I have some great news about a project we’re working on that we believe has the potential to become a major player in the online media realm. I’ll tell you about the project, along with ways you can get involved shortly. First, I want to talk about the path we took to lead us to this project.
For those who do not know, Ken Marrero and I have been deeply involved in content websites for many years. In fact, before I got in to politics I independently managed travel websites. At the same time, I was also doing online marketing for a major US Bank.
The combination of these two efforts dealt me a wealth of experience in running content oriented web portals. In 2007 and 2008, I was a privately contracted consultant for one of the largest wiki projects outside of Wikipedia itself. During this time I also worked with a blog hosting site that at one point had almost 300 fully active blogs/bloggers.
In 2008 I also developed the foundation work for NewsPlatoon, a project that was aimed at setting up state based news sites. This project provided me with a painful lesson in the requirements of running a large scale, high content web portal.
My point here is that we’ve had a great deal of experience in this realm. We’ve worked on major projects that were successful beyond our wildest imagination (the wiki project, for example, had more than a million and a half visits on election day alone!). But we’ve also worked on some difficult projects that ultimately failed.
But we learned. We learned what works and what doesn’t. We learned about different structure, different models, different systems, etc. We learned what to do vs. what not to do.
Now that the American Liberty Alliance can proudly claim tens of thousands of members, the Tea Party Movement is in full swing, and the liberty movement in general is looking for immediate action, we’re ready to roll out the final version of what we see as the next logical step for us.
Online Media News Hubs
There is no question that our side is “catching up” when it comes to online media and news outlets. For example, you have HotAir.com and Michelle Malkin dominating the blogosphere with daily doses of everything that’s hot. We have RedState.com with its high impact, high response rate community of center-right activists. We have the guys over at TheNextRight.com putting together more strategic thoughts and updates.
When it comes to blogs, our side has far more of them. And we’re quickly catching up on the readership. The only thing that seems to be missing as a comprehensive gathering spot for all the news.
I mean, I despise a lot of what is written at Huffington Post. But the reality is… they’re good at it. They cover very wide ranges of topics and they cover them well.
On our side you need to visit a good ten sites in the morning to get the full web digest. On their side you just go to Huffington Post and you know about everything that’s happening.
Our News Project
There is no point in trying to hide it… we’re going to give it a go. We’re going to pool our collective experience, build an editorial team that can put together a content army. We’re going to release our own “movement” minded news portal.
The site will be a little more “independent” with its branding. We’re not going to be red this or conservative that. We’re just going to go float the daily news and make it as user friendly as possible.
Project 73
We’re not really ready to go public with this project just yet. We have the branding, we have the domains, we’re already coding and working on the site, but we aren’t ready to release it to the world. So for now, we’ll just refer to it as “Project 73.”
Now in order to make this work, we’re going to have to build a brigade of citizen journalists. More than 350 of our members checked the “I want to blog” option when registering, so we know we have a lot of folks who are looking to generate some news.
This is good. Because we need you. All of you.
Citizen journalism is beating down biased, liberal media every day. We’ve got a ton of citizen journalists on our side. Now it’s time to put a call out for us to unify and begin working as a team.
We’re hoping that Project 73 can help with this.
Editorial Team
We’re currently working on putting together an editorial team to manage the day to day operations of the site and keep an eye on the content that hits our front page. This will be lead by a “Managing Team” that will act as the Site Admins and Chief Editors.
Under this team will be a group of category editors/leaders. The following are the categories we’re going to be implementing right out of the gate.
-Breaking News
-Hot/Featured
-Weekly Opinion Columns
-Daily News
-Politics
-Entertainment
-Sports
-Video (daily vids)
-Special Reports
-TV (team vlogging)
If you can commit an hour a day and want to get in on the ground level of a potentially big project for the liberty movement, we want to hear from you. If you see a category you might like to edit, please contact us ASAP.
(eric@americanlibertyalliance.com)
Bloggers/Citizen Journalist Wanted
Of course, we’re going to need as many citizen journalists as possible to work under these categories. If you’re ready to start playing a bigger role in the movement, if you’re ready to change the online environment for the better, if you’re ready to help us confront this left wing attack on our way of life, you need to join our team.
All bloggers/writers are required to submit two posts per week (minimum). There is a revenue sharing system in place that will help you earn revenue on the posts you get published. The more content you get published, and the more views it receives, the higher your chances will be that you can actually make some money from this as well.
It’s time to take control of our country. It’s time to take control of the information being passed around. It’s time to take control of our future.
The time is now.
Stay tuned for more news on Project 73.
For Liberty,
-Eric Odom
IMPORTANT NOTE TO THE SOCK PUPPETS AND TROLLS: Every day I spend time wading through silly “Astroturf” comments. This charge is old and worn out. Not a single person involved with our organization, or any tea party movement related organization for that matter, is profiting off of the movement. To assert such shows your clear ignorance of fact and reality.
Instead of a pitiful attempt to shoot the messenger, perhaps you should attempt to apply your energy towards addressing the message? I mean, here we are talking about a totally people powered news project with absolutely no funding, yet you fail to mention the fact that HuffPo got well over $10 MILLION to kick its operation in to gear.
Seriously… give it a rest. And no, your Astroturf comments will not be approved.
Eric Odom
Eric Odom is Executive Director and Co-Founder of the American Liberty Alliance. Eric is a libertarian minded, free-market activist. His profession is web strategy and online community development.
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Thank you Eric et al for all of your unselfish,patriotic work!! As a retired military member I never believed that my constitutional oath of “swearing to protect and defend the United States of America from ALL enemies foreign an DOMESTIC” would be so relevant as it is today. I’ve been “Chicken Little” for the past 35 years and it’s good to know that others are finally listening. It’s an honor to be a part of something so wholesome and pure in Americana. Complacency and apathy have gotten us to this point and hopefully that is being replaced by grassroots actions that will permanently reverse this dangerous malady! I just read today that the Shah of Iran’s widow named Jimmy Carter as the man most responsible for our current problems. I agree completely. Think about it.
I am not sure if this is the place for suggestions, and I am not even sure if you need any, but I wanted to offer my two cents. Take it or leave it, I promise not to be wacko or offended.
There is a large conservative base that uses Twitter, and people seem to be gravitating there in larger and larger numbers. I think it would be excellent to have a Twitter section where The most important tweets can be listed daily. People could even cut and paste to pass the tweets on their followers.
I know I have become addicted lately and it seems to becoming more popular.
You can count me in anywhere you want me. I even want to start a local group in our town of Pickwick Tennessee. I have highway property with bilboard that I will donate for advertizing. I will blog, I will write, I will work phone banks, I will sweep floors, I will clean porta-potties. If you still do not understand,I will do anything needed to be apart and support the taking back of our country back. I feel like we should start a campaign to throw all of our leaders out on both sides and start all over. AND PUSH TERM LIMITS WITH EVERYTHING WE CAN MUSTER. Please call call on me for what ever it takes.
Duane Wright
Bruce wrote: “I am very interested as I have worked with Randall Terry, Dick Armey, Dick Morris, Mario Rubio and Hal Schmeckenfaser all of whom have worked tirelessly for our cause”
Wow, what a collection of vapid, evil charlatans. I’m surprised that bastard Falwell wasn’t on the list.
Are you going to expect your “citizen journalists” to work for free, as the Huffington Post bloggers do? If so, chances are that your content is going to be badly written and largely devoid of any actual reporting. The Huffington Post is mostly an aggregator of news stories from other publications that are written by professional journalists. Nobody reads the blogs.
I “ditto” everything Larry Kennedy expresses above @ 9:53 PM, On this the 27th of Sept.
I would also add that I feel a strong sense of pride coming on from all the Good people that are stepping up to fight the good fight.
One note is that if the economy starts to improve soon then I might fear that some of us will start to focus on the business of our lives, me included! So I am making a hard commitment to learn to spell commitment, and to stay active for at least one full year and to renew this commitment if needed at the end of that time. Thank you Eric and friends for your service, I would also love to write a Blog on a regular basis. I just ask that you make sure spellcheck is available.
Eric,
I can write. I write everyday now. I submit to Canadian Free Press, Yahoo Answers and anywhere else I can make my voice heard.
I am deeply interested in providing a voice for communities like my own, Fort Wayne, IN wherein our two daily newspapers are owned by the same company, extraordinaryily liberal and we have no room for fresh air in this outlet. Our city government makes it difficult to obtain permits for meetings…with extraordinary restrictions and costs for police protection, etc. One would think we are scheduling a G20 meeting.
Fort Wayne is the city of churches and I think everyone is hiding under the pews. I do not know but I am pretty sure we have to wake this town up.
This former 9 year Marine who has served two tours in Vietnam has been apathetic far too long. On September 5th, I golfed my last 18 holes until I see improvement in this country. On September 11th, at 4PM I drove myself to DC for the 9/12 happenings. It was great because I saw people just like the ones in Fort Wayne, serious, but smiling, and wide awake. Loved it.
I will write, I will edit, I will offer up an hour or two per day. You name it, if you need me, you have me.
Want a blog….I would entitle it something like Obama’s Agenda from a Christian Perspective.
Let me know.
Mike Konkel
Semper Fi
I truly feel for Libertarians. Here are people who have battled tirelessly against big government, only to have their “movement” co-opted by Neo-Cons seeking to re-brand themselves to hide their obvious hypocrisy. Face it, it’s not “big government” that’s the issue here. We just finished up 8 years of big government with nary a “tea party”. The issue today isn’t big government, it’s that it’s no longer the right’s big government. Where were these “tea party” protests when Bush was spending trillions and stripping away our liberties with the Patriot Act? True Libertarians have fought this kind of bloated government all along, regardless of party. However, what I see lately are far-right hypocrites co-opting a movement that they know nothing about because they can’t in good conscience attack our current POTUS when their boy was as bad if not worse when it came to spending.
Glad to see that the Shah’s wife has put her vast knowledge and understanding of American politics to use and finally labeled the true “culprit” that has led to our nation’s demise. Would you be so quick to quote her is she had said Reagan instead of Carter? Of course not. Then she wouldn’t have known what she was talking about. Labewling one individual as being responsible for the mess our politics has become just shows the depth of shallow, baseless knowledge swirling about the cesspool of modern political discourse.
I spend a lot of time at the Huffington Post. If you are going to create a similar website than I believe it is imperative to have an advanced comment section. The HP has the best comment system on the internet so far with the integration of Facebook, email and live notifications of replies and the ability to fan and watch friends. Instant communication is the key to getting people together on important issues. I wish you luck with Project 73 and I hope you develop a blog site that puts the HP to shame.
Hate to say it but there’s already a right-wing themed website that does everything Huffington Post does only with a reactionary/authoritarian bend.
It’s called FoxNews.com
I have a concern with the idea of “beating down liberal media”. If this is going to be just another neo-conservative (IOW, anti-liberal) website, there are a lot of us that won’t be interested. I tried that with RedState and found them to be rather against the Constitutional and libertarian movement that tea parties represent. And with zero tolerance for the libertarian perspective ( I was banned almost immediately ). Libertarianism has no side. The founding of this country was done by liberals and conservatives and people of all philosophies working towards a common goal. There is a lot of neo-conservatism that needs to be beaten down too, the type that also violates the Constitution and creates big government bureaucracy and intrusion.
Count me in
Eric, I replied to the email you sent yesterday, and am adding a response here as well, just in case. Web developer, writer, blogger, tweeter, tea partier, etc. – ready and willing to be a part of the project.
Also see Brenda Patriots at Facebook,
How about a view from a small town, making a difference!??
Brenda is about as small as you can get and we have some great people here that are trying to really make a difference locally and nationally…
Nancy
This is very exciting. Count me WAY in. I’m heartened to see so many heads have turned away from whatever distraction has kept them from noticing all that has happened, and is happening around us… and to America. The Wolf truly is at the door. Waiting and hoping for good people to find their way into positions of power that might balance the scales against a new tyranny that seeks to steal our future, is no longer a reasonable expectation. We ALL must help each other become aware, engaged, and involved.
Thank you Eric. I would very much like the opportunity to be a part of this important effort.
Just emailed you. Sounds like a wonderful undertaking. If you can structure a good part of the site to be a relevant content aggregator (as Patrick noted above), a la instapundit or drudge, that particularly filters for liberty-centric content, I think that would be a huge boon for your project.
Count Us In!!!!!!!! SonsOfLibertyRiders.com
I’m curious Eric; if, as you say, “Not a single person involved with our organization, or any tea party movement related organization for that matter, is profiting off of the movement”, then why do you state on your website, “The American Liberty Alliance is not a 501c3, 501c4 or a PAC. We are not registered as a non-profit and we do not raise funds as such.”?
Is this not a contradiction? If you are not seeking profit, then why not register the organization with a 501 tax-exempt classification? What is the morivation for that decision?
I already spend more than an hour a day trying to keep up with what the guys in Washington are doing. I am here if you need me for anything at all. I will pray for success in this endeavor, as the media is the message, remember?
After 32 years of “doing my duty” and quietly voting in every election, I am compelled to do more.
MUCH MORE! I don’t care what friends, family, neighbors, strangers, or anyone else thinks about it.
The “Restoration” must begin, and where better than the individual-this individual. So please count me in. I am willing to give at least an hour each day and more if you need it. For me there is nothing more important than reclaiming our place as that “shining light” not only for the generations to come, but for the rest of the world who has looked to us for leadership. Despite efforts to diminish our nation through the degradation of faith,freedom, family, virtue, and society in general, we are sill the greatest nation mankind has ever known. PERIOD!
I find that the apologists who feel our nation is bad are simply ignorant of the facts. Perhaps they were taught revisionist history and socialist/statist dogma. I really don’t care where these wrong headed ideas have filtered down from, but we can and and must inform everyone within our reach. We must remind our fellow citizens of the ideas and actions that formed our nation. We must reassert the ideas and actions that made our nation into the place where people have struggled and continue to struggle to be in order to have the freedoms necessary to build the lives they dream of. It is imperative.
Hi Eric,
I am involved in conservative causes in New Jersey, especially dealing with illegal immigration, and am interested in what you are doing. I actually am taking a journalism course in investigative reporting at New York University on Tuesday evenings from 6:45 pm to 9 pm on Tuesday nights (EST). I don’t know where you are based so that might be a time conflict. I also am not terribly computer savvy although I can navigate the web, do e-mails, etc. but not real sophisticated with computers.
Anyway, if I can be of help let me know.
Gayle Kesselman
Co-Chair, New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control
Hi,
I’ll make the same comment here that I’ve made on a range of other sites. I have no ideological interest. I’m just a person who wants to see government work efficiently and effectively. I hope that’s what we all want. For that to happen, the best thing any of us can do is to see all of us as succeeding or failing together — not choosing up sides and thinking that it’s good for the country when one partisan faction triumphs over the other. I cherish and celebrate your right to tout a point of view but please do it with the same respect, fairness, honesty, accuracy, and thoroughness that you would hope to receive from anyone else. Thank you.
While I have backed off from much of the craziness of Left vs. Right, I have thought a lot about it and how it all went down.
Out of control taxation and legislators signing legislation without reading it brought on the TEA party movement. While both Left and Right were represented in that movement, it was mostly the Right. The media got on it and accentuated that which would most alienate the Left. FOX started covering mainly the interests of the Right. The other stations continued doing what they had been doing for some time, and that is simply not report the truth about any goverment abuses. Since we now had a Democratic Prez, that was perceived as being Left-Leaning.
So now the real powers behind the scenes, the big banks and big corporations who own the media, egged the whole thing on. Left and Right could no longer communicate because the only issues coming to anyone’s attention were being presented as Left
vs Right phenomena. If Democrats keep hearing about the radical Right with their racist and extreme Christian ideals, and the Republicans keep hearing about the “stupid” red-necks who want children to starve and the earth’s ecosystem to collapse, where does one begin to establish rapport?
Then came the 9/12 Movement. What was the purpose of the 9/12 Movement? Its purpose was to bring the country back to the place it was the day after the attacks of 9/11/2001. We were united as a Nation. We weren’t black or white or Christian or Pagan or rich or poor. We were Americans under attack. What did the 9/12 Movement accomplish? It fragmented us to the point of violence. Despite claiming to be non-partisan, it was obviously weighted heavily to the Right. The Left tried to rally on 9/13 to protest what the 9/12 ralliers were supposedly protesting on the 12th. Are you seeing that things got off track somewhere?
The Prez flies off over the 9/12 crowd in his helicopter and completely ignores it. Left and Right start fighting over how many people were actually there. The Tea Party message boards come alive with arguments about who started the movement and how dare such and such claim they did this when obviously so and so did it, ad nauseum. The media got hold of it all and perpetuated it. The rift grew even more.
The media did this. I know that the same people control FOX as control the other media outlets. So, why is FOX being allowed to release all this supposedly secret information while the other media are allowed to scoff at such “reporting”? Who benefits at the dissension this creates? What direction has the government taken since all this “patriotism” started showing up?
The Audit the Fed legislation got some attention, and the legislature proceeded to take it apart and make it impotent by permitting only certain areas of Fed activity to be audited. Naturally, these areas would not tell us anything about what they have been doing with our money all these years.
The Cap and Trade (tax) legislation was passed just before the August break, and the Health Insurance Reform legislation became the focus of attention. The Left was aligned against the Right in the name of health care being a “right” to which all citizens (and apparently non-citizens) are entitled.
The Immigration problem went crazy. We started hearing about how all these Latinos were invading our country, how our tax dollars were schooling their children, how they were taking our jobs, how our jails were filling with criminal illegals, how medical costs were rising because of emergency rooms being required to treat them despite not getting paid for that care, and how our government planned on creating the North American Union and legalizing all illegal aliens. Again, Right and Left went at it.
Somebody questions Obama’s legitimacy as President, and the whole “Birther” issue arises. Birthers are, of course, nuts; and those who believe the Birthers are nuts are plain stupid.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve wiggles out from oversight. The Cap and Trade legislation gets modified by the legislature so that it does not apply to the heaviest polluters, only makes life more expensive and difficult for the average American. The Health Care Bill gets pushed through at any cost, without addressing the issues that really make health care expensive and without heeding the warnings of countries who have already done this and gone broke. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, while the US turns its attention to Iran, claiming they are producing nuclear weapons and must be stopped. The US
also supports the dictators Chavez and Zelaya over the constitution of Honduras. Obama is inexplicably awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while his popularity plummets. And in a matter of weeks, he is supposed to be signing a global treaty which creates a one-world communist government to redistribute, in an “equitable” manner, the wealth and industry and technology of the West to the developing nations of the world. The real unemployment rate is at 20%, higher than it was in the same phase of the Great Depression. What will it be when the rest of our industry gets shipped away?
We have a matter of weeks to get our acts together, to pull ourselves together, and to make sure that we do not cede our sovereignty to a global government. Either that, or we can continue to bicker over media induced ideological differences and awaken one day in December to find we are no longer a free, sovereign nation — not even in name.
Those are my thoughts at this time. There is much I omitted. It is just off the top of my head, but I have a feeling that this is a sentiment that needs to get out there.
Charlene