Presidential candidate website tech, compared • Hacker News Board

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#51

Post by maxcasey » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

eastbayjake wrote: post #49

maxcasey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Dems seem to be outsourcing their digital needs more than Republicans. Looks like Bernie Sanders is with Wide Eye Creative and Martin O'Malley is with Blue State Digital. Potentially because there are many, many more successful Dem web firms (including one I work for lol) than there are Republican counter parts... Not sure though, just an interesting data point.

Which firms are your Republican counterparts?

Because the Dems have been so much "better" or at least more advanced than Republican for as long as anyone can remember the entire Democratic infrastructure is so much more built up than the Republican. Good and bad at the same time though. There are a lot of really good Democratic firms and freelancers but there are also a few really good Republican firms and a lot of not so good one.

For example the Democratic field has some really great players in it like Bully Pulpit Interactive, Blue State Digital, NGP VAN, Wide Eye Creative, Target Smart etc... The Republican field has less but still some good ones like i360, Targeted Victory, Push Digital, NationBuilder, etc.

tl;dr - D's have more and historically better firms. R's have less total firms but this cycle we could maybe see them on an equal (possibly better? probably not, but possible) level as D's.

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#52

Post by pen2l » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

maxcasey wrote: post #50

pen2l wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea what agency Clinton used to have the announcement video made? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uY7gLZDmn4 ). Any idea on how much such a thing costs?

I would assume they made the video internally, but I have no idea. If a firm did it then they'll probably be locked up with a lot of Hillary work this cycle so they don't need to promote themselves. Those types of videos aren't cheap by any means. That being said I think it was done really well -- especially in comparison to announcement videos like Rubio's[0], which is a mess of random clips pasted together. [0] htt…

> I would assume they made the video internally, but I have no idea.

It would seem to be too good to have been made internally.

> Those types of videos aren't cheap by any means.

I'm still very curious to get an exact amount. Let's say the Hillary video... what, $200k? Maybe a lot of agencies will be unwilling to create a single video, in light of the argument that any campaign video has to fit in a bigger strategy... and the agency would rather work toward a bigger, cohesive strategic campaign which goes in millions amount?

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#53

Post by voteforchange » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

paulschreiber wrote: post #38

voteforchange wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pervasive mindset is that mailings, tv/radio ad spots, and other traditional media platforms have a known and predictable return on investment. Using the web for organizing and fundraising is the new kid on the block. Despite the impressive showing in 2008 and 2012 on the Obama campaign its not a known/repeatable representative showing. Every dollar spent on your web presence needs to return 5$ or more to funnel…

Nice username.

Nice blogpost :-)

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#54

Post by belorn » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

Zancarius wrote: post #40

belorn wrote: post #20

3 out of 4 candidate website do not support winxp. Wonder if this finally means that winxp compatibility is no longer worth the extra trouble from a business perspective.

I read that line as the opposite, that only Marco Rubio's site requires SNI support to access (hence the red checkmark on his, and the green Xs on the others, suggesting that requiring SNI is bad ). Although I admit that line confused me at first. The footnote is also suggestive that this is the correct interpretation.

You are 100% right. That suddenly make me dislike this list quite a lot, as it suggest that it is a technical achievement to not use SNI. I have seen several times how SNI has been the primary reason for not supporting https, as winxp support was seen as more important.

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#55

Post by maxcasey » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #52

maxcasey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume they made the video internally, but I have no idea. If a firm did it then they'll probably be locked up with a lot of Hillary work this cycle so they don't need to promote themselves. Those types of videos aren't cheap by any means. That being said I think it was done really well -- especially in comparison to announcement videos like Rubio's[0], which is a mess of random clips pasted together. [0] htt…

> I would assume they made the video internally, but I have no idea. It would seem to be too good to have been made internally. > Those types of videos aren't cheap by any means. I'm still very curious to get an exact amount. Let's say the Hillary video... what, $200k? Maybe a lot of agencies will be unwilling to create a single video, in light of the argument that any campaign video has to fit in a bigger strategy..…

EDIT: I was half right. They're using Hardpin Media[0][1]

[0] http://www.hardpinmedia.com/

[1] http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presid...

Re: Presidential candidate website tech, compared

#56

Post by Zancarius » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:32 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #54

Zancarius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that line as the opposite, that only Marco Rubio's site requires SNI support to access (hence the red checkmark on his, and the green Xs on the others, suggesting that requiring SNI is bad ). Although I admit that line confused me at first. The footnote is also suggestive that this is the correct interpretation.

You are 100% right. That suddenly make me dislike this list quite a lot, as it suggest that it is a technical achievement to not use SNI. I have seen several times how SNI has been the primary reason for not supporting https, as winxp support was seen as more important.

I can't agree more. With IPv4 space so diminished, avoiding SNI to support legacy clients at this point almost seems insane. Suggesting SNI, if required, is somehow bad just illustrates IMO that the list was constructed to make a political point.