While I have always found American politics to be incredibly tiresome and out of touch with my interests, the internet’s collective latching onto Barack Obama’s campaign fascinates me from a social networking standpoint. It’s blatantly apparent on community-based news sites such as Digg, carries over financially to benevolent sites like DonorsChoose and grows exponentially faster on social networks like Facebook. Why have the majority of internet-savvy users latched onto the young senator from Illinois? The most obvious clue is the difference in technological understanding in the Obama / Clinton camps, most well defined by their web presence.
Social Networking Integration:
While Cinton’s campaign finally emerged from their social networking slumber to add links to official Myspace, Facebook, & Twitter groups this year, Obama has had 16 web relevant social links on his page including links to Digg, LinkedIn, and Eventful. He also has the clear edge when it comes to number of supporters within social networks. 600,000 more on Facebook, 150,000 more on Myspace, 35,000 more subscribers on Youtube, 22,000 more followers on Twitter, etc…
Additionally, Obama’s site launched a built-in social network to join people on a local level. It essentially organizes the most passionate Obama supporters to handle volunteer projects like phone banks, rallies, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Clinton added a similar system on her site at a later date, but it feels isolated in terms of communication and building relationships on a social level. The design of Obama’s network encourages online communication on an internal basis as well as self-designed organization of events with newfound, politically like-minded friends.
Neither candidate uses their site blog to personally write about each day’s events, but rather the campaign staffers handle it. Obama’s blog is more rapidly updated by comparison and offers more content on a daily basis. It also has an edge on number of commentors. There are slight differences to their social sharing choices of blog posts as well. Both sites include sharing links to Digg and del.icio.us, but Obama’s blog includes sharing links to Stumbleupon, Facebook & Newsvine. Clinton’s blog only extra link is to Technorati search which is a really strange choice and doesn’t seem to be used by her comment contributors.
Candidate Branding:
Obama’s web site is very much designed to brand his candidacy. Note the soft white light emanating from the background to reflect a feeling of hope in coordination with his message. The “Gotham” typeface as the graphical font default is clean, understated and well defined. The font also matches every single piece of Obama campaign swag that’s distributed; pretty damn impressive from a large-scale standpoint. Highlighted graphical links light up as if they were alive and full of energy. The color scheme, while predominantly blue, has light undertones of white & red to subtly create a feeling of patriotism.
Strangely Clinton’s site is oddly similar in format to McCain’s web presence, both of which look like free web templates. The sites are static, utilitarian and lack any uniform artistic design elements. Clinton’s web admins keep adding features similar to Obama’s site, but they don’t cohesively contribute to any type of branding for Senator Clinton. What’s left is a stale website that distracts or confuses the viewer with a link-crammed home page rather then engaging them with proper design.
I find Obama’s branding to be similar to companies like Apple and Target who entered the market as underdogs. These companies are very accessible to the American public, but with tremendous elements of heavy design involved. They target consumers by creating a feeling of stylish comfort with their products and market their design choices as an important purchasing decision. Similarly, Obama’s web presence, among other things, shaped a politician with less political experience than his rivals into a well designed brand, more effectively selling the possibility of change than Senator Clinton.
Regardless of my opinion on Obama’s politics, there is something comforting in the fact that he, or at least the people within his campaign, understands the Web 2.0 generation. It’s reflected in his website, his position on net neutrality as well as his relationship to young voters. In turn, that creates hope that he will surround himself with tech-savvy opinions on policy, assuming he wins the nomination and becomes President. That’s the most identifiable reason that social networking internet users seem to be attracted to his candidacy.
