Last week Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama launched his own social network, MyBarakObama.
There’s been a lot of discussion as to who made this and how well it works. I’m not really concerned with either. What I’m wondering is: Why was this made?
MyBarakObama offers features already available on free sites like MeetUp, MySpace and Facebook such as friends, events, messaging, groups and so forth. But now supporters have another site to learn, another profile to build and another password to remember. Plus, not only did the Obama campaign pay to have it made, they have to maintain and moderate it too. Genius!
The way to connect with voters online is to provide them with the information and tools to connect with each other. If those tools are already available for free on sites customers are familiar with why try to reinvent the wheel?
-
John Boyle runs SocialNext, a blog that tracks and analyzes marketing via social networks and viral video.
I don’t agree. Meetup.com, Myspace, and others are certainly venues where a political web team should focus effort to develop. However my.barackobama.com gives simple and centralized tools to encourage and facilitate supporters to do what they are supposed to do:
1. Raise money
2. Meet and influence others
I love how easy it was for me to setup a profile and how I was instantly connected with local events regarding Obama.
The web is not (yet) de-aggregated such that this site would not make sense.
But perhaps the obama team would do well to create the barackobama widget.
I imagine its also useful for them not to particularly endorse one Social media site…
it is a long term investment for them, and a way to consolidate online support for the candidate. He’s going to be around for a long time, so it makes good sense to strike out on their own.
Good points all around. However, I think the opportunity cost of creating and maintaining a social networking site is too high especially since other services offer the same stuff and carry more equity in the minds of voters.
After all, Howard Dean excelled at using the net to inform and coordinate without creating his own social network.
Not so. I was involved inthe Dean campaign with MeetUp as the organisational nexus and the Obama site has even more potential. The Obama groups are just getting organised, mostly still small, but dig it, there are over a dozen expatriate groups around the world already. I started one here in Australia myself. Not to mention a zillion other domestic ones.
And I found two groups of Aussies that just want to help even though they don’t vote in the US. How ’bout that. That John Howard thing went off beautifully over here, the local progressives loved it.
The navigation is easy and having the whole tool in one neat package makes sense.
And the hands-off approach of this ‘outside’ campaign is a brilliant application of anarchic principles, with little cells of organised activity held together by slender but effective lines of communication and a common purpose. I am not sure if it was planned or will be sustained as such but it is working very well and is progressive, to say the least, like benign Communards trying to get someone elected president.
I feel as though the political candidates need to have a large amount of their fanbase connected to their main site, but I also feel as though they should integrate their Facebook, MySpace, MeetUp and other sites into the actual fabric of their site using APIs.
The main site should be linked to from the profiles of the other sites and the social media sites must be social media optimized. YouTube (invite people of similar interests using automated bots), MySpace (MySpace Marketing/automation usage), MeetUp (bot invites and software development for building up reputation).
There are many other forms of traffic development, but I can’t keep up from this point – feel free to check out my link above. I love the idea of social media optimization but I also think the pieces should be integrated with one another with the idea of building meaning making among the political candidates’ audiences.
Love the post
This year’s election is the first real internet-based campaign. I saw a clip on TV that showed intense “war-rooms” managing online trends for the candidates, utilizing Google Trends, online metrics and blog tools, YouTube, etc.
It’s really pretty amazing how politics is shifting online.
I agree that this is just one of the things that sucks about airlines, but I’m not sure that anything can be done about it. Unless everyone decides to put their seats back or everyone leaves them up, someone is going to get the short end of the stick. While I can’t say I’ve ever gone so far as to ask if I can put my seat back, I certainly take into consideration how much leg room the person behind me needs and has.
Using my laptop in a 45 degree closed position can be a bit difficult. Using it on my knee is not comfortable. People who recline early in the flight and fail to adjust at dining times just give me the beebees……what ever beebees are….but you know what I mean.
The unwritten rule is that a person is entitled to put his seat back as far as it will go, and the person behind is required to deal with it. They only go back several inches anyway.
All due respect, Jeff – I think your blame is misplaced. The fault lies with the airlines, not their customers. I certainly lean back every millimeter the airline will allow. And not all seats glide back smoothly – some will only go back with a good deal of force.
The airlines really pit us against each other, don’t they?
thanks
goog site
thank you turkey
turkey in medyum ankara very good site
thank you goods
thank you!
One thin that you should know is that Obama’s campaign is being run partially by one of the founders of facebook, so having an integral and sophisticated internet strategy is purely natural for them. Obama is no fool…
camli sohbet camlı sohbet kamerali sohbet kameralı sohbet yazılı sohbet yazili sohbet goruntulu sohbet görüntülü sohbet chat cet chet canli sohbet sexs sohbet sex sohbet sicak sohbet gezete sohbet
Looks like the social networking worked out for Obama!
Thanks for your sharing and courtesy!
Thanks for that information.
It is important to read.
This year’s election is the first real internet-based campaign. I saw a clip on TV that showed intense “war-rooms” managing online trends for the candidates, utilizing Google Trends, online metrics and blog tools, YouTube, etc.