Crossposted from Eyeon08.

So I went to accept a LinkedIn invitation. You’ll never guess from who. But, in any case, I get to the screen, and there is Barack Obama asking a question.

This strikes me as a pretty clever way to use LinkedIn. This is a crowd that, if you engage, can probably turn donor. And they are probably pretty well connected to other people. They are relatively wealthy. And, if someone responds, Obama can highlight answers. By answering, people take some ownership. Wiki-politics plus social networks. Very impressive.

A little discussion of why this is so clever. When you ask a question on LinkedIn, it appears to 3 degrees of seperation. There are 1.4m people within 3 degrees for me. That’s a lot of people. And they are relatively well targeted. After all, if someone responds, they are, by definition, a friend of a friend of a supporter. (and probably wealthy) If someone responds, you know which of your supporters to have work the guy over.

Rudy Giuliani, via Katie Harbath, also has a LinkedIn account, but so far they just offer "friendship"

I am consistently impressed by the way Obama uses social networks and technology