Jolitics imitates Political World - But Will it be the De Lorean of Irish Social Media ? [Archive]

C. Flower

07-08-2010, 04:06 PM

I hear that Jolitics, a new social media political discussion site, is starting a pre-launch phase with 120 "Founder Members".

Nice to know that, like other political discussion sites, it has been watching Politicalworld and learning from us :-)

Jolitics is being started by the man who founded BEBO and is being launched in Ireland as a first step to world domination (again, they are emulating

my cunning plan for Political World - first Ireland and then the world).

It will be interesting to see how it works out - it seems to be a cross between twitter and Soda - one person posts a topic and others comment on it,

with maybe a poll on the topic.

I am hoping that jolitics will bring a new younger generation into internet discussion and prepare them for graduation to membership of Politicalworld.org....

I presume that jolitics has homed in on Ireland because it's full of such excellent posters. Take a bow, so.

It will be interesting to see if Irish posters go for this in a big way, or whether Boards, Politics. ie, Debate Central, Machine Nation and last, but not

least, Political World, have raised the game too high for people to change to a less interactive discussion format.

If anyone here is involved in the pre-launch, give me a pm if you feel like confiding....:-)

!

TotalMayhem

07-08-2010, 04:15 PM

Worth noting that Jolitics.ie was registered by potential opponent of Jolitics, Politics.ie owner David C.

evercloserunion

07-08-2010, 04:28 PM

Worth noting that Jolitics.ie was registered by potential opponent of Jolitics, Politics.ie owner David C.

**** tactic but one he used in the Lisbon campaign as well. A lover of free speech and competition--when it suits him.

There's a thread on the other place about it and the claws are well and truly out.

Anyway, I don't know if there's room for another political forum in Ireland. I miss MN now it's gone but Jolitics couldn't replace it, Jolitics seems to be going for a more large-scale, mainstream image like Politics.ie whereas MN was more low-key and "cosy". That said, Jolitics could benefit from people who are sick of the established sites.

C. Flower

07-08-2010, 04:53 PM

Filthy tactic but one he used in the Lisbon campaign as well. A lover of free speech and competition--when it suits him.

There's a thread on the other place about it and the claws are well and truly out.

Anyway, I don't know if there's room for another political forum in Ireland. I miss MN now it's gone but Jolitics couldn't replace it, Jolitics seems to be going for a more large-scale, mainstream image like Politics.ie whereas MN was more low-key and "cosy". That said, Jolitics could benefit from people who are sick of the established sites.

I'd be interested in the format, but it's not easy to reinvent the wheel. SODA is fun, but it doesn't allow for the build up of searchable threads in the way a forum does.

Irish posters are accustomed to robust and informed debate very unlike US sites. That requires moderation and flexibility as well as local knowledge of what can and can't be said. But I genuinely welcome it if it will engage new layers of people in political discussion.

The seriousness of the political situation here in Ireland will also affect the way the site develops, one way or another.

I look forward to people coming here from jolitics in the way that they are beginning to from twitter and Face Book.

Its all good.

jmcc

07-08-2010, 04:55 PM

Filthy tactic Unless Birch's Jolitics has an Irish Trademark or business presence, a UK trademark, Community Trademark, a US trademark or some serious connection with Ireland, it would not have been able or allowed to register a .ie domain name. He has the .co.uk version of the domain but his protection of the brand has been amateurish.

This kind of protective registration of sound-alike and potential typos of brands goes on all the time in the real world. Most people never see what really happens with domains.

Regards...jmcc

evercloserunion

07-08-2010, 06:44 PM

Unless Birch's Jolitics has an Irish Trademark or business presence, a UK trademark, Community Trademark, a US trademark or some serious connection with Ireland, it would not have been able or allowed to register a .ie domain name. He has the .co.uk version of the domain but his protection of the brand has been amateurish.

This kind of protective registration of sound-alike and potential typos of brands goes on all the time in the real world. Most people never see what really happens with domains.

Regards...jmcc

I'm (vaguely) aware of the requirements for registration of .ie domain names but I don't know about Jolitics' trademark status.

If DC registered jolitics.ie a while ago in order to catch typos of politics.ie and not to shut out a potential competitor, then I retract my comment as it was due to a misunderstanding of the situation. But if he registered it recently with the specific intention of shutting jolitics.ie out of the Irish political forum market, I maintain that it is a dirty tactic.

Anyway I won't talk about it any more as I don't want this thread to be derailed by discussion of the other place.

TotalMayhem

07-08-2010, 07:00 PM

a quick domain lookup yields the following info:

domain: jolitics.ie
descr: Pie Media Limited
descr: Body Corporate (Ltd,PLC,Company)
descr: Discretionary Name
admin-c: AJY819-IEDR
tech-c: AAM456-IEDR
renewal: 01-July-2011
status: Active
nserver: ns1.redfly.ie
nserver: ns2.redfly.ie
source: IEDR

person: David Davis
nic-hdl: AJY819-IEDR
source: IEDR

person: Blacknight.ie Hostmaster
nic-hdl: AAM456-IEDR
source: IEDR

the renewal date is a hint (but not necessarily proof) that it has been registered pretty recently (i.e. in July 2010).

if you visit jolitics.ie you will be redirected to that other website, which is registered for the same company (Pie Media Ltd) yet in a different name.

jmcc

07-08-2010, 08:20 PM

I'm (vaguely) aware of the requirements for registration of .ie domain names but I don't know about Jolitics' trademark status.

If DC registered jolitics.ie a while ago in order to catch typos of politics.ie and not to shut out a potential competitor, then I retract my comment as it was due to a misunderstanding of the situation. But if he registered it recently with the specific intention of shutting jolitics.ie out of the Irish political forum market, I maintain that it is a dirty tactic. Brands owners will protect their investment and sometimes that involves registering soundalike and typos of their domains. This is not to say that this is what happened but such an action to protect an existing brand and website against an interloper is not unknown and would be understandable to those in business.

Regards...jmcc

C. Flower

07-08-2010, 08:24 PM

Brands owners will protect their investment and sometimes that involves registering soundalike and typos of their domains. This is not to say that this is what happened but such an action to protect an existing brand and website against an interloper is not unknown and would be understandable to those in business.

Regards...jmcc

I must say that I thought Vincent Browne's "Politico.ie" name was a bit cheeky - much too close to Politics.ie.

Sam Smyth when he was doing the Show the other night told the audience to log on to Political.ie for discussion :D

MediaBite

07-08-2010, 08:46 PM

Re Vincet Browne - think he was borrowing form the US site of same name.

[Edited: part of post removed - had complete and utter wrong end of stick. Apologies.]

C. Flower

07-08-2010, 09:01 PM

Re Vincet Browne - think he was borrowing form the US site of same name.

***.

What ??? :)

jmcc

07-08-2010, 09:22 PM

I must say that I thought Vincent Browne's "Politico.ie" name was a bit cheeky - much to close to Politics.ie.Well Vinnie probably fancied himself as a bit of politico. I think that he even wanted to be an FG candidate once.

Sam Smyth when he was doing the Show the other night told the audience to log on to Political.ie for discussion :DHe seems to have problems with this Intarweb thing.

Regards...jmcc

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 11:12 AM

Yesterday I tried joining the jolitics.com preview and it tried to cannibabilse all my Facebook friends and tell me if they were "politically active" (!!!)

It then sent a confirmation of this to a colleague who had also signed up, with my name on his email.

I emailed Michael to ask him to undo any such arrangements and sort them out.

No reply as yet - not even an automatic acknowledgement.

Has anyone else done better with them ?

Perhaps they should revert to "Alpha testing" a while longer.

People Korps

17-09-2010, 02:48 PM

jolitics.com the Starbucks of political boards? This will be a joke.

jmcc

17-09-2010, 03:00 PM

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 03:47 PM

Could be some data privacy issues with reusing personal contacts and data. It would seem to be trying a Bebo approach to politics. With permission it might be OK but if it has a default cannibalisation option and does not mention it, that's a problem.

Regards...jmcc

It offered a semiprivate "lite" version that said it would not cannibalise, which I selected - and then it proceeded to send an email, using my name, to a work colleague advising that FB friends had been cannibalised. I still haven't had a reply to my email after 24 hours.

If I don't get a reply tomorrow, I'll copy my email on to the Data Protection Commission and to Face Book. I would imagine Face Book might have something to say about this too.

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 03:49 PM

jmcc

17-09-2010, 03:58 PM

I would have thought also a data privacy issue for people passing on their FB friends for "Political activity" analysis, as political views are viewed as "sensitive personal data".The irony is that CIA was an investor in Facebook. The work on social networks that goes on at state level is far more complex than what goes on in some internet companies. This is very amateurish by comparison.

Regards...jmcc

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 04:44 PM

The irony is that CIA was an investor in Facebook. The work on social networks that goes on at state level is far more complex than what goes on in some internet companies. This is very amateurish by comparison.

Regards...jmcc

The only cheerful thought about this is that they now have so much data that they must be completely swamped and unable to analyse it properly.
It would get so one half of the population is monitoring the other.

Big rows in some countries over Google Street, quite rightly, too.

My friend has had a reply from jolitics ( acknowledging that there was a serious problem) but I haven't...

jmcc

17-09-2010, 05:51 PM

The only cheerful thought about this is that they now have so much data that they must be completely swamped and unable to analyse it properly.If they are using Irish data only then the dataset they would have is minscule by Supercruncher standards. Mapping social networks on this scale is easy if not downright trivial. Most people get their views of data privacy from the windbaggery that goes on in the mainstream media and that, because of the ignorance of the journalists, generally ignores what the private sector does with datafootprints and profiling. (I tend to be very cynical when it comes to "social media experts" and would consider most of them to be in the same category as "technology" journalists - mere PR flunkies rather than experts.)

It would get so one half of the population is monitoring the other.Not really. What I would expect to see would be a group of super-connectors (people who seem to know everyone) and a lot of others with networks that don't go beyond twenty people who are close family and perhaps work colleagues. Not everyone uses Facebook as frequently as those in the US use it and the Irish market is far more fragmented with forums like Boards.ie and micro-blogging sites like Twitter taking up a lot of the social media space.

My friend has had a reply from jolitics ( acknowledging that there was a serious problem) but I haven't...This could get interesting.

Regards...jmcc

People Korps

17-09-2010, 07:35 PM

Look we have seen a Libertas influenced board and two leftish boards in Ireland , even then people take a punt and post, though there have been lots of accusations leveled at one site for corruption there is no fully proven corruption. However a "facepolitics" aka www.jolitics.com with its already manifest facebook style data leakage is not going to appeal to anyone except party hacks banging out press releases.

jmcc

17-09-2010, 08:00 PM

And jolitics.com is a US registered domain and operation. Do Irish data privacy laws apply?

Regards...jmcc

People Korps

17-09-2010, 08:13 PM

And jolitics.com is a US registered domain and operation. Do Irish data privacy laws apply?

Regards...jmcc

What is www.jolitics.com all about? It smells and must be a bad thing :) why move in on Ireland , we have not even swept the floor with politics.ie yet, but in six months have 15% of their active users and a greater interest in the postings here by page turns. the general election will see pie get piped thanks god, but www.jolitics.com must be some satanic spawn child of some global plot or other :)

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 08:37 PM

And jolitics.com is a US registered domain and operation. Do Irish data privacy laws apply?

Regards...jmcc

Good question. That will easily be established, one way or another.

I am surprised the Face Book would countenance quarrying of their data, if that is what is proposed.

C. Flower

17-09-2010, 08:42 PM

What is www.jolitics.com all about? It smells and must be a bad thing :) why move in on Ireland , we have not even swept the floor with politics.ie yet, but in six months have 15% of their active users and a greater interest in the postings here by page turns. the general election will see pie get piped thanks god, but www.jolitics.com must be some satanic spawn child of some global plot or other :)

Now now. It seems to me to be more like a more grown-up version of Soda.

It depends heavily on real IDs being used, to synch with Face Book. In Ireland, I think because of the small size of the country and the lack of whistleblower legislation, anonymity is an essential for some (although it's cool to have some members here who post in their public identity) if they are to write and debate politics.

C. Flower

18-09-2010, 06:10 AM

This seems to be as PK might say a story that "keeps on giving"

I have checked with others on this. When you join, you have to use Face Book connect. It offers you 2 options for joining - "basic" which just allows access to your profile pic and email, and "full" which gives them access to all your friends. Except the system seems none too fussy and inclined to go at least in some cases "full" irrespective of selection.

It then runs an algorythm over your friends to identify which ones are "political" and updates you on what political activities they are carrying out.

Wherever could they have got an idea like that from ?

People Korps

18-09-2010, 12:21 PM

no way will people do as we do with their real names, the amount of personal abuse would be ott and employers etc get to see your political affiliations, sounds like a Data Protection issue with this idea

C. Flower

18-09-2010, 03:56 PM

Had a peek in, and there was a fascinating topic on compost toilets.

C. Flower

22-09-2010, 03:52 PM

Dan Boyle is "following me" on jolitics, but I'm not there. I must send a redirect to this place.

I got an email back yesterday morning, offering me the choice of closing my account and deleting my FB friends from their records, or staying, with friends.

I've written back asking will they close my account and then reopen it, without friends attached.

No reply after 24 hours.

TotalMayhem

22-09-2010, 03:58 PM

Dan Boyle is "following me"

Creepy ... ;)

C. Flower

22-09-2010, 11:56 PM

Creepy ... ;)

Update - you will remember I signed up for the "lite" version that said FB friends would not be accessed:

Dear Cass

The lite/basic option gives us access to your Facebook Friends.

We have updated the wording on our basic form to reflect this:

Jolitics requires basic access to your facebook account in order to function. By granting basic access you will be giving us permission to sync your Facebook profile photo, email address, name and friends to Jolitics. Even with just basic access, you will still be able to View, Post, Nominate and Vote.

Facebook recently updated their system to allow 'basic authentication' access to friends status posts, which our system then thought meant you wanted your Facebook friends analyzed.
We have changed our system to reflect the Basic or Full access choice of our users, irrespective of the data Facebook Connect gives us.

Kindest Regards,

So once you're signed up, anyone who becomes your FB friend get's "analyzed". The only way out of this is to delete the account.

People Korps

23-09-2010, 12:46 AM

there is no jolitics,com there are 120 idiots pretending to be jolitics.com. Where's me tele?

TotalMayhem

23-09-2010, 01:02 AM

anyone who becomes your FB friend get's "analyzed".

Being followed by Dan is creepy enough, but that is outright crazy.

And don't forget, next month in a cinema near you:

YouTube - Watch THE SOCIAL NETWORK Trailer

I don't think playing Mark Zuckerberg is such a great career move for Jesse 'Columbus' Eisenberg ... but you'll never know. ;)

jmcc

23-09-2010, 03:40 AM

C. Flower

23-09-2010, 08:41 AM

Sounds like a very elementary social network analysis. The stuff that's done with dating sites is far more advanced. The design flaw with Jolitics is as People Korps pointed out earlier - people's political persona often differs drastically from what can be gleaned from a simplistic FB profile/social network analysis. The important thing about political views of people on different forums is that the political views change. And they would probably change at a faster rate than those in the offline population because of the interactive element that goes way beyond the ordinary individual's election time only involvement with politics. Unless that kind of adaptation is incorporated in the algorithm, the model of a person's political beliefs and interests is going to be useless.

The other problem for Jolitics in the Irish market is that forum sites are far better suited for political discussions. You can see this with PW, P.ie, Boards.ie and the range of various hued political blogs. The people that frequent all these sites are self-selecting and motivated. It is just another entrant in what is effectively a niche market.

Regards...jmcc

It's hard to know yet how things will fall. Twitter is a very powerful medium in some ways that is great for speed and immediacy of contact. It's biggest limitation for political discussion is that it isn't searchable and is gone in a couple of minutes. It's very much complementary to forum discussion as it provides a new form of news feed.

Nested quotes, speed, the public audience, links, searchability, permanence and the option of anonymity make forums a powerful discussion medium. Jolitics doesn't seem to have any of those features apart from possibly searchability?

There's also the issue of moderation.

I think as you suggest that it may acquire a self-selected community who like its features. It also seems to me to operate a bit like Hyde Park corner - people can stand on a soap box and set out their issue and look for support for it, and ask for a show of hands.

On the issue of the Face Book data, I suppose you could say that if anyone is concerned about privacy, they shouldn't be using Face Book in the first place.

People Korps

01-10-2010, 08:11 PM

So they went live today, got my invite, as security they need you top both have afcebook account and give a mobile phone number to receive text actvation.

note some politics.ie mods and ex mods on there {They use their real names). There is also the Cabal crew from P.e Robert Cassidy and Alan Kennedy. (http://www.jolitics.com/p/profile/66467/62/)

On a much less sinister and non Libertas front Dan Boyle and Paddy Crosgrove are prominent.
It looks like a cross between twitter and facebook

Oh yes and the uber fanatic John McGuirk is there

C. Flower

01-10-2010, 08:17 PM

So they went live today, got my invite, as security they need you top both have afcebook account and give a mobile phone number to receive text actvation.

note some politics.ie mods and ex mods on there {They use their real names). There is also the Cabal crew from P.e Robert Cassidy and Alan Kennedy.

On a much less sinister and non Libertas front Dan Boyle and Paddy Crosgrove are prominent.
It looks like a cross between twitter and facebook

More like mini-Soda.

I went in last week for a look. It didn't draw me in. Came out again.

People Korps

01-10-2010, 08:23 PM

Why are so many of poltics.ie co owner David Cochrane's close pals there, :) ?

here is my own profile http://www.jolitics.com/p/feed/66467/

C. Flower

01-10-2010, 08:26 PM

Why are so many of poltics.ie co owner David Cochrane's close pals there, :) ?

here is my own profile http://www.jolitics.com/p/feed/66467/ (Peter Korps)

Barring the gate to put other punters off ?

People Korps

01-10-2010, 08:27 PM

they are twitter addicts maybe they need more.
#

Christy Walsh

01-10-2010, 09:07 PM

I went in too and yes it is a bit of a Polatwit. I should add it does not have the same comfortable feel as PW.

Spectabilis

01-10-2010, 09:24 PM

I've been invited to join so I had a quick gander. Not comfortable. I absolutely hate when my Facebook friends are used and since FB changed its privacy policy I have deleted everything of interest. Funnily enough I left my political affiliation - 'Liberal'. (All my original friends on FB are in North America and I've been on FB pretty much since it left Harvard so they understand what I mean in a US context.) I deleted my photo and went through every privacy setting (I hope).

I have no intention of letting a site trawl my friends for their political affiliations. I think this a site for those who have not figured out yet that FB is too big, too powerful and too intrusive.

People Korps

02-10-2010, 01:52 PM

Joltics.com is a spy site look at this crap, they have searched all my facebook friend's posts ON FACEBOOK to find one who are politically active. I just got this email

Jolitics <service@noreply.jolitics.com>
to P Korps <peoplekorps@gmail.com>
date 1 October 2010 21:21
subject Politically Active Facebook Friends
mailed-by noreply.jolitics.com We've run all the Facebook posts made by your friends through our automated algorithm to identify posts that are political in nature.

Your most politically active friends are:

- XXXXXXXX with 0 posts

Luckily PK has only one friend on facebook , and that is someone I have no idea who they are

C. Flower

02-10-2010, 02:03 PM

Joltics.com is a spy site look at this crap, they have searched all my facebook friend's posts ON FACEBOOK to find one who are politically active. I just got this email

Luckily PK has only one friend on facebook , and that is someone I have no idea who they are

If you read back over the thread you'll see a discussion on this.

You have to give them access to all your Facebook data to use the site.

Spectabilis made some good points.

People Korps

02-10-2010, 02:25 PM

Yes I saw that but the idea that they are profilng all your fb friends for political interests is pretty deep re ****** on people.
NEVER EVER EVER use your real FB account or name on jolitics.com EVER NEVER NEVER

C. Flower

02-10-2010, 02:40 PM

Yes I saw that but the idea that they are profilng all your fb friends for political interests is pretty deep re spying on people.
NEVER EVER EVER use your real FB account or name on jolitics.com EVER NEVER NEVER

Well someone also pointed out that the CIA had been one of the set up partners of Face Book. But I do take your point that giving the friends' data up for analysis is perhaps not what one's friends would want.

I'm almost beginning to feel for the poor souls shut away trying to make sense of all this stuff.