Tycoons Row

If we need to learn a lesson in social networking, all we have to do is take a look back over the years various presidential elections. Honestly, can you ask yourself who else is running? I only knew of Obama & Hillary….why? Because I’ve been blogging.

I haven’t even been watching the news & all I know is that Hillary & Obama are running. And that’s because of the buzz online & their two presidential networking social sites: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I wonder if anyone had done any “Domain Name Squatting” on these ones.

Faster than ever, these two presidential sites are a prime example of how fast a site can build social networking & what it takes to build an audience.

Here’s a snapshot of their current stats according to Compete:

Here’s the tale of the tape:

Obama:

*Uses Facebook

*Party Builder - (paid for by the Democratic National Committee) Pretty much is the MySpace concept. You can actually make online contributions as well. They even allow you to set up your own personal fundraising page to create your own mini-campaign.

* Register to vote: There is also a link so you can register to vote. Also, an online platform called txtvoter. The txtvoter site seems not to have many hits, but it seems interesting. I’ll have to dig a bit deeper on that one.

* YouTube – Currently going strong with aprox. 18,845 views & 1,140 subscribers.

*Flickerized — Obama is also putting up for show all his presidential photos on Flickr.

Definitely, Obama is catering not only to the online & web community, but showing that he is in tune with today’s technological world. We live in an information age society.

Hillary:

*Party Time — Her site has a party & event planning links. This is interesting, whereas, you can put in an event & host a Hillary Presidential Party. She’s showing that the power is in the people’s hands and that community is based on the people getting involved.

*HillRaisers - I think “Hell Raisers” wouldn’t have been PC. But again, an individual can raise money & have a party all in the name of this presidential hopeful.

*Newsletter — There is an email newsletter that is customized for any user to share with their friends. The way it’s set up, a person with a million database emails can easily go ahead & spam anyone.

*Video — This is clutch. Right on the page. However, you are not able to share the videos.

*Blog — There is an unlaunched blog, where people can contribute their comments or posts. I just wonder if Hillary will actually be doing the writing.

*Contribution — You can contribute and help this candidate.

Overall, there is definitely a different feel to this site. It’s more “let the people come to me” vs. Obama’s, I’m putting myself out there. Hillary’s campaign statement is “In to Win,” and seeks to “Start a Conversation” with the U.S. Obama’s campaign statement is that it’s “All About You” It will be an interesting campaign….online.

I think I’m going to follow the campaigns this year. Which candidate do you think is more connected?