Also, yourowndemocracy.org looks great if it takes off: http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/33229/y...

Thanks for the great work!
-Ben

There are other social networks that haven't really been effective either. Nobody uses think.mtv.com, which was supposed to be the hip new network for socially-minded young people. When I see some examples of successful campaign social networks other than myBO maybe I'll be convinced otherwise.

Should a state legislature race build it's own social network? Congressional? Maybe we will get to the point where it becomes cost effective for campaigns, but we aren't there yet.

And it's true that external tools never work 100% as needed, but then again, internal tools never work 100% as needed either.

You're completely right that a campaign should get on MySpace, Facebook, etc because it allows them to do outreach on potential supporters who they normally couldn't have gotten to. Going to where the people are instead of expecting them to come to you.

But when it comes to winning a campaign, there needs to be a system to get people organized: training volunteers, organizing house parties, canvassing neighborhoods to identify support, conducting voter registration drives, and finally executing GOTV. That's where the tools of an activism network like MyBO really come into play. That simply can't be done as effectively as piggybacking off MySpace or Facebook. External tools will never work 100% as needed.

“At the Arizona Democratic Party, we had the BlueStateDigital social networking component that both the DNC and the Obama campaign use. Tony Cani was the first person to try to get it to take off, I was the second. No matter how much I tried to get our supporters on to our social network to use those tools, it just wouldn’t happen. I would have to go to Facebook and MySpace instead.”

I thought you were quoting someone else there. OK. So maybe we use quotation marks in a different way over in the UK when we report someone else's words. “My mistake.”

My point remains Kevin, that tiny or vast social networks are actually quite easy to set up and maintain with the right people (and it can be a 1-man team) in place to run them – see ning.com for the free toolkit. When defining what is 'worthwhile' usually only comes once every four years or so for voters, I think it's a really pertinent metric when you consider, for example, how many votes made the difference in Florida for the Gore vs. Bush presidential campaign.

Politics is the art of the possible, but online, you really ain't seen nothing yet.

I actually haven't created a social network. The picture at the top is a photoshopped parody of my.barackobama.com.

Here is the point. In the political world, you have a finite amount of resources and more importantly time. The amount of both it would take to create a social network, get enough users on it for it to be worthwhile, and continue to maintain it would be overwhelming. In political organizing you should go where the people are.

I think the key to a successful network is having talented community managers and individuals who act as catalysts and influencers within the network, and working to expand the network. Sure, you have to go where the people are, but you can also create a place where the people want to go – and the smart way is to create groups and causes within those places – the technology is already there to use, and it's mostly free.

Like most political organisations, you need to get good, passionate people in there. The difference with an online network is that you have to let non-politicians drive the agenda, ad let the politicians shut up for once and just listen.

That's the part nobody has worked out – well, except perhaps Obama – he uses the fact that he has two ears and one mouth in correct proportion.