abstract
| - by user Mjhasley There are many articles about Obama's switch in MySpace. Yesterday, Obama's campaign stopped using the www.myspace.com/barackobama site which was created by a 20-something supporter prior to Obama's election to the Senate. By the time he had 30,000 friends, the Obama camp decided to allow Joe Anthony to run the site for them. Now however, Anthony has been pushed aside by the campaign so they can have full control. For his hours of work, the camp gave him $39,000, and while bitter from the experience, still plans on voting for Obama. If you're interested in more details, here they are: Currently Obama's new site only has 21,999 friends. Once news gets out of the change, it will be interesting to see if the original 150,000+ take the time to switch over. But what's to learn in this first experiment with social networking and presidential campaigns? 1.
* As much as grassroots is a popular mantra and the web is naturally made for this, serious candidates will always want to be in control. 2.
* Candidates should post their MySpace link on their official site. Currently, Obama doesn't list MySpace on the homepage of his official 08 site. If you search MySpace for Obama there are over 54 pages of hits you'd get without knowing which of these is the official page. In fact, the first one that shows up is: with the added CA at the end to tell you it's not official. I wonder if people catch this? What happens if a satirical site takes off and harms the candidate? 3.
* How will future candidates who come out as the front runner create their social networking site, from volunteers, or campaign workers? What will the public prefer? Meaning, which will be more popular, the political or public MySpace site? 4.
* Will Social Networking sites be seen as regular media which receives millons of dollars? 5.
* Which 2012 candidate has already blocked his MySpace space. There is already a page doubtfully run by Newt. I bet that guy is hoping for a big payday. 6.
* Blogger Squatter: will this become a new law? The inability to squat on a name, or will the market place prevail? 7.
* The big lesson is that politicians are no longer isolated from the public. Bloggers, Social Networkers, can now cause problems for candidates. Which means laws will be created in 2009. Bad laws __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.
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