Today Barack Obama released a video that outlines what could be a very big development in his campaign and his approach to the web: a full-fledged social networking site to launch after tomorrow's official announcement that he's running for president.

The money quotes:

After this announcement is done I hope that you use this web site as a tool to organize your friends, your neighbors, and your networks.

The web site is going to be set up so you can build your own profile, form your own groups, plan your own events, take campaign fundraising into your own hands so we can collect small donations instead of having to rely on large campaign contributions. It's also going to give you a chance to chronicle your campaign experience on your own blog.

John Edwards already offers robust blogging, multimedia, and social networking features to users of his site. Similar to Edwards, what Obama describes is reminiscent of the Partybuilder, the Democrats' social networking tool that we reviewed a few months ago.

If Obama comes through with even half of what he promises, it will quell the rampant speculation about his online intentions. As we recently noted, Obama has so far been absent from the the online conversation, seemingly content to let his supporters pick up the slack by creating their own pro-Obama sites like Draft Obama and Obamarama and the successful Facebook group One Million Strong for Barack (though as of this writing it has "only" 245,428 members). He must be aware of this groundswell of support, and is cautiously testing out the participatory language of the web. "Ultimately this has to be a vehicle for your hopes and your dreams," he says in the video.

If the site is as multi-featured as it sounds, its launch will signal the second time Obama has shaken up the field. When he first announced his exploratory committee a few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton responded with her own announcement a few days later. Maybe this time we'll at least see a blog from Chappaqua?

Tags: barack obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards , partybuilder

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