Novel Political use of Web two ohhhh

There is nothing more interesting than a raw political campaign, the addition of web 2.0 elements to change people’s minds is something that we saw early in 2004, the use of YouTube videos, fact checking, and the rest of it. This year, 2008, we are seeing an increase in the use of Web 2.0 technology, like the use of blogs and wiki’s to help form people’s opinions about the candidates.

The McCainpedia is just one example of this phenomenon, another one is Hillary Clinton’s direct appeal to Bloggers to support her, by having her first blogger call in Q&A. Expanding the broad base of ways that people can comment, the need for systems like archive.org to capture all this information is important, so let’s hope that they are busy following all the political flotsam that is out there for campaign 2008. What is interesting is the notation out at Jamaicaobserver.com about the use of Web 2.0 technology amongst the democrats.

What is ironic is that Barack Obama has proven himself to be more adept at using the web-based technology for political purposes than is Hillary, whose husband championed investments in what was dubbed the dotcom boom. If ever one needed an example of the law of unintended consequences at work, one need to look no further than to Hillary’s demise in the recent presidential primaries due in no small measure to Obama’s ability to mobilise funds at the grassroots level on the Internet. Source: Jamaica Observer

There is a lot to be said about the use of Digg, and other systems to see some interaction from the candidates. What is obvious though is that political managers are going to be watching how the web was used to drive people to support candidates. They will also be watching what tools were used effectively in taking down candidates. While this election might be more of an issue of choice about what technology is effective, the next election in 2012 will take all the lessons from 2004 and 2008, to turn the campaigns into a hyper linked, Web 2.0/3.0 driven effort to grab people’s attention, and sway their votes.

Tags: Clinton, obama, mccain, web 2.0, web 3.0, election, technology, wiki, blog, campaign elements, interesting