How Presidential Candidates Are Using the 'Net
Barack Obama
The Obama Campaign, on the other hand, seems to be closer to the Joe Trippi/Howard Dean approach of 2004 that changed the way the election process operates mores than anyone or anything has since the television. Obama makes sure to cover more ground than Hillary, adding an Eventful page, a PartyBuilder (a social network for Democrats) profile, a Twitter feed, and a full-fledged social network just for Obama supporters. The Obama campaign puts more faith and power in the hands of its supporters (though not quite as much as the Dean campaign). Obama, for one, is quickly out-pacing the competition for friends on social networks, with just shy of 110,000 friends on Facebook, and over 150,000 on MySpace, despite being sent back to zero less than three months ago. Unlike Hillary, Obama's MySpace page features actual supporters in his top 40(!), and has much more personal info on both MySpace and Facebook, including complete contact details and favorite books and movies.
On his YouTube channel is a call from the man himself to submit stories from your local grassroots organization to include on the YouTube feed. Obama, like Edwards and Hillary, has a text-messaging initiative as well. The difference is that Obama's is a two-way system that allows supporters to send feedback and ask questions of the campaign.
Obama has one thing the other Democratic candidates don't: a social network of his own. My.BarackObama.com allows users to sign up and work together to share information. The network goes further than other campaigns tools to help you organize events by allowing you to blog, create groups, make friends, send personal messages -- all the standard social web things you're used to, including uploading videos.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Swansey @ Oct 5th 2007 4:52PM
I am tired of supporting the liers in the goverment tax'ing us to death 90 years ago we did not have these tax's to support the greedy ppeople in washington WHY should they work for two yeras and get their ay for the rest of their lives . First they are paid too much for waht they do . Traid off for the companies who give bribes