DotCom comes to politics

From Rolling Stone:

For MoveOn, "the work" consists of looking for spikes in e-mail traffic and monitoring online forums to divine the issues that drive its members. Boyd and Blades have bitten hard on the "wisdom of crowds" concept. They believe that strategies posted and rated by fellow activists provide the basis for picking campaigns that members will pay to support. "We've discovered a way to engage people so that they want to open their wallets," says Boyd. "If we can come up with a great campaign, we know it will get funded."

Anybody remember the DotCom boom? Anybody besides me suffer through economic purgatory for years when it collapsed?

Does anybody but me remember WHY it collapsed?

This whole attitude of "get a cool idea, get folks to invest lots of money in your idea because it's so cool, relax because your work is done" seems more than a little familiar.

And you know what? That's perfectly fine if you're running a nonprofit web site pushing political ideas. But these people are taking over a major American political party, and they still don't seem to have realized that for a party, the ultimate currency is not coolness or even donations, but VOTERS. If your hip and cool appeal to the radical fringe of your base pisses off the majority of voters, you'll get...well, what the DotComs got. Which, now that I think of it, looks remarkably like what the Democrats have been getting lately.

I've changed my mind. MoveOn.org and the DNC are a perfect fit. :)