Political Video Barometer

October 23, 2008 12:28 PM

Political Video Barometer
We have just launched our Political Video Barometer, which tracks the movement of YouTube videos through conservative and liberal blogs. The Barometer is updated 4 times a day and allows you to see which new videos are starting to break through within either the Conservative or Liberal blogs and which ones are breaking through to non-political audiencs. We are also running a blog at http://www.shiftingthedebate.com which will examine interesting findings from the barometer.
posted by Caviar (11 comments total)

Interesting idea. How do you measure the political leanings of various blogs? How many of each do you include? What about small-L libertarians or independents?
posted by trinity8-director at 1:14 PM on October 23, 2008

Not loading for me. Safari says "15 of 16 items," but the page never finishes. 5 minutes in.

Will try later from home.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:28 PM on October 23, 2008

The server at valence.morningside-analytics.com is taking too long to respond.

The requested site did not respond to a connection request and the browser has stopped waiting for a reply.

* Could the server be experiencing high demand or a temporary outage? Try again later.
* Are you unable to browse other sites? Check the computer's network connection.
* Is your computer or network protected by a firewall or proxy? Incorrect settings can interfere with Web browsing.
* Still having trouble? Consult your network administrator or Internet provider for assistance.



This was using Firefox. Maybe it's me, maybe it's getting slammed.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:39 PM on October 23, 2008

Hmmm... a small number of people are reporting that "server is taking too long to respond" error, but I've been unable to replicate it. Every diagnostic tool I have says the servers are doing just fine, and it loads just fine for me. I'd really like to try to isolate that. Can you send me some more details about your setup? (platform, any proxies you may be using, ip address, etc...)
posted by Caviar at 2:07 PM on October 23, 2008

There's more information about the methodology behind the site here: Inside the Barometer.
posted by Caviar at 2:30 PM on October 23, 2008

I believe the problem you're seeing is that the backend requests are on port 9500, and that port is likely blocked by your firewall. We're switching it to port 80 ASAP.
posted by Caviar at 4:01 PM on October 23, 2008

We have switched the port. Please try again!
posted by Caviar at 4:15 PM on October 23, 2008

Ok, I think this is one of the coolest things ever. I am a political gossip junkie on both sides of the fence. It's cool to see who's watching what, but even that aside, the popularity feature is cool.

Nice way to filter all the crap on youtube out. See what other's think is worth watching.

My favorite so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYFm5kK4f1k
posted by cjorgensen at 7:48 AM on October 24, 2008

That's pretty damned interesting. Two thumbs up from me.
posted by empyrean at 10:39 PM on October 24, 2008

works fine for me.

I like it, very interesting how both sides are running their propaganda machine ... in fact, a bit scary as well!
posted by SocialChili at 2:46 AM on October 27, 2008

Very clever!
posted by cowbellemoo at 8:28 AM on October 28, 2008