I Link You

political campaigning... social networking style

I'm sure many of you (like me) has watched Barack Obama confirmed his presidential bid for the 2008 U.S. election. After perusing a bit through MySpace, I noticed that Obama's site has turned into a social network in order to drum up more support for his bid as the Democratic nomination for president.

Barack Obama turned his site into a social network this past weekend, hoping to create a venue for his supporters to connect. Obama is already leveraging social media using Facebook, MySpace and Flickr, but the addition of “My Barack Obama” seems smart: Obama is one brand that already has masses of offline support across a wide spectrum (i.e. University of Chicago, NASCAR, etc). This will just complement his campaign to effectively reach more people.

After wandering through the site, it's actually pretty cool: you can organize fundraising opportunities, create events, find Obama events near you, build a network of friends (that email invite system is crucial), send messages, join groups and write a blog about how you’re helping Obama, or how you feel about Obama's campaign. Groups are the way to connect to strangers on the network, since I couldn't find a browse feature. In many regards, it’s more like Facebook than MySpace or YouTube - simple interface and text-based content for connecting with people you know or those around you. But it also lacks the openness of hi5 or Piczo: self expression tools like embedding your own video clips from other sites, adding online slideshows and uploading lots of photos aren't available at all. I guess Obama would like to keep tabs on his site after all.

I am certain that the Democrats will benefit most from political campaigning on the web as the younger demographic on social networks tends to learn to the left as far as I can tell. Barack’s social site isn’t perfect - it lacks the ability to browse content and users freely. This may be intentional as I wouldn't want some crazy person spreading weird messages across my political campaign site, but this lack of openness does limit the site's usefulness. BUT, it's so much better than anything by Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. Barack is also more suited to the age of celebrity, wall-to-wall TV news and YouTube addiction (remember his clip supporting the Bears' run to the Superbowl): he’s more charismatic than the other candidates, and comes across better in video clips.

posted by Koh @ 5:59 AM