Last night I was eagerly awaiting a tweet from one of my new friends on the social messaging service Twitter. I had recently begun following the daily snapshots from this friend’s life.
I was waiting for a tweet from BarackObama declaring victory in the Democratic nominations. As if somewhat of tweet afterthought, that message arrived sometime after 9:30 PM EST.
Expecting something like “Can Haz 2118!! Ceiling Cat Defeats Billary.” Instead, it read “IN St Paul, MN speaking after securing the nomination. Watch the speech live on TV tonight…”. How insanely casual “We Win. You Lose.” is that?
In this age, where many of us spend so much time online creating our own social ecosystems, hallmark moments are being played out on the web. Many of us get the bulk of our news online, whether its via blogs or shocking video captured on Youtube. Old media front page headlines have been replaced with minute-by-minute updates from RSS feeds, tweets and online word of mouth—social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook or Friendfeed.
Should word that Obama clinched the nomination be any different? I got the first official word from Digg and saw his victory speech on here. Not once did I turn on my TV or open a paper.
Wired details how Senator Barack Obama leveraged the Internet to draw attention to his campaign and raise significantly more money that Senator Hillary Clinton.
Obama owes his victory to the internet. He used the web more effectively than any prior national candidate, harnessing its organizing power to vault over party favorite Hillary Clinton and become the first black presumptive presidential nominee. With an enormous internet-driven donor base of 1.5 million people, more than 800,000 of whom have accounts on Obama’s social networking website, Obama is the first internet candidate to win mainstream success.
Geek In The Ghetto 