Well, it has finally come and gone...Election Day '08! Today's post will be a recap of the role technology has played in the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Surely Barack Obama's historic victory was aided by the heavy use of technology. Since the beginning, Obama has benefited from social networking technologies such as YouTube where users could find his campaign speeches readily available to be picked over and critiqued by would-be voters. Because the youth vote was so important to this election, the candidates' presence on social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook was a factor down the late hours of the election. Facebook, for the first time ever allowed users to "donate" their Facebook status to remind their friends to go vote. After the numbers were tabulated 1,745,754 people participated in what Facebook called the largest online political rally ever! Moveon.org was very good about sending reminders for people to become politically involved and aware and they also distributed free political buttons and bumper stickers throughout the campaign. In addition music artists such as Nas and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas have promoted Obama in the campaign through their music and Will.I.Am produced a track which he released on midnight, November 5th, to celebrate Obama's victory. The track entitled "It's a New Day" can be found here.
This has been a once in a first-of-its-kind election in so many ways, but we have finally seen the Internet and Web 2.0 change voter influence in ways never before seen. Could this bring us closer to a world in which we'll one day be able to use the Internet the vote from home?
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