President 2.0

by Smallz Mancotywa

If ever you need to film an important influential person (a CEO, politician or presidents etc) for communication delivery on the Internet through social media channels, be sure to take this man’s advice. His name is Jeff Jarvis and he possibly runs one of the best blogs in the world with regard to offline vs. online media commentary.

Click To Play

A large part of the US presidential race is being fought over the Internet (using Web2.0 channels like YouTube) - an excellent decision from the candidates involved. The younger and generally more apathetic to the vote groups who reside in this space may start to listen more as a result. But you cannot give them the kind of "Jerry Bruckheimer produced" video the Republican candidate made. Be sure to put your speakers on when you visit Jerry's website and you will hear what I mean. Anyway, watching the sophistication in the way which the Americans, especially the democrats, campaign is sometimes a welcome relief from our own South African politics. In our case the presidential candidate from the ruling party will be picked instead of allowing him/her to campaign.

The most exciting part with the American race is that if the democrats win we will either have a woman, Hillary Clinton or a man of colour, Barack Obama as the most powerful person in the world for the 1st time. Although I cannot predict the governance they will bring, there is a sense of a "new era" for the world should one of these 2 candidates win.

The most interesting part from an eMarketing perspective is the difference between all their websites. Open all 3 in your browser and have a look:

• Barack Obama
• Hillary Clinton
• John Mccain  

 No guesses on which 2 of those candidates are Web 2.0 friendly. Clinton and Obama have inviting websites which display purpose and every link is pushing you to do something. McCain’s website screams "glory", restrictive order and self inflation, something which Web 2.0 users are not a fan of. It’s like he thinks Americans need a hero and he is the man for the job! It’s amazing that the Democrat representatives seem to have such an acute understanding of what web viewers want, while John McCain has not even bothered to set up a website in his own name without the words "senate" and "gov" in the URL.
The first thing that came to mind when I looked as his website was "You’re still a senator from Arizona" while Clinton and Obama look like nice people running for President. If McCain wants to steal the democrat votes on the web, he is making a hash of it. Little picture of soldiers saluting the American flag are probably not a good idea right now either.

For me this displays a lot on how the 2 camps think. If I was American, there is really no question on which party I would vote for. Just not sure which candidate between Clinton and Obama.

Who would you vote for?

**

**

//

//

--

--