An interesting read in today's WSJ (no subscription needed) which is largely a profile on facebook co-founder, and Obama supporter, Chris Hughes.
Three years ago Mr. [Chris] Hughes was a Harvard sophomore, sitting in a dorm room helping develop what would become Facebook Inc. the popular social-networking site, with two roommates. After he graduated last June, he moved to Silicon Valley to work on Facebook full-time. But five months ago he put his career on hold to move to Chicago, in the dead of winter, for a "significant" pay cut, in favor of a 14-hour-a-day job with Mr. Obama's campaign. His goal: to transfer the same magic that transformed the way college students interact to a presidential campaign.
[Chris Hughes]Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites allow people to create home-page hangouts and use them to connect with their friends online. People create pages for themselves on these sites that show their name, photos of themselves, contact information and other personal details. They can also message each other, meet friends of friends, chat on message boards and discover new bands. The sites are among the fastest growing corners of the Internet -- social-networking sites drew more than 111 million unique visitors in April, according to research firm comScore Inc.
Now social networking is shaping up as a potent new force in the 2008 presidential campaign. Candidates are betting that the sites -- existing commercial ones or their own newly created ones, like Mr. Hughes's My.BarackObama.com -- will expand their power to find and mobilize supporters, particularly elusive young voters who go to the polls at much lower rates than their elders.
The conclusion, which offers a view of what's on the horizon for facebook campaign efforts and the inevitable push-back from Obama's "top brass," is particularly interesting to me:
Some tech-savvy Obama supporters grumble about limitations of the official site. The blog section on My.BarackObama.com, for example, doesn't allow users to post YouTube videos, for example, or photos or audio files, like MP3s. It's also hard for other bloggers to use search engines like Technorati.com, to discover what people on My.BarackObama.com are posting.
Mr. Hughes and other members of Mr. Obama's Internet team acknowledge their site has limitations and they're working to address them. They're advertising for Web developers and say they have a list of at least a dozen things to do to improve the site.
A new Obama feature launched on Friday allows Facebook users to add a window to their site that shows an Obama video, tells them how many of their registered "friends" support Obama and urges them to encourage friends who live in early primary states like New Hampshire and Iowa to join his cause.
Mr. Hughes's enthusiasm is being tempered by the experiences of others on Mr. Obama's staff, including his boss, Internet director Joe Rospars. Mr. Rospars was a key Internet staffer for Mr. Dean's campaign and remains focused on ensuring Mr. Obama does not meet the same fate as the former governor. The campaign has to remain focused on using technology as a means to reaching a campaign goal, he says. "We don't just do technology for technology's sake," says Mr. Rospars. "How does something help the campaign or help reach a campaign goal?"
The sentence I've highlighted above is the constant mantra we hear from campaign teams. They want the technology to be proven effective before they're (likely) willing to embrace it.
The classic Catch-22 remains. For now...
Revolution.
