I'm going to post this here, but this is a topic I've also cross-posted to my personal blog.  I am truly bummed that I just couldn't get up to Berkely to meet them in person while I'm on this trip. I just got some press news that I'd like to share

SIGHTSPEED PARTNERS WITH
ELECTIONMALL TO PROMOTE E-DEMOCRACY

Candidates to Use Best in Class Video Messaging & Communications To Tell Their Story and Get Out The Vote

Washington, D.C. and Berkeley, CA (August xx, 2006) — SightSpeed Inc., the award-winning provider of free and premium personal video services over the Internet, announced today a strategic alliance with ElectionMall™ Technologies, Inc., a world leader in providing Internet-based non-partisan solutions for elections and campaigns.

In partnership with SightSpeed, ElectionMall will serve the video mail and conferencing needs of political campaigns through SightSpeed’s award winning video and voice Internet technologies.  

SightSpeed and ElectionMall will provide campaign teams with easy to use video communications tools, including video mail and video conferencing, making it possible for candidates to communicate with their constituents in revolutionary new, exciting and effective ways including one-to-one outreach.

“Our strategic alliance offers new alternatives to traditional campaign advertising such as television ads and direct mail, which
are a campaign’s largest expenditures,” said Ravi Singh, CEO of ElectionMall Technologies, Inc.  “Beyond campaign cost
savings, the combination of SightSpeed’s and ElectionMall’s proven technologies will make it possible to bridge the gap between campaigns and voters, creating a true “voterspace” and community atmosphere to change the way politics are
conducted online.” 

ElectionMall and SightSpeed have both devoted substantial research and development hours to create eTownHall.tv, a new breakthrough message producing multimedia web site that provides a unique and tailored approach to constituent outreach by political candidates and other campaign organizations. Based upon SightSpeed’s best in class online video solutions, the new eTownHall.tv application now makes it possible for political candidates to create and send video email messages from their computers directly to voters, and other  interested parties, over any Internet connection. Using the eTownHall.tv personal video communications technology, political candidates can also engage in real-time video conferences to communicate directly with voters and campaign workers regardless of location, using only their personal computers and a broadband
Internet connection such as a cable modem, DSL, or wireless (Wi-FI) hotspot.

“The Internet is expected to play an increasingly important role in how key issues are communicated to the public during an election campaign,” said Scott Lomond, president and COO of SightSpeed Inc. “Our alliance with ElectionMall.com will fully empower candidates with new ways to reach important stakeholders using the power of both real-time and pre-recorded
Internet video.“

SightSpeed’s Video Mail is one of the key features of the company’s award winning personal video services. With SightSpeed, people can easily create and send video messages that can be played by anyone - even those who are not yet using SightSpeed.

SightSpeed’s built-in video campaign management feature makes it easy for candidates and their teams to track the effectiveness of previously sent video messages, providing detail of when and how often the video messages are played or forwarded. With SightSpeed’s newly upgraded Video Blogging feature, candidates and campaign leaders can quickly create video clips and post them to video blogs or web sites.

Considered by critics and users as the “best in class” video communications solution, SightSpeed’s newest version is a
full-featured video, voice, and text messaging platform. SightSpeed 5.0 has also added true PSTN calling, giving users the ability to place and receive telephone calls to regular phones and cell phones. SightSpeed 5.0 also adds an enhanced video codec that provides full-motion, TV like video clarity.

About ElectionMall™ Technologies, Inc.

ElectionMall Technologies, Inc., established in 1999, is a world leader in providing Internet-based non-partisan solutions for elections and campaigns, effectively utilizing technology and business expertise to enable candidates, advocacy groups, or nonprofits to generate enhanced gains in awareness, funds, and votes.  Electionmall.com is headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Los Angeles and  Chicago.  For more information, visit www.electionmall.com or call 888-WEB-2-WIN.

About SightSpeed Inc.

SightSpeed offers consumers and small businesses the most complete and compelling suite of personal video services over the Internet.

SightSpeed’s award-winning free and premium services include best in class video and voice over IP (VVoIP), voice over IP (VoIP), and text messaging (IM). 

SightSpeed offers advanced community features, including a public directory and an easy-to-use video creation platform that gives users the ability to record and publish original user-generated content to blogs, websites and emails. SightSpeed also offers SightSpeedTV place-shifting features, as well as support for mobile personal video.  SightSpeed’s suite of industry-leading video services offers unique opportunities for video-enabled advertising and e-commerce, in addition to communications, content creation and publishing.  

Founded in 2001 and based in Berkeley, California, SightSpeed is a privately held company funded by The Roda Group, best known for launching the company Ask Jeeves

-----
Keep in mind I'm at a VoIP Developer Conference. This is big news. SightSpeed in conjunction with ElectionMall Technologies is bringing state of the art VoIP and VVoIP capabilities to the political process of campaigns and elections. That's power. That's reaching grassroots. That's embracing technology

Remember Howard Dean's campaign and how much attention it generated because Dean embraced blogs and technology. And granted, he wasn't and isn't alone in that approach. Now candidates will have easy access to the tools that enable communications in a new way. That's important for a new election cycle. The tools political campaigns use need to advance with the technologies themselves.

In the last campaign, I shared quite a bit of dialogue with Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi. Joe has been an advocate for using the technologies. This election cycle, we will see more advocates using more tools

Technorati Tags: SightSpeed, ElectionMall Technologies, VoIP, VVoIP, video, unified communications