But email is so, like, 2004.
Which is why I was pleased to see that the Obama “Endorse-O-Thon” has now migrated to Facebook–a more effective medium. To compare, I haven’t received any email endorsements, but six friends have already invited me to join the “I endorse Barack Obama” and “I’m voting for Obama today” groups on the social-networking site. The gap has a lot to do with the different technologies involved. Email is private: a closed-circuit conversation, often between two people, it provides no context beyond the content of a particular message. Facebook, on the other hand, is largely public: it exposes everything that your entire web of contacts is doing, saying and sharing at any given moment–and invites you to participate.
When I clicked on the message, I was immediately redirected to a page that tracked the activity of the “endorse Barack Obama” group. There were more than 20,000 members and 440,000 endorsements, with links to discussion groups and user profiles; every time a friend joined, a bulletin automatically appeared in a News Feed on my homepage. It was, in effect, a self-perpetuating community. As get-out-the-vote efforts go, it’s a whole lot more convincing–and a lot more “Obama”–than a single testimonial sitting in my inbox. Facebook actually reveals how you’re participating, as Obama says, in something “bigger than yourself.”
(That said, some candidates are bigger than others. A search for “hillary clinton super tuesday” turned up exactly one relevant group–“I am supporting Hillary on Super Tuesday.” It boasted 39 members.)
Expect to see more viral, social-networking “reminder drives” before next November. I’m not particularly bullish on the power of Facebook or MySpace to change politics, but this seems like a smart, modest way to harness my generation’s social-networking addiction for a political purpose.
Now back to stalking people I haven’t seen since college…
