More about online campaigns

Following up after yesterday's post regarding online campaign strategies, I recommend Michael Scherer's piece called "Power to the people, 2.0," at Salon.

Scherer's focus is on the lessons that John Edwards and Barack Obama learned from Howard Dean, about using the Internet to build an authentic political community. He quotes Joe Trippi, formerly Dean's manager who's now in the Edwards team: "People want to belong to something. They want to belong to a community that goes back to that notion that there is something bigger than yourself."

In service of building the social network, campaign managers are even taking the unconventional step of shifting attention away from the candidate's image and toward the supporters' active involvement in local issues. "On Tuesday, the home page of Obama's campaign Web site did not even feature a head shot of the candidate." (Doesn't Obama know that the Internet is only for narcissists?)

Hillary Clinton's camp, by contrast, is using her web presence to position her publicly, with relatively meager efforts to solicit active involvement. The Republicans, Scherer notes, "have treated their online operations more or less like an electronic form of direct mail campaigning. The campaigns rarely seek to involve supporters through online outreach in anything beyond traditional volunteer work and fundraising."

The article ends on a note of caution, reminding readers that Dean's Internet savvy failed to deliver his New Hampshire victory. The point is well taken. However, the Dean campaign is now several years in the past. Social networking is a more influential, more pervasive phenomenon today, far better understood than the nascent movement it was in the 2004 campaign.

Consumer revolts, via the Internet

Slashdot links to a story from The Independent's online edition about how the Internet is enabling British consumers to rally forces against businesses and government agencies, demanding reform in everything from road projects to overpriced football tickets.

A website campaign against British Gas, for example, cost the company 4 million customers before it cut its gas rates by 17 per cent. Environmental activists organized a boycott against air travel because of its impact on the climate. "An estimated 3 per cent of people have stopped flying to help the environment, while 10 per cent are cutting back on flights," The Independent reports.