So I read Steve O’ Hear’s post on Barack Obama’s new website with great interest. For those not interested in US politics, or perhaps, John Stewart’s Daily Show, Barack Obama is one the leading candidates behind the presidential election of 2008. Of course for more information head over to the Wikipedia’s entry on the man. His website is introducing “myspace” type of functionality where Obama’s supporters can exchange messages, create a “blog”, and set up meetings and so on.
My knee jerk reaction was one of extreme lameness. A politician using MySpace-style tactics to encourage people to “blog” about their experiences and “create meetings” with his blog? Doesn’t that just smack of someone who is trying to capitalize on another web trend?
Well, I thought about it for another five minutes, and like most things, my answer evolved into — “that depends”.
What does it depend on? It depends on how much “buy in” Barack Obama has into the concept itself. Sure, he released his video announcing his canadidacy for nomination of the Presidency on YouTube. But one video on YouTube doesn’t a web savvy politician make.
The real power is whether or not he can mobilize his own supporters to use the site — for everything it *can* be used for. That means he’s got signage at every event. That means he has people promoting the site at every event. And it means the man himself, during interviews and on stage, using the site’s URL every time he wants to announce a new meeting, *use* the site every time he wants to create grass roots events, not be afraid, for example, of promoting people’s blogs off-line.
I’ve seen the kind of fervor that is painted on the faces of folks at these kinds of political rallies. If there is a consistent buy-in for such a 2.0 tool comes from the top, there is a distinct possibility that folks who have NEVER used anything remotely web2.0 (ever!) might be introduced to an entirely new world of online media.
Could Barack Obama do more for the “web2.0″ than Mike Arrington ever did?
Maybe. But only if Mr. Obama believes in the concept himself.
February 11th, 2007 at 2:23 am | Permalink
It should be noted that this is far from new. There were support blogs/ pages available in the 2004 elections, and at least as far back as 96 I can recall candidates offering things like buttons for their sites etc…indeed, I still have my autographed copy of Steve Forbes book from the 2000 US campaign…all for getting I think it was half a dozen people to sign up on his site (I still think Forbes would have made a great president, love the idea of flat tax :-) ). The only thing really new with Obama is that the tools available today are a lot easier to use and roll out than they were in previous elections.
February 11th, 2007 at 12:39 pm | Permalink
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February 11th, 2007 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
Duncan is right that this is night new. In fact, the exact social networking tool on the Obama site has been on the DNC site for over a year.
The other interesting thing about Obama to me is the huge, spontaneous grassroots support he’s already got Facebook and MySpace. One Facebook group has 250,000 members and another student lead one has 60,000. People are enthusiastic about this guy.
February 11th, 2007 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
Duncan and Todd,
No question that the tools existed before Obama, but one does wonder whether or not a) the fervor around Obama + b) a willingness (above and beyond prior nominees) to incorporate social media tools == a new found evangelism, in this age of MySpace and YouTube.
Time will tell, I suppose.
Cheers
t
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm | Permalink
[...] enjoyed a couple of reactions to Obama’s social network, particularly Fred Wilson’s and Tony Hung’s. I’ll be the first to admit that this is somewhat uncharted territory, so I’ll approach [...]