HBCUHiphop com and HBCUEntrepreneurs com - HBCU Alumni based social neomedia and investment group begins Web 2 political campaign for Barack Obama!
Released on = April 10, 2007, 6:11 pm
Press Release Author = Denise Gomes
Industry = Government
Press Release Summary = HBCUHiphop.com & HBCUEntrepreneurs.com- HBCU Alumni based social neomedia & investment group begins Web 2.0 political campaign for Barack Obama!
Press Release Body = http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/barack-obama-hops-on-the-web-20-bandwagon-237047.php
Barack Obama Hops on the Web 2.0 Bandwagon. Remember in 2004 when Howard Dean discovered blogs and it \"revolutionized\" presidential campaigning? That was quaint. This time around, blogs are old hat and everyone is looking to use the internet to connect to you, the concerned and unapathetic voter. Prepare to get jaded and cynical. Barack Obama looks to be diving into this whole \"Web 2.0\" thing head first, what with his own Facebook profile, Flickr account, and YouTube account. In addition to all this stuff, he also has my.barackobama.com, a social networking type site for his supporters to create profiles, network, and make blogs all about how great Barack Obama is. It\'s clear that the internet is going to play an even larger role in the election this year, for better or worse. Do you think all this buzzword bandwagon hopping is going to help, or is this still politics as usual? -Adam Frucci
Barack Obama Creates a Social Network.Round A of Venture Financing to Follow Soon Posted February 10, 2007 I am incredibly excited about Barack Obama. Not because of his intelligence, integrity, or views- although I endorse him fully, this is not a political blog, but because his campaign is arguably the first presidential campaign ever to truly embrace the Internet, and not just the Internet- Web 2.0. Today, Obama posted a video preview of the announcement he will be making tomorrow, undoubtedly a presidential bid. The online flv video by itself is not terribly exciting- Hillary Clinton posts webcasts and will be launching a blog. Undoubtedly, campaign advisors are telling candiates that that there blog thing is mainstream enough to get votes, particularly young voters. But now, the Obama campaign has taken it to the next level. Here's what he said: "On Saturday, you're going to be able to watch my announcement, live from Springfield, but more importantly, after the announcement is done, I hope that you use this website as a tool to organize your friends, your neighbors, and your networks. The website's going to be set up so that you can build your own profile, form your own groups, plan your own events, take campaign fundraising into your own hands, so that we can collect small donations instead of having to rely on large campaign contributions. It's also going to give you a chance to chronicle your campaign experience on your own blog. I hope you take advantage of all these tools." Obama sounds like the executive of any of a number of new Web 2.0 Silicon Valley startups! What he is describing, in fact, is nothing less than a complete social network, with features rivalling those of many social networks that are not attached to a political campaign. The Obama campaign is the first political group to overnight create an ad-hoc social network and use it for political action. Until now, mainstream social networks have largely been focused on connecting people and news- and that's it. The Obama social network goes a step beyond that, to connect people with a single specific cause, and use those connections to drive political action. We live in an exciting time. a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a political candidate to create a video to be broadcast exclusively on the Internet. Even now, I am pleasantly surprised, nay pleasantly amazed that a political candidate is embracing the best of Web 2.0 (which is not Ajax or flashy effects, but rather connecting people, ideas, and now actions in new and meaningful ways).
Young Voters Find Voice on Facebook Site\'s Candidate Groups Are Grass-Roots Politics for the Web Generation By Jose Antonio Vargas Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page A01 Late on the day that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, Farouk Olu Aregbe logged on to Facebook.com, the popular online community where college students post profiles, share photos and blog. On a whim he created a group called \"One Million Strong for Barack.\" \"I remember thinking, there\'s got to be more supporters out there,\" said Farouk, 26, who advises student government at the University at Missouri at Columbia. On Facebook pages built in support of Sen. Barack Obama\'s bid for president in 2008, members muse continuously about the latest news on Obama, plan rallies to show their support and come up with ways to contribute to his nascent campaign. Farouk\'s group had 100 members in the first hour. In less than five days, 10,000. By the third week, nearly 200,000. Yesterday, a month after he created the group, it had 278,100 members. There are more than 500 Obama groups on Facebook. One of the first, \"Students for Barack Obama,\" was created on July 7 by Meredith Segal, a junior at Bowdoin College who first heard of Obama when he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Instead of starting \"a petition or something\" to encourage the freshman senator to run for president, she turned to her Facebook page, created a group and invited people (first her friends, later strangers) to join. Now it\'s a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots student movement -- there\'s a director of field operations, an Internet director, a finance director and a blog team director -- in the presidential campaign so far. \"Young people are on the Web,\" said Segal, 21. \"That\'s how we\'re organizing.\" At 11 a.m. yesterday, \"One Million Strong for Barack\" had 278,100 members. Two and a half hours later, 278,537. Three hours later, 279,070.
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