As Kombiz noted earlier, John McCain announced his candidacy tonight on Letterman. The McCain campaign posted the video on it’s site, viewable here.

As much as McCain is trying to be cool by announcing on a late night TV show and as much as his campaign is trying to be savvy by sending the video of said announcement to their email list early, the McCain web presence leaves much to be desired. Frankly these guys just don’t get the use of viral video as a means of growing a campaign, let alone the ever-changing dynamic that comes from spreading video online and translating that spread into online fundraising. What makes me say this? Take a look at the screen capture copied below:

The video of McCain’s announcement appears on an online donation page as an afterthought. I view the web on a large display and the above capture’s natural dimensions are 1197 x 1054 pixels. Yet the video of the candidate announcing that he wants to be President of the United States of America was a measly 287 x 203 pixels. Of the 1.2 million square pixels that I saw on McCain’s announcement page, only 58,000 square pixels were the video I cam to see. That works out to be only 4.61% of the screen that I saw on the page that McCain asked me to visit to see his announcement speech. The information that I would have to enter about my billing address takes up more space than the video of McCain making his announcement.

Before anyone complains, I’ll add a few caveats. One, I use a big monitor, so there’s more empty space around the body than others might have. Two, McCain’s campaign home page has the video on larger scale. Actually he has it in two places - one a sensibly big embed on the front page itself, the other a link to the same donation/video page pictured above.

But both of these concessions just speak to the McCain campaign’s lack of understanding of email lists, embedded video, and online fundraising. Some people use big monitors and you might want to include a video that isn’t dwarfed by the visitor’s state drop-down menu. I don’t want have to go blind watching the video of the candidate announcing amidst my credit card information (don’t worry, I didn’t donate). This is probably the most important email McCain has sent to his email list in this campaign so far. And yet when I click through, I am overwhelmed by 95% of a screen that is not the candidate announcing his candidacy. This isn’t just silly, this is indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding of how to communicate online.

Kudos to McCain for finding a cutesy way to announce that he wants to be President. I’m sure that matters to someone, somewhere. But good God, if this doesn’t smack of a 70-year old trying to use the internet for the first time…

Technorati Tags: 2008 elections, announcement speech, David Letterman, John McCain