WASHINGTON (Map, News) - For several years now, a common refrain among left-wing online political activists has been “We need to own the Internet the way the right owns talk radio.” Based on recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, it looks like the left has succeeded — with Democratic presidential candidates as the primary beneficiaries.

Last fall in this space, I asked, “When will the right recognize the cost of conceding Web 2.0?” With that cost now readily apparent in the form of online campaign contributions for the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, the only remaining question is whether conservatives can do anything about it in time for the elections next fall. It appears likely the answer will be a resounding no.

In the first quarter of this year, Democratic candidates raised almost $80 million, far ahead of the Republican candidates, who combined raised just over $50 million. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., raised $6.9 million over the Internet from 50,000 individuals, most of whom gave in small amounts. That means they can be tapped again during the campaign. More than 8,000 individuals signed up as volunteers through the Obama Web site.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., raised $4.2 million over the Internet. The Republican candidates did not break out online contributions separately but all of this suggests the gap will only grow wider over the course of the 2008 election cycle.

Joe Trippi, who has since signed on to work for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ presidential campaign said, “We built it and they didn’t. Now it’s paying big dividends.”

The first step in recovery for the right is to admit they have a problem. But admitting you have a problem requires you come to terms with just how bad a problem you really have. When conservatives get around to taking a hard look, they are not going to like what they see. The left has constructed a complex web of intersecting points of information and propaganda, which the right may never fully undo.

To better appreciate the dilemma now facing the right in a Web 2.0 world, it may be instructive to look at one example of how the right is losing in the online arms race — the nexus between Google, Wikipedia and far-left blogs and online forums.

When you are talking online, you are really talking Google, which has become the dominant interface for the Internet. According to a recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 55.8 percent of all searches done on the Internet now go through Google (other sources put this figure as high as 70 percent).

And what do Internet users find when they search Google?

Sam Vaknin, an award-winning author and Ph.D, tracked 154 keywords in Google from 1999 to 2006. According to Vaknin’s unscientific study, Wikipedia, launched in 2001, is now the No. 1 search result for 128 out of 154 keywords (83 percent).

Perhaps more significantly, 38 out of 128, or 30 percent, of Wikipedia articles listed as the No. 1 result are one or two sentence “stubs”; 10 of the 128 (36 percent) are “placeholder” articles — empty pages that Google has placed high up in the results regardless of length or quality.

In other words, Google is now manipulating its search results to force Wikipedia entries to the top whether the entry contains useful information or not. Not surprisingly, Google now accounts for 50 percent of Wikipedia’s traffic, boosting Wikipedia to become the sixth most visited Web site in the world (Google is number two behind Microsoft).

The significance of this becomes more apparent when one understands how people use Google search result data. According to an Eye Fixation Study done at Cornell University in 2004, the first two listings in Google search results capture over half of the user’s attention and the first listing is clicked on by more than half of the users.

Through its manipulation of search results, Google has anointed Wikipedia as the preeminent source of information online which raises the question: Who are the Wikipedians and what do they want?

Wikipedia’s own Countering System Bias Project describes the typical Wikipedian as technically inclined, formally educated white males between the ages of 15 and 49. A closer look reveals a strong affinity for far-left politics. Many Wikipedians are bloggers or regular readers of left-wing blogs.

Folks on the right would be well advised to start asking this question. Having attended WikiMania 2006 last summer at Harvard Law School, I can assure them they will not like what they find.

Robert Cox is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and is the founding president of the Media Bloggers Association.

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Source:  http://www.examiner.com/a-691054%7ERobert_Cox__Web_2_0_is_worse_for_the_right_than_it_thinks.html

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