According to Daily Kos' website, the progressive blog attracts nearly "2.5 million unique visitors per month," making it one of the largest online political blogs. And politicians, aware that Daily Kos has become a primary meeting-ground for progressives deeply engaged in political activism, have taken notice. It is not uncommon to see posts (called diaries) written by prominent politicians, such as Senator John Kerry and President Jimmy Carter. In fact, the list of those politicians who have posted political pieces on Daily Kos is a veritable Democratic who's-who, and includes President Barack Obama.
How Does Daily Kos Work?
Daily Kos is a political blog which has two primary content streams: stories and diaries. The central column of text on Daily Kos, which uses the left margin of the page, contains stories written by Daily Kos writers and editors. These are professional political writers hired by Daily Kos to create stories which provide extensive content and analysis on political current events.
The second content stream on Daily Kos comes from diaries, which can be written by any registered user, the links to which appear on the right-hand column. Diaries are topic-driven and can be on virtually anything, from breaking news stories to calls for political action. Registered users on Daily Kos who value a given diary can recommend it to the community, and those diaries from registered users which have received the most recommendations are found on Daily Kos under the "Recommended Diaries" heading.
Daily Kos and Netroots Activism
Daily Kos has become a progressive grassroots force, channeling not only the attention of hundreds of thousands of political progressives, but their money as well. ActBlue, an online fundraising site for Democratic candidates, has had a significant portion of its overall donations funneled to it from Daily Kos. The second largest fundraising campaign on the site, Daily Kos' "Orange to Blue," has generated over $2,000,000 for Democratic candidates. This number doesn't include the myriad individual candidate donation campaigns, many of which are supported heavily by Daily Kos users.
Daily Kos users also utilize Daily Kos as a sounding-board for immediate calls-to-action. For example, Daily Kos users compelled Facebook to remove an offensive poll about President Barack Obama after responding to a recommended diary on the site.
Daily Kos History - Founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
Moulitsas founded Daily Kos in 2002 during a time in which he toyed with political consulting. He has focused his full attention on the site since 2004, a time in which its readership began to balloon (in conjunction with the presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and John Edwards, both championed by the Netroots to varying degrees).
He has since co-authored Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics and authored Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. Moulitsas is also a contributing columnist for Newsweek and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper.
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