Politics 2.0

Politics 2.0 is a relatively new concept. It was deeply used by Barak Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign in the United States. What is special about micro targeting on the web is that it allowed Obama to identify his electors individually. What helped Obama was that he realized that every single person is a universe; each voter has their own particular interests and worries. The future of politics has to be addressed to individuals, maybe specific groups, but not the whole society. Obama branched out using Politics 2.0 as his “friend” Obama used other forums such as facebook which he joined in February 2004 and has contracted nearly six million friends it is also a key tool because ¨It strengthens his connection with his constituents and their connection with the causes they care about´´, my space, twitter which he never missed responding to one question, youtube, online advertisements, sms/call centers where voters were able to download wall papers, ringtones, etc., and was the first president to have a blog. These tools allowed Obama to reach the y-generation. The y-generation was an important group for Obama to get through to because they are considered the most skeptical when it comes to believing a campaign. Another website Obama used was http://www.mybarakobama.com throughout this website, its users could read about Barak Obama, create events, create fundraisers, create a blog to express your feelings, read Obama´s blog, connect to Facebook, reach out to other voters, and create their own profile that can be viewed. Although the web alone is a useful tool, Obama was very precise with his details, had a well designed web page and regularly updated his websites.

 Barak Obama spread hope. With two wars going on and a severe economic crisis, Obama gave people more than just a speech. He used the internet, something most people are addicted to these days and spread his campaign to show the people that he is just like them. He loves his blackberry, blogging, twitting, etc. This let the people know that he was there to be there president and help the people not just win over a campaign. Once elected, Obama has kept up with the use of internet as a president. “Obama campaigned by the internet and now is governing by the internet” Obama is the first president to have a blog in the Whitehouse. http://www.whitehouse.gov is a 2.0 website used by Obama. There is an official bog on this website and each Saturday Obama uploads a new speech. People can watch this video, read the blogs and comment. This is something that no one has seen before. It keeps the people connected with the president. We can now see deeper into the White House than ever before and it gives people a comfort in knowing that they have access to this.

Obama successfully won the presidential campaign in more than one way. Most of all, he excelled in the online campaign. Obama´s use of web 2.0 helped him to raise money from people throughout the United States which helped him immensely in the long run. The way Obama ran his campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents. The web was used to collect money, spread messages, and create a net of activists involved in the campaign. Another key to Politics 2.0 was to inform. Obama´s blog was updated more than ten times a day and throughout the campaign, more than two thousand youtube videos both informative and promotional were uploaded. Obama connected people with one another. Obama collected over thirteen million e-mail addresses and postal codes and sent them Google maps so that they could locate other Obama followers. Obama asked people to work with him which allowed the voters to feel involved. Once registered at http://www.mybarakobama.com users could create events promoting Barak Obama. Voters were given pins, t-shirts, posters, etc. and given a place and time to have an event. One extremely important thing Obama did was have testers. He constantly had people testing out all the online things he did so that he knew if they were effective and helping his campaign.