In this day and age where facebook and myspace dominates the social networks of young people, especially college students...more and more politicians are trying to show that they have a strong contingent of young people supporting their candidacy.
For example, a facebook group called " Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" has over 145k members http://cornell.facebook.com/...
A short time after Barack's one million facebook group popped up, other supporters of different candidates decided to mimic this strategy to presumably show that they have large support from young adults.
Example:
The facebook group, "Hillary Clinton for President - One Million and Beyond for Hillary" created a similar group to challenge Barack Obama's strong support among the facebook crowd. Currently they have about 20 (granted the group was formed yesterday) members
http://cornell.facebook.com/...
More on the flip
Even McCain supporters on facebook decided to create a group to challenge Obama's suppremacy on facebook. Currently, they have about 400 members. The group's called "John McCain for President - One Million for McCain" at http://cornell.facebook.com/...
I like to call this phenomenon, the facebook cascade effect, where one group becomes successful, a whole slew of imitations follow.
Now, the important question is can candidates harness these facebook members? Clicking and joining a group on facebook group is easy, but can a candidate turn this support into something bigger like direct activism?
This is somewhat of a new phenomenon of joining a social group online, rather than gathering in actuality. Perhaps, this is a new beginning of a different kind of activism among the college crowd. We just have to wait and see.
What do you guys think? Will Facebook play an intricate part in upcoming elections like the 2008 Presidential race? How will facebook support translate into "real world" support?
Finally, will Hillary, Obama, or any of the other presidential candidates be able to reach one million supporters on facebook?