Senator Barack Obama Launches Social Network

Posted on February 11, 2007

Senator Barack Obama recently announced that he will be running for president in 2008. Obama has gone a step farther than the other candidates by including his own social network on the BarackObama.com site. Fortunately, Obama's campaign team spared us a silly name like Obamaster or ObamaSpace. The social network is simply called MyBarackObama.

Obama is doing very well on Facebook but running your own social network is much more complex than having a popular page on MySpace or a popular Facebook group. Mathew Ingram says their is a risk the social networks Obama and other candidates may build in the 2008 race could become Potemkin villages. There is also a good chance Obama's staff will find themselves wasting time fighting off spammers and trolls that set up MyBarackObama profiles.

On the positive side for Senator Obama the social network launch does get them in the news. They might also be able to get a traffic boost from the social network if lots of people starting setting up profiles there. Many of today's teens and young adults have a transitory connection with the profiles they establish. They like setting up new profiles and trying new social networks so there is a chance this could happen on Obama's site. More discussion of Obama's new social network can be found on Techmeme.