MySpace.com-Convergence of Technology and politics

I had recently written about the use of social networking sites as a potent tool for political campaigns . In that post , I had opined that technology would change the process of political campaigns to a large extent and also had done some crystal ball gazing on its possible implications in the Indian context . While writing the post , I was not alive to the fact that I would have to continuously sharpen my point of view on the subject (in less than a week) , this post is an update to the original post on technology as a flattner in the political campaign process .

In this post I focus on MySpace.com which is one of the most widely used social networking sites in the US . MySpace has launched MySpace Impact, a site featuring MySpace pages for 2008 elections. Candidates like Senators Hillary Clinton of NY, Barack Obama of Illinois, Joe Biden of Delaware, John Edwards of North Carolina, Rudy Giuliani and MA Governor Mitt Romney all have pages in MySpace. Check out Barack Obama's MySpace profile and meet his 13,710 online friends , sample his campaign materials and YouTube vidoes...try it , its really amazing ....

If Obama's profile amazes you , check out Hillary Clinton with her 33,373 frineds and her campaign materials (T shirts , bags & stickers ..et al)

MySpace has 64.4 million unique visitors from the US and has the potential to play a major role in the presidential polls of 2008. MySpace users represent 37% of all Internet users in the US. In addition the site heavily attracts people in the ages 18-24, an age group which would hardly go to other political sites. In addition to this MySpace plans to hold a mock virtual elections .

Though the MySpace votes won't count for the official election, but results compiled from the social-networking site's millions of members would help the candidates to gauge their potential success in real voting booths next year. They also may provide a glimpse into overall public sentiment for the politicians.

The Indian context

Yesterday , I was watching an India TV pre-poll discussion which featured a prominent psephologist and Mr Amar Singh of the SP and Mr Arun Jaitley of BJP . The debate was around the pre-poll survey for the UP elections done by the IndiaTV team and the analysis of the same . Both the political leaders presented their points of view and were obviously defensive when the facilitator Rajat Sharma projected a dim future for both the parties in the forthcoming polls (based on the survey). In many such pre-poll survey discussions , I have heard politicans dismiss the methodology of the survey , the appropriateness of the sample size and the projections that the psephologists make based on a representative sample .Imagine if there was a MySpace.com option in India (and notwithstanding the fact that the electoral process in India is fundamentally different from the US) ,many of the complaints that the politicans have on the survey methodology can be eradicated and hopefully would a much better way to gauge the sentiment of the electorate .

I am sure one could argue that the PC and Internet penetration in India is too low to facilitate something like MySpace.com impacting the electoral process ...while there might be some truth in that argument ...but there is a work around for this as well. Yesterday I discovered that Orkut has a "Create Polls" option wherein community members and others can vote on a particular subject. A community member can create a poll say " Whats the prospect of the BJP in the forthcoming UP election" , and based on the responses , BJP can get a quick and dry dip stick survey on how it would be faring....and that too for free .....

Yet another example of the convergence of technology with the democratic process .....the world is really becoming Flat , isn't it !!