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New Post has been published on Tech News
New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/causes-acquires-votizen-to-democratize-democracy-2/684
Causes Acquires Votizen To Democratize Democracy
Activism platform Causes has just acquired political advocacy startup Votizen. With Causes’ massive 186 million-strong user base and Votizen’s tools, together they’ll break down barriers to civic engagement to allow anyone to influence elections. Negotiated by mutual investor Sean Parker, the deal gives people a way to turn out votes for candidates who support the Causes they’re passionate about.
I recently caught wind of Causes buying Votizen through my sources, and leaders of the two companies agreed to be interviewed about the acquisition which will be formally announced later today. The purchase price was undisclosed. [Update 10:50am PST 1/10/13: Votizen has since published a Facebook note confirming the acquisition. It details that Votizen's site has now been shut down and all records of personal data will be destroyed, though former users may still get email alerts.]
Two Approaches To The Same Vision
Founded by Sean Parker and Joe Green, Causes launched as a Facebook app in 2007 to apply word of mouth at the scale of social networking to make a social impact. Since then it’s registered 186 million users who’ve donated more than $ 50 million to 60,000 non-profits. They’ve also changed laws, started new non-profits, organized service trips and more.
Along the way, Causes became interested in Jason Putorti. He was a lauded designer at Mint prior to its acquisition by Intuit in 2009. Afterwards, Causes tried to hire him, but he started Votizen instead. “I wanted to go after the policy space immediately, and Causes wasn’t there yet,” Putorti tells me.
Votizen lets people sign in with Facebook or Twitter and see which of their friends are registered vote. You choose a candidate you support, and Votizen tells you which friends are eligible to vote and you should remind to turn out. It also creates a profile for you with your verified voter file pulled from public records. This shows candidates you’re a serious participant in democracy.
A year later Votizen raised $ 1.25 million in initial funding in 2010 from an all-star set of investors, including 500 Startups, Felicis Ventures, SV Angel, Shervin Pishevar, and Keith Rabois. Founders Fund added a big chunk and partner Sean Parker joined the Votizen board. Eventually Votizen would bring in another $ 750,000 convertible note from Parker, Ashton Kutcher, and some other celebrities.
Under the leadership of Putorti and co-founder David Binetti, Votizen succeeded in building a database of over 200 million voters and rallied over 5,000 campaigns. Still, outside of the election cycle it was tough to acquire new users. Votizen had enormous potential to convert excitement for a cause into political impact, but it needed more distribution.
Causes, meanwhile, had excelled at inspiring lightweight “clicktivism” but needed a way to harness momentum for a campaign to create a sizable dent in problems like education, conservation, and human rights. According to AppData, this month 10 million people were active on Causes, meaning there’s plenty of others to reactivate.
In the years since it first approached Putorti, Causes promoted Matt Mahan, who tells me the company “learned issue activism is a stepping stone to political engagement. There are certain people involved in political campaigns, but there’s a lot of people who get involved in individual issues [like the ones Causes hosts]. We wanted to show them the natural end result is taking some kind of political action.”
Joining Forces
Through Parker, Causes began acquisition talks with Votizen. Mahan explains, “we had 65 million actions on Causes last year. If it had been connected to Votizen, their impact would have been 10X.” Plus, Mahan believes that with so many fascinating startups to work at, it would have been hard to recruit a team as strong as Votizen’s.
Binetti tells me joining forces made perfect sense. “This deal gives us the potential to reach every voter in America and move every voter in America. That’s a huge opportunity, and one we weren’t going to pass up.” And while both companies strive to make a social impact, they’re definitely for-profit ventures hoping to earn revenue by restructuring activism.
The acquisition aligns disparate strengths to achieve a common goal. Votizen could reengage Causes’ latent user base by getting them to pledge their votes to candidates who support the Causes they donate to and volunteer for.
Now more than ever, people need to feel like they have a voice in their government. Mahan says “in offline world I think democracy is struggling. There’s cynicism, declining participation rates, and a lack of belief that my individual actions matter. Really, we’re just at the doorstep of a new era of civic engagement online. We want to be the technology platform that services that.”
The whole Votizen team will immediately begin work at the Causes office in San Francisco. It will be integrating their products to create a bridge between backing a Cause and accomplishing that goal by voting for politicians who’ll enact legislation on its behalf.
For example, Causes users took three million actions in support of The Sandy Hook “Global Sympathy Card” and “Sandy Hook Moment of Silence. Mahan says that “With the addition of Votizen’s voter file integration those three million actions will carry a lot more weight in Washington, D.C. and statehouses around the country.” That’s because the voter file shows politicians “this isn’t just some signature. This is a real voter in their district that’s going to vote them up or down” explains Binetti.
The question now is whether, together, Causes and Votizen can make activism appealing enough to leapfrog exhaustion with the political process.
The Power Is Yours
In several of his public talks, Sean Parker has laid out his position that an empowered network of people can have a huge influence, and in the case of politics wrestle back that influence from the people with the deepest pockets. At the Techonomy conference in November 2011, Parker said:
What I’ve been exploring with two portfolio companies, Votizen and Causes, and in fact our very tagline at Causes is ‘individual empowerment’, is…trying to leverage social capital to effect some kind of social change, whether it’s in electoral politics, or activism, or advocacy, or raising money. What’s really interesting is aggregating power. Ultimately the purpose of money in politics is as a proxy for votes. If you can find a more efficient way to aggregate power in the form of voting, you can remove money from the system.
The acquisition unites two of Parker’s companies and strengthens his portfolio of businesses aiming to democratize democracy, which also includes campaign organizing tool NationBuilder. Parker tells me “By adding Votizen’s voter file integration to the Causes platform, Causes expands upon its existing capabilities for tying online activism to real-world change. Our two teams are very compatible and the combination will create a significantly stronger bench of technical and design talent, e.g. the addition of Jason Putorti to our design team.”
Together, Causes and Votizen could help us find problems we’re passionate about, get us involved, and make sure our votes deliver solutions…if they can disrupt our apathy. And there’s plenty of work to be done, both in the United States and abroad. Binetti concludes “Democracy is a growth business. There’s only one direction this is heading — that’s more of it.”
[Image Credit]
New Post has been published on Tech News
New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/causes-acquires-votizen-to-democratize-democracy/581
Causes Acquires Votizen To Democratize Democracy
Activism platform Causes has just acquired political advocacy startup Votizen. With Causes’ massive 186 million-strong user base and Votizen’s tools, together they’ll break down barriers to civic engagement to allow anyone to influence elections. Negotiated by mutual investor Sean Parker, the deal gives people a way to turn out votes for candidates who support the Causes they’re passionate about.
I recently caught wind of Causes buying Votizen through my sources, and leaders of the two companies agreed to be interviewed about the acquisition which will be formally announced later today. The purchase price was undisclosed. [Update 10:50am PST 1/10/13: Causes has since published a Facebook note confirming the acquisition. It details that Votizen's site has now been shut down and all records of personal data will be destroyed, though former users may still get email alerts.]
Two Approaches To The Same Vision
Founded by Sean Parker and Joe Green, Causes launched as a Facebook app in 2007 to apply word of mouth at the scale of social networking to make a social impact. Since then it’s registered 186 million users who’ve donated more than $ 50 million to 60,000 non-profits. They’ve also changed laws, started new non-profits, organized service trips and more.
Along the way, Causes became interested in Jason Putorti. He was a lauded designer at Mint prior to its acquisition by Intuit in 2009. Afterwards, Causes tried to hire him, but he started Votizen instead. “I wanted to go after the policy space immediately, and Causes wasn’t there yet,” Putorti tells me.
Votizen lets people sign in with Facebook or Twitter and see which of their friends are registered vote. You choose a candidate you support, and Votizen tells you which friends are eligible to vote and you should remind to turn out. It also creates a profile for you with your verified voter file pulled from public records. This shows candidates you’re a serious participant in democracy.
A year later Votizen raised $ 1.25 million in initial funding in 2010 from an all-star set of investors, including 500 Startups, Felicis Ventures, SV Angel, Shervin Pishevar, and Keith Rabois. Founders Fund added a big chunk and partner Sean Parker joined the Votizen board. Eventually Votizen would bring in another $ 750,000 convertible note from Parker, Ashton Kutcher, and some other celebrities.
Under the leadership of Putorti and co-founder David Binetti, Votizen succeeded in building a database of over 200 million voters and rallied over 5,000 campaigns. Still, outside of the election cycle it was tough to acquire new users. Votizen had enormous potential to convert excitement for a cause into political impact, but it needed more distribution.
Causes, meanwhile, had excelled at inspiring lightweight “clicktivism” but needed a way to harness momentum for a campaign to create a sizable dent in problems like education, conservation, and human rights. According to AppData, this month 10 million people were active on Causes, meaning there’s plenty of others to reactivate.
In the years since it first approached Putorti, Causes promoted Matt Mahan, who tells me the company “learned issue activism is a stepping stone to political engagement. There are certain people involved in political campaigns, but there’s a lot of people who get involved in individual issues [like the ones Causes hosts]. We wanted to show them the natural end result is taking some kind of political action.”
Joining Forces
Through Parker, Causes began acquisition talks with Votizen. Mahan explains, “we had 65 million actions on Causes last year. If it had been connected to Votizen, their impact would have been 10X.” Plus, Mahan believes that with so many fascinating startups to work at, it would have been hard to recruit a team as strong as Votizen’s.
Binetti tells me joining forces made perfect sense. “This deal gives us the potential to reach every voter in America and move every voter in America. That’s a huge opportunity, and one we weren’t going to pass up.” And while both companies strive to make a social impact, they’re definitely for-profit ventures hoping to earn revenue by restructuring activism.
The acquisition aligns disparate strengths to achieve a common goal. Votizen could reengage Causes’ latent user base by getting them to pledge their votes to candidates who support the Causes they donate to and volunteer for.
Now more than ever, people need to feel like they have a voice in their government. Mahan says “in offline world I think democracy is struggling. There’s cynicism, declining participation rates, and a lack of belief that my individual actions matter. Really, we’re just at the doorstep of a new era of civic engagement online. We want to be the technology platform that services that.”
The whole Votizen team will immediately begin work at the Causes office in San Francisco. It will be integrating their products to create a bridge between backing a Cause and accomplishing that goal by voting for politicians who’ll enact legislation on its behalf.
For example, Causes users took three million actions in support of The Sandy Hook “Global Sympathy Card” and “Sandy Hook Moment of Silence. Mahan says that “With the addition of Votizen’s voter file integration those three million actions will carry a lot more weight in Washington, D.C. and statehouses around the country.” That’s because the voter file shows politicians “this isn’t just some signature. This is a real voter in their district that’s going to vote them up or down” explains Binetti.
The question now is whether, together, Causes and Votizen can make activism appealing enough to leapfrog exhaustion with the political process.
The Power Is Yours
In several of his public talks, Sean Parker has laid out his position that an empowered network of people can have a huge influence, and in the case of politics wrestle back that influence from the people with the deepest pockets. At the Techonomy conference in November 2011, Parker said:
What I’ve been exploring with two portfolio companies, Votizen and Causes, and in fact our very tagline at Causes is ‘individual empowerment’, is…trying to leverage social capital to effect some kind of social change, whether it’s in electoral politics, or activism, or advocacy, or raising money. What’s really interesting is aggregating power. Ultimately the purpose of money in politics is as a proxy for votes. If you can find a more efficient way to aggregate power in the form of voting, you can remove money from the system.
The acquisition unites two of Parker’s companies and strengthens his portfolio of businesses aiming to democratize democracy, which also includes campaign organizing tool NationBuilder. Parker tells me “By adding Votizen’s voter file integration to the Causes platform, Causes expands upon its existing capabilities for tying online activism to real-world change. Our two teams are very compatible and the combination will create a significantly stronger bench of technical and design talent, e.g. the addition of Jason Putorti to our design team.”
Together, Causes and Votizen could help us find problems we’re passionate about, get us involved, and make sure our votes deliver solutions…if they can disrupt our apathy. And there’s plenty of work to be done, both in the United States and abroad. Binetti concludes “Democracy is a growth business. There’s only one direction this is heading — that’s more of it.”
[Image Credit]
Votizen is Dangerous
I think there is a lot of potential for technology to positively disrupt the political process, and since it's an election year, I've been recently checking out politics-based tech startups. The one that is growing the fastest is called Votizen. Votizen is a service that allows users to discover how their friends on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) will be voting in upcoming elections. From there it encourages users to band together and campaign for their candidates by promoting them through social media.
On the surface this seems like a great product. It attempts to increase voter participation rate, which in the past U.S. Presidential election was only around 57%. It also aims to reduce the role of money in campaigning, which I'm all for.
However, I think Votizen is doing more harm than good. The service revolves around how an individual's friend network votes. When you sign up for a Votizen account, the first thing you see is which candidates your social networks support. Since Votizen doesn't provide any information on the issues or candidates' platforms, you are only exposed to what your peer group thinks. This allows for uniformed citizens to vote based on what their friends think (who may be informed or not). And as we know, our peers influence our decision-making process tremendously. Think back to your middle school class elections, don't you remember being forced to put your head down and raise your hand without other classmates looking? Yes, I know a 57% voter turnout is relatively low, but I think that Votizen is assuming that having a high voter participation rate will improve our democracy and country as a whole. I disagree. I don't think a citizen should vote if he/she hasn't seriously read about the current political issues and the candidates' stances on those issues. That's why I oppose a compulsory voting system. Encouraging citizens who will vote under the influence of their friends instead of their own opinions will increase the chances of electing a demagogue. This is what Votizen is indirectly promoting (even though I'm sure they mean well), and it's dangerous.
Nice being mentioned alongside @CoryBooker, Votizen and #Waywire...
And the winner quote:
millennials want to see news and information coming not only from trusted news sources, they also want to see opinions, ideas, and values that other people have about [that news and information].
From votizen.com:
"Every voter in America has a votizen profile - claim yours and join the movement. Gain an audience with officials representing you, and candidates competing for your vote."
This is soooo exciting to me! It's about time our government got with the times. I really feel like we are much more connected with our government through this than we have been for decades, maybe even in history! Go make your own profile now!
Where politics and tech collide
Hmm, a couple of crucial tidbits on the intersection of politics and tech from the fabulous Good Morning Silicon Valley blog out of the San Jose Mercury-News. I'm particularly interested in the (not-surprising) skimming of social-media personal data to target voters as practiced by Votizen and reported by the WSJ. THere's a lot of opportunity here.
• The Wall Street Journal today profiles Votizen, a Mountain View company that has a starring role in San Francisco’s mayoral elections next month. Votizen uses information found in social networks such as Facebookand Twitter to target would-be voters; makes it easy for a candidate’s supporters to recommend candidates; and follows through by tracking whether the recommendations worked. Many famous names can be found on Votizen’s investors page, including valley angel investor Ron Conway, Peter Thiel and Sean Parker.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone reportedly accidentally spammed his Twitter followers — including non-San Francisco voters such as Katie Couric and Leonard Nimoy — using Votizen last week, asking them to vote for current S.F. Mayor Ed Lee.
• In other news at the intersection of tech and California politics, the Fair Political Practices Commission today is scheduled to consider adopting a rule that would allow for political contributions via text messages. If the commission adopts the rule, California would reportedly be the first in the nation to have such a system, which would apply to state campaigns only. The FPPC envisions the system as one in which donations would be included in people’s cell phone bills, according to the public-comment discussion last month, a recording of which was obtained by GMSV. Wireless carriers would set further parameters or rules on donations in accordance with the law.
Are you an invisible voter?
When you first created your Facebook account, there were a few things you had to tend to first. Your profile had a faded-grey silhouette that rendered based upon whether you told Facebook you were male or female. It was necessary to make it yours, add a photo, and share your 'social face' with the world.
If you're reading this, you're likely concerned your voice doesn't matter. You want to be heard and you're craving the chance to tell your politicians what you really think. Today is your lucky day! Now you can tell your local, regional, and national representatives what you think. YOU can actually have a say in day-to-day political decisions.
Before Votizen, you were just a number on a ballot for or against a politician. Votizen wants to fundamentally change that principle. It gives you a social face, a venue to write open letters about issues for which you have passion, and a feature that allows you to endorse the candidate you want for elected offices relevant to YOU.
How do I know that your politicians will care about what you have to say? Votizen allows you to prove you're a registered and active voter in your district and shows you will get out and vote in the 2012 Presidential Elections! Register to vote, join Votizen, take a stand, and BE HEARD!