Jeff Bennett's Blog

Politics and elections have always been fodder for water cooler, barber shop and dinner table conversation. In my home growing up politics were more interesting to talk about than the Red Sox. Well that was before the Red Sox started winning World Series Championships. Politics did monopolize our dialogue and it still does. Our dinner table is now virtual though as we share any and all information via email and all of the other social media tools available to us.

It is amazing to me how technology is being used in this election in so many ways by so many people. I believe that this use of technology is actually having a big impact on the election process as well.

The Primary season saw all of the U.S. Presidential candidates launching their own Web Sites along with Facebook and MySpace pages. We then witnessed Gather.Com and YouTube sponsoring debates. As the candidates were vying for position they were all trying to leverage campaign talent with contacts and email lists from the 2004 election. Most candidates were raising money on the Internet learning lessons from Howard Dean’s internet prowess from 2004. There is no doubt that leveraging social media was instumental to both Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton in their epic battle for the Democratic nomination. I must say that Senator Obama surely has created the best iPhone app which is illustrated here.

As Senator Obama and Senator John McCain prepared for their respective conventions their teams were busy updating their web sites with revised and expanded positions on all major issues. Senator Obama announced his VP pick of Senator Joe Biden via an SMS Text Message to his supporters as reported by Om Malik on GigaOM. Hey this is like American Idol or something?! Next thing we will be voting with SMS Text Message.

This election has raised Saturday Night Live to near record audiences. The Internet and YouTube has enabled everyday to be Saturday with countless showings of the Tina Fey portrayals of Governor Sarah Palin. This is the talk of every office in America time and time again.

You can not visit Digg and not be overwhelmed by the number of political stories. Digg founder Kevin Rose has admitted that he was surprised at how many political stories are making it into the site’s Most Dugg category.

The blogosphere has expanded this political season to command significant attention by readers and is even being picked up by the mainstream media regularly.

The social media tools for sharing articles and videos through Facebook, MySpace, emails, blogs, Twitter, Instant Messaging and SMS Text Messages have increased the rate of information flowing exponentially. I know that I am part of several circles that frequently share information as it becomes available on the election. This activity is more involved than any fantasy sports league that I know.

What does this all add up to? The use of all of this technology is allowing for an instant news cycle and nearly instant sharing and conversation (globally) on all things politics due to the viral contributions of the social media. We shall study the impact as the election becomes complete. One thing is for sure the use of all of this technology has increased awareness and drawn many more people into the process and I believe that it has changed elections forever.