The Jeff Pulver Blog: "Save the Net" Submissions Due by June 6th

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May 31, 2006

"Save the Net" Submissions Due by June 6th

I just want to remind folks that you only have until June 6 to submit your entry into the "Save the Net" Viral Ad Campaign Contest. Details are available at www.pulver.com/savethenet I am giving $1000 to the winning submission. You will also gain the glory and satisfaction in knowing that you have done your part to help save and advance the open Internet.

To reiterate, Congress is ensconced in debating Internet and communications policy and might rewrite the rules governing the Internet over the next few months or year. We need to win the hearts and influence the minds of Congress and the policymakers. So far, the Internet appears to be losing and gaining no ground. Most in Congress do not get what the Internet could become if innovators are allowed to innovate and users are allowed to maximize their Internet experience. We have to let them see a glimpse of what the next-generation Internet could be.

I figured you folks out there on the Internet would summon forth some inspiration and provide videos, cartoons, songs, rants or other messages that could inspire government to understand the needs of the Internet innovators and help us to win over their hearts and minds. If you agree with our mission (of harnessing the individual and collective genius of the Internet community to promote better Internet and communications policy), please direct people to www.pulver.com/savethenet, and encourage folks to think outside the box and come up with clever, catchy, meaningful ads.

As I have mentioned, the contest itself is VERY open-ended. We did not pre-establish what people should say or what positions they should invoke in their ads/messages. This open-endedness is intentional. We did not want to limit anyone's creativity or compel them to adhere to any of our pre-conceived notions of the issues, the battle, the preferred approaches. We might be wrong in providing so little guidance, but we wanted to err on the side of allowing a wide array of perspectives. Who knows what some fresh blood and ideas could bring to the issue?

In any event, if you haven't watched television in DC lately, you might not be aware that the Bell companies, the cable companies and the media conglomerates have launched multi-million dollar ad campaigns to win the hearts and minds of Congress as it rewrites the communications laws and sets the rules that will govern the future of the open Internet. They each claim to speak for the Internet and that, if Congress acts appropriately, the future of the Internet will be assured and protected. But, there are no ads during the Sunday morning talk shows from the true Internet innovators and thought leaders -- us.

We don't have millions of dollars, but we do have access to the collective genius of the untapped millions of Internet enthusiasts and innovators. We need to figure out how to cheaply harness that genius to take over the messaging in DC and around the world.

We are thinking the best way to do this is to encourage those Internet creative geniuses to make short marketing pieces for us, allow us to pick the best of the bunch, and start a viral flood of our own Internet-delivered ads and messages so that we can win over the hearts and minds of the legislators and policymakers.

As it is, Congress and policymakers are already falling for the Madison Avenue ad campaigns of the corporate conglomerates who are claiming to speak for the future of the Internet.

It is time for us - the Internet community -- to start speaking for ourselves.

We need soundbites of our own, messaging of our own. We are allegedly the revolutionaries of the Internet and communications. Shouldn't we be the ones revolutionizing the way advocacy is done and communicated in the Internet Age? Shouldn't we be the creative forces verifying that the medium is the message? Who better than us to harness the enabling power of the Internet to bring our message to legislators, to policymakers, to the public? Let's throw away the old rulebook and try to think outside the box to send a message to Congress from the global community of Internet innovators and enthusiasts.

We need short creative ideas - videos, flash ads, other Internet-based gimmicks -- that might effectively communicate to Congress that they must write rules to enable us -- the Internet innovators -- to transform the Internet and communications experience.

We need to plant the seeds in hopes that a thousand flowers might bloom. Even if we get only one great 3-minute video, that could be enough to convince Congress what is at stake as it rewrites rules that might forever shape the nature of the Internet. That single, clever video would certainly be more than we have now.

Please remember to enter the contest by June 6th.