It's been a busy week in the 2008 presidential campaign--Hillary Clinton launched her online "conversation" (see David Weinberger's spot-on critique) and went to Iowa; John Edwards also did an online video web-chat that he calls a "live online discussion"; Barack Obama laid low and let the explosive growth of one unofficial Facebook group (now at more than 158,000 members) speak for him; and Bill Richardson formally announced his campaign launch.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic candidate who showed the most growth in online grassroots support, as measured by trends in the number of friends they have on their MySpace page and in incoming blog posts to their campaign site was Richardson, whose MySpace numbers were up a whopping 61,100% and blog posts up 285.8%. Of course, those numbers have to be put into context. A week ago, Richardson had only one friend on MySpace; as of last night (Sunday, January 28), he had 611. His incoming blog link tally, as measured by Technorati, jumped from an anemic 92 to a still feeble 355. But, hey, you have to start somewhere.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) launched his presidential campaign, via web video, in a hail of controversy regarding comments he made in reference to fellow Democrat, Senator Barack Obama (IL). Within hours, the audio of his remarks made it to YouTube, as did a clip of FOX News -- no stranger to an Obama controversy -- airing Biden's clarification. The senator later joked about it with The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart. (Video here.)

In South Carolina, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is determined to win as he picked up the support of forty State House members -- all caught on video -- via Laurin Manning of South Carolina '08.

Social network scholar Fred Stutzman takes a look at Barack Obama's new social networking site and how all candidates should view social networking sites: "Companies like Youtube and Myspace succeeded because they embraced openness... The candidate who embraces this mentality will make the most sense to the netvoter, as our sensibilities have changed significantly over the past few years."

Eve Fairbanks thinks that candidates' plunge into MySpace and Facebook and other facets of online pop culture isn't cool at all: "assimilating Internet tactics doesn’t mean you have to assimilate Internet culture, too: the unhinged language, the fake intimacy, the studied hipness." Who's to blame? Howard Dean: "Political consultants and aspiring candidates were wowed by the way Dean used the Internet to create energy and momentum behind his upstart campaign. They envied the way young people, inspired by the concept of the Web as 'people power,' were transformed into Deaniacs in droves."

For all of our talk about social networking and how it is changing politics, today we were treated to an up close and personal example of how social networking is changing our most basic social interactions.

Within hours of the tragedy that occurred today at Virginia Tech, ABC News had published a story entitled “If You're OK, Please Update Your Profile” which quoted someone named Carlos 'Mohawk Monday' Fernandez asking, “Many of us are all worried about our friends, so lets do this. If you are okay! Please update your status in facebook to say something like ‘I'm okay’.”

With cell phones spotty because of the massive volume of calls, and concrete information even more scarce, Facebook became a vital way of letting family, friends, and even strangers know that you were OK.

The Web on the Candidates

OpenSecrets.org has built an amazing Flash tool that graphically represents the links between the top five contributors to presidential campaigns and the candidates. The candidate and donor names are featured in bubbles, and when you click on, say, Mitt Romney's bubble, you'll see his top five donors (Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, HIG Capital, Kirkland & Ellis, Marriott International). Click on the Goldman Sachs bubble and you'll see who they've contributed to (Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, and Barack Obama) and on and on... [via epolitics]

Unbeknownst to most followers of the candidates, John McCain is a huge Beach Boys fan. He recently displayed his love for the '60s group by singing his favorite song, "Bomb Iran," at a recent campaign stop. No, I'm kidding! He was actually asked by a supporter how he would deal with the threat of Iran, and he nervously laughed and said, "You know that old Beach Boys song 'Bomb Iran?'" and proceeded to sing "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran..." Now, inevitably, the clip is on YouTube, and in the YouTube era it could be a pretty damning document. AirCongress has more, including an odd statement from Arizona Rep. John Shadegg, who came to McCain's defense.

The Web on the Candidates

Over forty people have posted videos in response to John Edwards' question, "what are you going to do to bring about change?," which is part of YouTube's Spotlight series. Almost all of the respondents are younger (21-40-ish) voters, and while some of them have concrete ideas for change ("I'm getting my MBA in policy"; "I teach science") others are frustrated that Edwards put forth no ideas of his own and simply asked us what we would do ("I want to know why you're doing what you're doing"). I'm looking forward to seeing Edwards' responses -- let's hope he's offers something more substantive this time.

We've known for months now that Facebook users have been supporting the presidential candidates on the site in the same way they're befriending them on MySpace, but Facebook hasn't made the number of supporters for each candidate public, until now. The leader in supporters is, predictably, Barack Obama, with over 64,000 supporters. The next one down the line is Hillary Clinton, with over 19,000 supporters. The Republicans are slow to get on the Facebook boat, Mitt Romney has just over 6,000 supporters. Shira Toeplitz at the Hotline has the scoop, noting that we'll be seeing a lot of fluctuation in these numbers. "Since some of the facebook profiles started updating yesterday, each candidate (except for Brownback) has lost between 10 and 60 'supporters.' That fact exemplifies that what many online strategies have been preaching for months: Just because they're your facebook friend, doesn't mean they actually support your candidacy." Also, why are all of the candidates part of a network called "Election 2006"? Stay tuned; we'll be charting these numbers soon.

The Web on the Candidates

Joe Anthony, the creator of an unofficial MySpace Barack Obama profile who had a well-documented brush-up with the Obama campaign over control of the profile, has decided to take down his old unofficial profile. This morning he wrote on his blog, "I've had some time to relax and think about what's next, and decided it's best to delete this profile and start anew. Regardless of the outcome, we accomplished a lot here on Myspace. We built the biggest profile, the biggest community of supporters, for any candidate on Myspace and I think we all did an amazing job. We did this together, before the campaign or Myspace even got involved... I'm going to stay positive and look forward to the next opportunity, whether it includes Myspace or not. I hope I'll meet some of you along the way." It's still up this morning but will apparently be deleted sometime today.

Scott Keyes at Political Insider does a quick roundup of the candidates' Facebook profiles, offering one factoid per candidate. Examples: Hillary Clinton is "the only candidate in either party to not list his or her relationship status. Everyone else listed 'married.'" Joe Biden "lists his political views as 'liberal' and is the only candidate to do so." Dennis Kucinich is "in a Facebook group called 'Free Hugs.'" Mitt Romney said that "Battlefield Earth was his favorite novel, [but] it isn't listed among favorite books; the classic American novel Huckleberry Finn is listed instead." And Sam Brownback also likes his science fiction: he "lists The Lord of the Rings before The Bible in his list of favorite books." (thanks Colin!)

Live blogging the panel on "Navigating the New Media System" -- with new blog ventures, facebook, cliches, and, of course, debating the Dean loss...

The Web on the Candidates

Wow - while we at TechPresident get completely wrapped up in the drama of the US presidential race, and get excited when, say, Faceboook opens up its API to allow third-party application (it is so cool), there's an election going on in Ireland (did you know that?). A group of Irish bloggers have been blogging it at Irish Election, and now that the election is here, they've constructed a truly wonderful toolbox with which to conduct on-the-ground coverage. In addition to updates on poll numbers and results from across the country over the last 24 hour, they've been using mobile technology to great effect. Sitting in the sidebar are two mini-apps -- MySay and Rumour Mill -- that let citizens and bloggers add their comments to the election process using audio and text. MySay let's you add audio comments, called "snippets," to a thread that looks like a Twitter feed, but with a play button that, when clicked, plays the snippet. The Rumour Mill is a text-message thread that you add to by sending messages to a shortcode. These are simple apps that have been around for a while, but when combined with the citizen-blogging happening on the same page,they provide an amazing look at the election from citizens and non-officials across the country. Disclaimer: I'm a complete stranger to Irish politics and vernacular, which means that I pretty much have no idea what anyone is talking about.

A new Gallup poll shows that, despite the early start to the campaign, most Americans don't really know who's running. Hillary Clinton has near-universal name recognition, and Rudy Giuliani is known by almost 90% of Americans. But Mitt Romney -- who we are told is among the Republican frontrunners -- has 46% name recognition, and Fred Thompson, the would-be conservative savior who may come to town to restore law & order, is known by only 38% of Americans. Going online to shake hands and reach out, and to make more personal connections, something danah boyd suggested at the PdF conference, might help with the name-recognition thing.

The Web on the Candidates

Matt Stoller is getting excited about Rock the Vote's new API. "Groups and individuals will be able to capture the number of people they register, the data of the people they register, and the contact information of those they register. This means that, unlike with a standard voter registration download form, the person who asked you to register, presumably someone you trust, will be reminding you to vote... It'll be kind of like Actblue, for voter registration." I admit that I've been getting all excited myself about Facebook's new Platform, and this innovation from Rock the Vote fits the bill too -- potentially connecting millions of new people to waves of data to be shared, mashed-up, and used in unforeseen ways.

This weekend Amy Schatz of the Wall Street Journal published a great profile of Chris Hughes, the 23 year-old wunderkind who is one of the three Harvard grads behind Facebook and now works for the Obama campaign. He now pulls 14-hour days working on My.BarackObama.com and translating his expertise about running social networks to helping run the online portion of a presidential campaign. However, "what the Obama campaign wanted wasn't a Facebook clone; the goal is political action, not socializing," Schatz writes. Hughes is therefore in a unique position to turn the social web into the political web. Read the rest.