Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton captured attention for the web videos they released when announcing their exploratory presidential campaign efforts, but another Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, beat both of them to the punch in leveraging the Internet’s power as a mass medium. On December 28th, Edwards announced his presidential candidacy from still-devastated New Orleans, and released a video on YouTube that depicts the populist candidate speaking freely and easily in rolled-up shirtsleeves against a backdrop of the ravaged city.
Business Week’s Matt Vella has this piece today that extols Edwards’ enlightened adoption of Internet tools in his campaign. Not only did Edwards set the bar on video announcements in late-December, but his web site also features a blog, MySpace and Facebook profiles, Flikr and YouTube links, mobile messages sign-up pages, online town hall meetings and just about any Web 2.0 feature you can imagine.
The site today is promoting an online video discussion that Edwards will hold following President Bush’s State-of-the-Union address on Wednesday. Blogging luminary Robert Scoble (who, oddly enough, was traveling with Edwards when he made his announcement from New Orleans) proclaims Edwards’ web efforts “ahead of the others.”
It also doesn’t hurt that the site is extraordinarily well-designed. Progressive politcal marketing agency Plus Three is reponsible for the clean and organized nature of the site.
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:50 AM|Comments(0)
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