The Internet Helps To Shape the Election

Well, here we are. Today is the day. Voters all over the country are making their way to the booths, each to put their own little nail in the coffin of this presidential race that has seemingly been going on for an eternity. This has been the most captivating race I have seen in my lifetime, and many say that this is one of the most important elections the U.S. has ever seen.

Who will emerge victorious? Will it be Bob Barr? Will it be John McCain? Will it be Barack Obama? Will it be Ralph Nader? How about Chuck Baldwin or Cynthia McKinney? With all due respect to the other candidates, I think it's pretty safe to say that two of the names mentioned above will be the ones on most minds across America.

The Internet has played a very large role in this election, from campaigning and coverage, to conversation and tools for information. And let's not leave out the comic relief. So let's take a look at how the Internet has shaped this presidential race.

MARKETING POLITICS

There's no question that the Internet has provided an unparalleled medium for marketing the McCain and Obama campaigns. For one, anyone who is interested can easily go to BarackObama.com and see what the candidates want them to see. For those who don't know the URLs, a simple Google search for either candidate's name will bring you their official website at the top of the results.

how the candidates were doing in terms of SEO

Abby Johnson touches upon SEO and Internet Marketing tactics with a woman who marketed for the Mitt Romney campaign PR Newswire or Valleywag has an interesting look at the keywords each have purchased on Google.

Testimonials

Nothing beats some good word-of-mouth, especially if it's coming from CEOs and other high profile executives. You've got Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Vint Cert ("Father of the Internet") endorsing Obama while eBay's former President and CEO Meg Whitman as well as former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina have been known McCain supporters (depite Obama infomercial that aired on national television, and debate over new media as a legitimate source of information continues to go on, but there is no denying that there are more options than there have ever been, and people can use their own minds to decide where to get their info from.

News Sites

Of course there are still the good old fashioned news sources - CNN, the Times, NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, NewsWeek, etc. People have turned to the Internet versions of these entities more and more often. Some print publications are even abandoning their print businesses in favor of the web. News search and aggregation sites are also there to provide readers with results from these publications based on the topics they want to read about.

Blogs

Blogs (and their RSS feeds) have provided the ability to give anyone a voice who wants one. Many readers are turning to these to get news and commentary on issues involving the candidates. Another draw to this medium is the commentary that the readers themselves can contribute via blog comments. This provides plenty of room for open debate, and this is a strategy that even many of the more traditional news sources have adopted. This also brings me to the next item.

Community

Community has never played a bigger role in a presidential election, and that is because of the open forum for debate at every turn (we've certainly had our fair share in Google
- MSN
- MySpace
- Twitter
- AOL
- YouTube where they can find videos pieced together to smear Obama, or others to do the same to McCain. They're going to

A number of "A-List" celebrities have even gotten together to release a couple of released his latest offering on the Internet for free https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TGf2o4qeBo TOOLS

Some companies have released election-based tools to help keep people informed about a variety of aspects related to the election. For example, offers a site based on Google Maps that allows users to search for their home address at which point they are provided with information about how they can vote, including (perhaps most importantly) where they are supposed to vote. There's no telling how many people this tool alone has inspired to go out and cast their ballots. Google also has a gadget based on this tool, and another project to help kids ask the candidates questions, provided other

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