Conventions, Podcasts, and Bloggers

The Republican convention took some hits for not being as organized with regards to accommodating bloggers. The close I took from the story was that the "It doesn't sound like the old school GOP has the same regard for new media." Hmm. Regard for the media, eh?

So this morning I want to download something to listen to during my walk. I go to the iTunes store and do a search on "mccain speech" or "palin speech" The first result I get is the link to the speeches from the Republican Convention 2008. Easy. Click subscribe, pick the two I want and we're good to go.

Now I try a search on "obama speech" The top of the list is his 2004 convention stuff, next up is a link to the New Yorker. I look through the links, but can only find some video casts (that I'm not interested in).

Next I try "biden speech" and here's the result:



The small type says "Your search had no results. Use Power Search to refine your search or Browse the entire iTunes store..." (You can click the image to see)

A Power Search with Biden as the artist gives me his speeches. The most recent is from June 25th.

I did find the Obama speech by going to the iTunes storefront and following the DNC 08 link there, but you still have to wonder why the technologically astute Dems could get the search terms wrong while the stodgy old Republicans get it right.

So while the Republicans may not have the same "regard" for the new media, at least they can manage the technology better. I think that has implications beyond iTunes.