In a victory that holds deep lessons for how nonprofit organizations and cause-driven ventures will organize volunteers and build support in the future, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States Tuesday in a near-landslide victory keyed by state-of-the-art social networking and online organizing.

The story of the Obama triumph is a political one to be sure; the campaign used all the traditional methods of organizing party politics, from endorsements and open-air rallies to television advertisements and neighborhood canvassing. It super-charged those traditional methods with the best online strategy ever employed in a national campaign, leveraging a digital toolset that kept supporters constantly in touch with the campaign superstructure. The Obama campaign carefully controlled the overall message and story - but it also made the key decision to free up content, unleash self-organized social networks, and encourage third-party innovations in software, web advocacy, and new media.

But it would be a mistake to view the Obama campaign solely as revolution within the political sphere.