked me to propose a fee, and indicated that Myspace was ok with this. I have no experience making such proposals and had no idea what to ask for.

I proposed a fee, and now they're accusing me of looking for a "big payday".

This is not blackmail. This is not me cashing in on the profile.

I do not believe that one person on that profile, who has personally witnessed the close personal attention I've dedicated to this community since 2004 would disagree with this.

By Janthony321 at Wed, 05/02/2007 -

blogger's opinion:

"Who's "Big Brother" now?"


Marketing companies who build profiles for movies, artists, products and campaigns charge hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and usually only build up to a few thousand friends.

If the campaign was asking Joe to get out and give up all ties to something he had built himself, and he was only asking for $49K max, then he was being more than reasonable.

The campaign would have raised a ton of money from those 160K people, and all the additional friends those would bring in over the coming months. They would have stayed permanently far ahead of all other campaigns on MySpace. Now they might be permanently behind.

But the worst mistake the campaign made was trying to smear Joe. That could come back to bite them, especially if the other campaigns pick up on this opportunity and get some surrogates talking about this "Big Brother" move by Obama.

When Obama heralded the "power of the individual" for the 1984 ad, it turned out it was actually a staffer of his own consultant.

Now, when a real individual produces something amazing, he steals it away from the guy. Pretty disappointing all around.

edited to post the link to the detailed story:

http://www.techpresident.com/node/301

[Ethelk2044]

15. He is right for not paying him any money.

What next when anyone makes a suggestion he must pay him. Hell NO! No pay.

[Tellurian]

19. I don't agree..

No thats not what the article implies at all.

[jcrew2001]

29. He should have just ripped Obama

and turned it into an anti-Obama site, now that would be funny.

[CTLawGuy]

40. first

you can't do a bunch of work for free, and then turn around and ask for money for it. That's not fair. They were working together, with Joe as volunteer, and it got too much for Joe, so he decided to abruptly cut off access to ask for money for work the campaign reasonably believed he was doing for free. The campaign relied on that work being volunteer work.

Also, Obama owns the rights to the use of his likeness. Many people believe(d) that the page was Obama's official page. So, Obama had a big interest in making sure he controlled what happened on that page, because the owner purports to be him.

[Colobo]

3. Joe Anthony is an extorsionist

MySpace is free. Anyone can open a MySpace account. He was asked by the Obama people to let them control the page because they needed some control over the kinds of stuff that are said in Obama's name. Had the guy been a true supporter, he would have let them have it. That would have been his greatest contribution to his candidate.

He did not. Instead, he chose to ask for outrageous amounts of money thinking Obama is so desperate that he was going to pay for it.

[Nederland]

11. It was NOT an outrageous amount

What he asked for was far far less than going webpage creation rates would call for.

[Old and In the Way]

12. The campaign spends millions for advertising and good qualified lists.

This guy, from what I've read, did this on his own over 18 months and built up a following of 160,000 people on MySpace. $50,000 is cheap for that kind of delivered audience. This will backfire bigtime on his campaign. Now he'll get a million dollars worth of bad publicity from this and piss off a huge built-in community that might have second thoughts about his candidacy.

Bad move on the part of Obama's campaign...

[jcrew2001]

28. That's one year salary

He should have not even bothered - just goes to show that you try to do some good and some capitalist pig will screw you.

[benny05]

4. The issue I saw

Was that Obama online communications folks tried to make the page "official" and by doing so, the young man wanted some payment in kind. He's right to ask, and I don't think it's extortion either. Obama's staff need to clarify this very soon.

Here's Chris Bowers' take on it from MyDD:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/2/132924/8884#readmore

[illinoisprogressive]

5. Mydd has become myedwardsfanzine. This guy was blackmailing apparently

Some of the 'friends' have written in and are supporting the campaign's stand.

[Adelante]

10. myedwardsfanzine

Ain't that the truth. dKos, as well.

[benny05]

25. Um, I read the PDF blog today

And I must say, I was appalled at what I read, but Obama needs to clear this up for good. Otherwise, it will hang over him and shadow his presence in many places on the blogs. He's not a big fan of the Daily Kos either.

As far as MyDD, Stoller isn't an Edwards fan, and actually, none of them are. They watch him, but they aren't his ardent supporters. But I will say this: JRE supporters do visit MyDD and they are passionate about his ideas enough to post a few diaries each week to support his candidacy because Edwards has plans, OK. Real ones. I lurk most of time there rather than post very often. MyDD is a younger demographic from this commenter.

[rinsd]

6. To be honest look at what is spent by a campaign on many different things

Here's Obama's expenditures for the 1st Q

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/expend.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008&sort=A

At the end of the day its not all that much money(though to be honest we don't know how much he asked for, I can't find a good source for it).

Obama is the frontrunner now, his advisers should have seen this coming.

But I doubt it will end up being a story for anyone that isn't all about inside baseball(ie: DU and the blogosphere).

[Texas_Kat]

18. It damned sure matters to IT folks

who know the value of what Joe was offering.

It probably won't kill Obama's campaign, but he's really shot himself in the foot with the IT community.

Self inflicted wounds hurt the most.

[sandnsea]

7. What did he do?

I don't see any blog entries or anything that would have taken more than an hour, tops. I don't even know why the campaign is bothering with it, people know the difference between official and unofficial. They just need to brand their own MYSpace better and ignore this guy if he doesn't want to cooperate with the campaign.

[elizm]

8. Such BS...

I signed up at Obama's official website the day he announced in January. Subsequently, through links and posts at Obama's site, I ended up at the myspace site and signed on as a friend....and that was the end of it pretty much. TRUST ME...I didn't sign up to be a friend of ANTHONY. I never even use the myspace for Obama but do visit the official website regularly. I'm curious to know when exactly the space exploded with 'friends'...does anyone know? My guess would be that it was after Obama's official website launched. I also wonder if the folks over at DailyKos(who have been one of the biggest critics of this)ever asked Ned Lamont for payment for all of the work they did to help him, and others like him, win the 2006 primaries? Seems to me that Anthony has lowered himself to the level of extortionist????

[Ethelk2044]

16. I agree 150%

[Adelante]

9. I don't think it's worth the money

But it might have been worth the money just to nip this in the bud.

[IA_Seth]

14. Yes.

PR guys get a hell of a lot more than that for what they do. This guy delivered them access to 140-160,000 people (cant recall the exact number). That alone is worth money, not to mention all the hours he put in.

[Tellurian]

20. Theres a backstory to this..

theres more hidden dirt due to be unearthed.

The whole thing was handled poorly. They should have settled with the guy and moved on.

[ripple]

31. Ghost stories again?

Unknown demons waiting to be unearthed? Please.

[Colobo]

35. Hillarites are elated by all this nonsense

[Tellurian]

38. Not really...We've joined an online cha-cha class

to authenticaly celebrate Cinco de Maio in the next day or so.

why, whats up with you? Katz :hi:

[rinsd]

41. Only in the sense that it wasn't Hillary's campaign involved.

Because then DU would be pounding the Senator over what many of agree is a fairly minor story.

:hi:

[Ethelk2044]

34. Hell No

To me it is no more than bribery

[Texas_Kat]

17. Wrong question

Should a campaign pay $49,000 for a list of 160,000 supporters? Absolutely.

Pragmatically, it's a drop in the $25million dollar Q1 budget. That's 30 cents a name for a guaranteed list of supporters.

They should have paid up and been glad to get them.

Ethically, they should have respected the grassroot volunteer's efforts. They asked him "how much" to buy the list -- he told them what he thought was fair (and in IT circles, it is).

If you think $49,000 is a lot, you should see what the 'political pros' rake in.

[elizm]

21. 100,000 signed up AFTER Obama launched his website...

in January. So which came first? Seems Anthony needs to get a grip on his 'perceived' level of importance in Obama's popularity.

[hoboken123]

22. And it was of so little importance...

...that they had to seize the guy's profile.

Makes sense. I'm sure it'll encourage volunteers...

[elizm]

23. The GUY was posting wrong information!

Information which I'm sure you and others would have pounced on immediately to discredit Senator Obama if you had the chance. The 100,000 'friends' had no email or contact information attached to them. It was of no importance to the campaign. Controlling information used with the candidate's name is VERY important, and they had every right to do it. Those of us who volunteer for Senator Obama with no expectations for compensation understand completely. Those who are just looking to smear him in any way they can will read this in the way that suits them. Anthony needs to get a grip on his ego.

[hoboken123]

26. Of course he was

They loved him before, but all of a sudden he's posting bad info? Even though people in the campaign are helping him?

Please.

Just an awful PR move. And a lousy thing to do.

[elizm]

24. I have volunteered for 3 town hall events here in SC...

..and I did not sign up for a single one of them on Anthony's myspace, BTW.

[hoboken123]

27. And?

I don't understand why you would.

[Capn Sunshine]

33. and I'll bet you don't expect to be paid either

Thanks for doing your part
:yourock:

[Ethelk2044]

36. He is no Pro

It is nothing more than extortion

[ripple]

30. Absolutely not

Particularly when the campaign was perfectly willing to offer him a job, so that he could work in an official capacity.

I'm sure it's been time consuming and overwhelming at times for him, but he could have walked away at any moment. Because he professes to have done this to help get Obama elected, I find it incredibly suspicious that he would request $39,000 for his 'volunteer' work. I don't think most of us here would even consider such a thing.
People can't perform grassroots volunteer work, and then hit the campaign up for a bill. That's absurd.

This should prove to be an interesting dialog about intellectual rights, though.

[Capn Sunshine]

32. Kind of moot

I work for Obama and I've never heard of this MySpace page. But I think MySpace is worthless. How many of those "friends" are convertable? 10% ? If you're lucky?

MySpace is owned by Murdock , and I just won't support any venture he owns. Half the profiles are bogus, and most seem like they are there cruising for a hookup.
As I explained elsewhere ( KOS) this is a tempest in a teapot; no one in the real world knows about this (which explains the news agencies lack of interest) and despite what everyone seems to think online, a vast majority of people are net-illiterate and can barely manage email.

I often have to remind keyboard kommandos that about 10% of the world is hip to online. That includes DU. No one has heard of DU anyplace realtime party activists gather. I just got back from the California Democratic party convention where I am an A.D. delegate, and once again, nobody knew DU , and this includes the bloggers who were there.

[sampsonblk]

37. Only if its worth it. In this case, it definitely was

Thousands of names of supporters? Damn right that's worth the money. But Obama's campaign strong-armed the guy instead. And they got a lot less than they would have if they forked over the well-deserved cash.

[Eurobabe]

39. NO. You do it as a volunteer and then when it becomes valuable

want to be compensated for your work?

Not in the real world.

This is not what VOLUNTEERISM is all about...