Election 2008 Went Viral

Here's an article about this year's election being the most Web 2.0 forward campaign ever.

Notably, Barack Obama used Web 2.0 to bolster his grassroots efforts this year. He even had his own social networking site where people could spread their passion for his issues on my.barackobama.com

Now, I tend to be a political cynic, myself, but his front page is inspiring...much like about everything else he seems to do.

The theme to his page is "Because it's about YOU" and here it seems that Barack Obama gets Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is about allowing people to express themselves to each other, and we see this in this campaign's use of Web 2.0

Lately the Ning Blog has been featuring various Ning sites that are politically-oriented. For example, Americans are using Ning to support Sarah Palin, John McCain, even Ann Kobayashi, who is running for mayor of Honolulu.

While the election will be over after today, sites like YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook have done a huge part in spreading word about people and their passions about the issues and candidates, on the local and national level. Not only that, Web 2.0 has given people a place to get all the information, such as who is supporting Prop. 8 about gay marriage in California, and whether or not the world thinks Palin is ready for Vice Presidency.

I think this shows the power of Web 2.0 - it taps into the passions of people and allows them to "go viral", expressing and sharing their passions by contributing to an organic growth of worldwide connections.

Where are you sharing your passions? Do you "belong" to a place on the web? Is your brand inspiring passion?


This post was written for a project I'm working on for the Sloan Center of Internet Retailing. Check back to see when the Ning site goes live for the latest research on Web 2.0!