When running for election, President Obama and his campaign team utilized a revolutionary form of campaigning: the social network. Creating a MySpace-esque website called MyBO allowed Obama to communicate directly with the people whose votes he was trying to earn, directly in their own homes on their own times. This helped Obama gain a record $55 million in one month from ONLY click-to-give donations (this number skyrocketed to $200 million by the end of June 2008, Talbot writes). Obama became accessible-- a man of the people who communicated with them on their own terms. Because he was able to do this, the millions of American citizens he was able to get his word out to decided he was the man to elect as president. Though, as the article points out, how much of his support was based on his networking campaign and how much was based on his views on issues like the Iraq War is quite unclear.
However, since Obama was so far out in the public eye, there was a huge risk he could get a lot of negative publicity along with the positive. The fact that he was elected DESPITE all the publicity is a big deal. Take, for example, the Rick Perry fiasco. His campaign ad was so horribly received on the video mogul Youtube that he became the butt of millions of jokes nationwide. There are countless parodies of his "Keep gays out of the military" speech, including my favourite one in where the creator replaced Perry's face with an obscenity and his words with garbles. Obama avoided issues like this even though is videos on Youtube are extremely popular, hitting up to 4 million views, according to the article.
However, since Obama was so far out in the public eye, there was a huge risk he could get a lot of negative publicity along with the positive. The fact that he was elected DESPITE all the publicity is a big deal. Take, for example, the Rick Perry fiasco. His campaign ad was so horribly received on the video mogul Youtube that he became the butt of millions of jokes nationwide. There are countless parodies of his "Keep gays out of the military" speech, including my favourite one in where the creator replaced Perry's face with an obscenity and his words with garbles. Obama avoided issues like this even though is videos on Youtube are extremely popular, hitting up to 4 million views, according to the article.
Obama utilized Twitter (called a microblog in the article) and gained 50,000 followers. I personally think utilizing Twitter was a brilliant move because it isn't the type of network that gets gummed up with game links, photos, and unimportant comments-- it consists mostly of "tweeting" facebook-style "statuses" which are usually succinct. They allow the author to discuss his or her main point quickly and effectively, letting the "followers" know exactly whats going on.
Taking over the 'net was a smart plan on the Obama team's part, but the fact that they executed it all well is important, too. McCain's attempt at creating his own network, MyBO style, was a failure because it wasn't at all user friendly.
Over all, in this day and age, communicating via the internet has become crucial. It is not only a way to keep in touch with friends, but it can help a man become the next President of the USA.
Taking over the 'net was a smart plan on the Obama team's part, but the fact that they executed it all well is important, too. McCain's attempt at creating his own network, MyBO style, was a failure because it wasn't at all user friendly.
Over all, in this day and age, communicating via the internet has become crucial. It is not only a way to keep in touch with friends, but it can help a man become the next President of the USA.
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