Saturday, February 17, 2007

Presidential Candidates Give Supporters Blogs

The Chicago Tribune of February 16, 2007 includes a front page article by Washington Bureau reporter Mike Dorning titled "Political Web Sites Get Personal: Candidates Let Backers Write Blogs, Network." The article starts with news about Barack Obama's web site.

"Sen. Barack Obama's newly revamped Web site looks a lot like MySpace and Facebook, and that's no accident. As a presidential candidate offering himself as a generational change agent, Obama is leveraging online social networking in a nearly unprecedented way in yet another clear measure of how the Internet is transforming politics."

Later in the article, the reporter says that the web site for John Edwards also provides supporters with blogs and space for profiles.

Finding the social tools on Obama's website is easy, as they are prominently displayed. On Edward's website they associated with the "Join the Campaign" box. Also, if you "skip to the website" from the welcome page and scroll to the bottom of the following page, you will find links to the Edward's MySpace, YouTube, 43 Things, etc.

It will be interesting to see if the candidates who have supported legislation to restrict access to social websites in schools and public libraries will be following the examples of Obama and Edwards. They could be choosing to filter themselves.

No comments: