The New York Times has an interesting article about politics moving onto MySpace:
HAVING already launched a generation of Gwen Stefani clones and death-metal bands into fleeting Internet fame, MySpace ? the largest social-networking site ? is now setting its sights higher: to help elect the next president of the United States.
This week, the site will introduce a section dedicated to politics, with an emphasis on the 2008 presidential election. Called the Impact channel, it will be an online version of a town square, a collection of links to political MySpace pages that will make it easier for the site?s 60 million American users per month ? many of them from the traditionally elusive and apathetic youth demographic ? to peruse the personal MySpace pages of, so far, 10 presidential candidates.
The channel will be much like those on the site already devoted to music or video. By clicking into it and on the separate campaign pages, users will be able to read candidate?s blogs, view their personal videos and snapshots, and link to other sites that discuss pet issues. Then, theoretically, users will add their favorite candidates to their friends list, and their friends will add them, too. The campaigns will spread virally, in the 2008 campaign strategy of the moment.
Of course, as the article points out, the language and culture of MySpace is far different from what prevails in politics:
[T]he cultural position that MySpace occupies promises to create a curious ? and perhaps potent ? collision of ideologies and stylistic sensibilities. While Facebook got its start as a means to link Harvard students, and to this day maintains an exclusive, clubby feel (that?s why many loyal users prefer it to MySpace), MySpace is a colorful, hormone-soaked collage. It has all the graphical elegance of a wall full of graffiti, and members tend to communicate in fluent dude-speak.
I suppose that move’s like this could have an impact on the race and attract younger voters to a race they might otherwise ignore, but this description makes me think that there’s alot of work to be done:
The unofficial Hillary Clinton site ? created by a supporter in Seattle but lauded by her campaign representatives ? portrays less-than-spontaneous snapshots, like one of the New York senator posing before Niagara Falls in a gray business suit. In classic MySpace fashion, it lists her ?status? (married), what she is ?here for? (networking, friends), and her zodiac sign (Scorpio).
Yea, yawn……..
