Obama’s use of technology in his campaign.

               

Though both McCain and Obama used significant amounts of technology to aid their campaigns, Obama evidently made much more use of the internet and various other technologies of the present. His campaign used the net to announce his running for presidency and gave birth to  an international community of supporters constantly helping him out. John McCain admitted to using computers only to check e-mail, and only when people tell him to. Obama is younger and knew the potential the internet had.

Not only did Obama have his website to spread his words, but he went to many large familiar blogging and network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, etc. where he befriended many people and kept in touch with them. It made them feel like he really was their friend which led them to give their support to him. Another way he kept in contact with his supporters was by means of e-mail. He was able to give friendly messages by sending mass e-mails to people as a plea to vote immediately before he goes out to give his speech or any other times. With this viral contact, that is, when friends would convince their friends to join in and those friends would continue the chain, Obama set records for collecting donations primarily on the net. When millions of everyday people give even a small amount, he could raise a significant amount. People were still donating right up to election day.

Obama’s website is generally more appealing to modern internet users compared to that of McCain’s. Obama links to those many social networks discussed above, as well as give users downloadable content such as ringtones and applications revolving his campaign. One of his bigger projects is MyBO, My Barack Obama, which allows people to organize fundraisers and talk to voters locally about his campaign. With all the Americans on the internet, imagine how many people would do the campaigning for him. In addition, his website has an online shop, one of the best ways to distribute things to people without having to set up stores all around America. He sells merchandise that further promotes himself that supporters can proudly use.

YouTube, most probably the largest video sharing website on the internet, played a big role too. Since Obama got a lot of his supporters over the net, they’re more likely the type of people who will record Obama’s speeches and such and virally spread them over video sharing websites to get his message around incredibly fast.

Future candidates would most likely learn from Obama’s campaign and do the same. They may try to further take advantage of the viral aspects of the web and possibly do multiple live online broadcasts from home or another place specifically for the online supporters. This might attract people who don’t normally go on the internet to do so and get involved in many future online campaignings. In addition there may be future technologies to be developed that may be of use that we are clueless of presently. Obama has clued into the many possibilities the internet proposes and emerged victorious in his election.

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