As we wade further into the 2008 presidential primary season, we are seeing more and more candidate videos and more and more commentary on such videos. Yet I wonder if somehow the whole point is being missed.

Matthew Bernius talks about a tale of two candidate’s video distribution strategies, comparing Obama’s use of BrightCove with Edwards use of YouTube. He notes that “YouTube offers tools to manage posting comments, [but] you cannot control what content your page links to. In going to ‘where the people are,’ you leave yourself open to direct commentary from the people” and contrasts this to “Brightcove’s promise of control”. He carries it further to note “Edwards’ decision to speak extemporaneously, on location in New Orleans versus Obama’s use of a controlled backdrop and a prepared speech and teleprompter” Brian Russell, and Coturnix have also commented on this.

Edwards appears to understand the nature of online video much better than the other candidates, however, I still think there is a long ways to go.

Today’s Hotline takes a different look at issues with online video: On The Download: YouTube Does Pay-To-Play. While the article focuses primarily on the FEC issues of YouTube’s Pay-To-Play plans, it also has an interesting comment from Mike Hudack, CEO of Blip.TV where he observes, “political content is on the lower end of the viewership scale”.

Why is this? Perhaps it relates back to the discussion of distribution. Too many people are looking at online video as simply another means of distributing the 30-second spot. People have attributed some of Ned Lamont’s early success on his advertisements which, unlike most political advertisements of the day, weren’t stuck in a 1960’s style of TV ads.

Sen. Edwards’ announcement video on YouTube was a step in the direction of recognizing the different language of online videos, but there is still much further to go. What are the popular online videos? Ask a Ninja, Hope is Emo, Lonelygirl115 and various coke and mentos videos come to mind. Perhaps the 2008 candidates can learn from these videos.

Edwards and Obama can duke it out to see who gets ‘Hope is Presidential’. Sen. Clinton, after her webcasts might think about engaging the folks at Ask a Ninja to come up with Ask a Candidate. The lesser know candidates can struggle to see who will be the next Lonely Candidate 2008. The real question is whose videos will be the coke and mentos of the 2008 campaign season. I haven’t seen any like that yet.

One of the things that is special about the coke and mentos videos is the participatory nature of them. They were fun and everyone could make one. I did the coke and mentos thing in my backyard, but didn’t put it online.

Personally, I am hoping that videos of regular people working together to fight the war on poverty and to find new ways of dealing with dependence on foreign oil and global warming will be the coke and mentos, but we need to find ways of making this fun and exciting. Sen. Edwards’ Day of Action is a good start but they haven’t found their viral fun yet. Let’s hope they do.

(Full disclosure: I’m in talks with the Edwards campaign about possibly working for them.)

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