Recently, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have rolled out new websites that permit visitors to participate in the campaign online by blogging, creating websites, forming interest groups, etc. (Though, not all has been smooth sailing.) They join Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, whose websites already had similar capabilities.
I think they’re moving in the right direction and I hope that Mitt soon leverages the enthusiasm and dedication of his online supporters. However, I wonder how effective the current websites are.
Let me frame this with an extreme example, blogging on the candidate’s site. It’s not clear how many different blog there are on My.BarackObama.com; it appears to be in the hundreds and growing. Given the time consuming nature of blogging, these blogs probably represent thousands of volunteer hours. However, since they are buried deep within Barack’s site and divided into hundreds of pages, their potential impact is diffused and extremely limited.
A campaign run with Mitt’s business acumen should look sceptically on such uses (wastes?) of volunteer time. It is important to engage online supporters, but they must be encouraged to work effectively, not simply given make-work assignments.
What do you think? How can Mitt’s online fans work most effectively?
Justin
Cross-posted on Netizens for Mitt.
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