I have just discoverd Facebook. Facebook used to be only for college students but now it’s a social network where I’m connecting with people I haven’t seen in 20 years. Cool, huh? It’s neat to find high school acquaintances to see where everyone has ended up and it’s neat to be able to spread a message to every day friends in an instant. But, the political agenda of Facebook may be what the candidate’s need to get their “face” and issues out to an audience that they never could reach outside of Facebook. In just a few short weeks, we’ll find out how and IF the Internet shaped this election.
Here’s an interesting article in the NYTimes that looks at John McCain’s Facebook page and determines if this is what politicians should do.
Where my own page on Facebook, the social-networking site, lists my “friends,” the pages of McCain and other politicians and celebrities show “supporters” or “fans.” McCain had fully 269,709 when I last looked. He seems to have picked up about 45,000 between the Democratic National Convention and the start of the Republican one. The day that McCain named Palin as his V.P. candidate, I notice idly from McCain’s Facebook résumé, was also the candidate’s 72nd birthday: Aug. 29. His political views are listed right after his birthday: conservative.
Facebook appears to have supplied a job-seeking template for aspiring free-world leaders, and blanks have been informatively filled in.
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