According to The Internet Society (www.isoc.org), in 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first earth satellite, and the United States needed a response. Within the next year, the United States formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) as a sector of the Department of Defense to take the lead in technology that was applicable to the military. In the late 1960s, a group of scientists from ARPA launched ARPANET to share their research and technology. By 1973, the first international connections to this “network” were being made. By 1984, there were 1,000 hosts on the “network.” Less than ten years later in 1992, the term “surfing the ‘net” is coined and there are more than one million hosts.
It happened that fast.
In less than 20 years, the Internet went from getting its first international connections to having more than one million hosts, and the world has never been the same. Companies, government sites, and universities were some of the first to populate the World Wide Web in the beginning, but changes were on the horizon.
Jump forward just over ten years to 2003. In August of that year, eUniverse — a publicly traded Internet company — created and marketed a new division: MySpace. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan, eUniverse’s Founder, Chris DeWolf, MySpace’s CEO, and Tom Anderson, MySpace’s current president. MySpace, located at http://www.myspace.com, was a new type of site. It, unlike any of the government or ecommerce sites out there, had one purpose: social networking.
Today MySpace boasts nearly 110 million active users, and a growth rate of 230,000 accounts being set up every day. These members include almost every age group from preteens to senior citizens, but the largest amount of users fall between the ages of 13 and 24, according to http://www.myspace.com.
A year after MySpace was born, three Harvard University students thought they had what it took to create a social networking site of their own. In February of 2004, Mark Zuckerburg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes launched Facebook from their Harvard dorm room. At the launch, the site only allowed other students from Harvard University to sign up. By March, that expanded to include Columbia and Yale. In 2005, Facebook raised $12.4 million in venture capital and expanded to include 800 college networks. Today, Facebook, located at http://www.facebook.com is open to anyone with an email address, and boasts 31 million active members between the ages of 18 and 24, according to www.facebook.com.
With over 20 million people ages 19-24 living in the United States, and that age group having the lowest voter turnout rate (according to the United States Census Bureau), the minds of political hopefuls started ticking. With a combined almost 140 million active accounts — the largest number belonging to the 18-24 year old age group — the social networking sites quickly were realized as a value to politicians of every party. Many politicians have profiles on both MySpace and Facebook, and use their sites as a place to quickly give the rundown of their promises and views. In addition to being able to post their opinions and blogs, politicians can also feature photos and videos of themselves on each site.
Husband and wife pair Timothy and Allison Maguire were among them. Both recently ran for Marion County City-County Council At Large on the Libertarian ticket.
Allison relayed that politicians “have to have a Facebook and a MySpace page” if running for office these days. She said that the reason why it is so important “is not because of the people that already know they are going to vote for you or that they are going to vote against you. The reason is that there are so many undecided or apathetic voters on these sites. These sites let us get our message across in a very non-intrusive way, but also a very powerful way.”
Almost all of the names that have been thrown into the hat for the 2008 Presidential Race can be found on MySpace. From Hillary to Obama and Ron Paul all the way around to Ralph Nader, each is using the site to get their campaign points across to the youngest age group of voters — and anyone else that stumbles across their profiles.
Hillary’s page touts her grassroots campaign, and she has posted many blogs on her views. She is also selling anything from t-shirts to bumper stickers and everything in between. She has tens of thousands of MySpace friends. The trouble with her site, and the same can be said for every other politician on MySpace, is that when searching for “Hillary Clinton” hundreds of pages come up. Some are fashioned to look like her official site, and some even describe her as a socialist and communist. Because of the professional look of her official MySpace site, it is set apart, but for the uninformed young potential voter, it appears easy to stumble across an imposter site.
However, the same setup that allows that potential downfall, also gives MySpace an edge over Facebook. Because MySpace allows non-members to search for and look at sites, political websites are more accessible to the masses.
Timothy Maguire said that he prefers his MySpace site over Facebook, because it is easier for him to navigate and use. He admitted that he did not have a Facebook page until his wife, Allison, set it up for him.
In 2004, over 400 politicians had profiles on Facebook. Today, that number is exceeding 1,000. From local gubernatorial races, to the 2008 Presidential Race, politicians are flocking to the site.
Facebook has a unique characteristic that separates it from MySpace in the political arena — applications. Applications are special sections that any member can add to their site. Ranging from the “Muslim Prayer Schedule Countdown” to “My Top Friends,” one application is especially important to politicians. The “US Politics” application allows politicians to set their profiles apart from the average profile. They register through the application, and then members of the site that add the application can then browse candidates profiles. That leads another advantage of campaigning on Facebook — when members decide to support a candidate, they can then display that on their profile page. This gives each candidate more exposure to each member’s friends.
The disadvantage to this model is that members of Facebook have to actively seek out adding the application and then each candidate to their profile. It appears to lend more to those already interested in the candidates. However, because those people can then display their candidates on their page, that almost diminishes the possible disadvantage because it spreads the word of the candidates to anyone viewing that member’s site.
On Facebook, Hillary Clinton’s profile is short and to the point. She has over 31,000 friends on the site and features 56 photos of herself. She pleads her case for office by saying, “I was raised in a middle-class family in the middle of America. From that classic suburban childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, I went on to become one of America's foremost advocates for children and families; an attorney twice voted one of the most influential in America; a First Lady of Arkansas who helped transform the schools; a bestselling author; a First Lady for America who helped transform that role, becoming a champion for health care and families at home and a champion of women's rights and human rights around the world.”
As with all other politicians on the site, hers is set apart by being registered through the US Politics application.
No matter the disadvantages of being profiled on each specific site, the price is right. It costs nothing to post a video to YouTube or to make a profile on Facebook or MySpace. It is a way for candidates to get their pictures, videos, blogs, and views to the age group with the lowest voter turnout — all for free.
Allison Maguire said that the value of the publicity from the sites cannot be measured, but that it is even better and of greater value because there is no price tag.
Other than the time it takes to set up the site, or the money it costs to have someone do it, there is absolutely no cost involved.
The fact that each is a free service that helps give political candidates more publicity, is undeniable. These sites help even out the political playing field and offer the same opportunities to candidates with a large amount of campaign funds, and candidates that are running their campaign out of their basement. By using these sites, candidates reach many people in the age group with the lowest voter turnout. Like it or not — almost all candidates are giving in and creating profiles and videos on these sites.
The results from networking on these sites will be hard to measure for political candidates. There probably will be no way to tell if a candidate winning had direct correlation to having a profile on one of these sites or not. However, one indicating factor will be the percentage of 18 to 24 year olds that vote in the 2008 General Election. Although, even if the percentage goes up, it cannot be credited directly to these sites, it will be an indicator of success for both the sites and the candidates.