I have been fascinated with the Presidential race this year. Not necessarily because of the candidates, but more because of the lessons learned. Here are my observations as they relate to real estate.
Take a look at the following websites:
Are you amazed to see just some of the things we have been talking about on the 90 Day Challenge – look – Blogs, Social Networks, YouTube, Podcasts. These “official” sites show us just how important all of these new tools are. Both campaigns are trying to leverage the internet to their advantage. 2008 marks the first election where the internet has been a significant part of the Presidential Campaign.
Have you been on Facebook? I see political commentary on my news feed daily. Barack Obama had 3 million friends on Facebook before he even won the nomination. Both McCain and Obama have numerous pages and groups with thousands of members. You can gift your friends with a political button. CNN has a special discussion page for those who want to get in there and scrap around.
A quick search of YouTube shows 589,000 videos that have been tagged Obama, 320,000 tagged McCain, 141,000 tagged Palin and 58,500 tagged for Joe Biden. Total them and there are over 1,000,000 videos on YouTube just about these candidates!
Both candidates have vibrant websites that feature videos, blogs, RSS subscriptions.
There are iPhone and Blackberry mobile applications to follow your candidate.
Twitter ( we will learn more about Twitter in later challenges), followed all of the debates live with literally thousands of people commenting as the debate was on. Both candidates have Twitter accounts so you can virtually follow them around on the campaign trail.
Speaking of the debates – another first – online TV content provider Hulu.com broadcasted the debates live over the internet.
I am sure I am not the only person to receive all of those crazy emails that somehow went viral, only to go to snopes.com and find out they were patently false.
If the election does nothing else, it should teach us all about the importance of media shifts to include all forms of internet communication. The internet has really defined this election just as it is re-defining the real estate business.
Just in case you are feeling left behind with all of this technology – don’t worry – your early voting ballot is a paper one where you have to bubble in the answers! Don’t throw away those number 2 pencils just yet.
Waiting for election day to vote? Make it interactive. PBS and YouTube have a campaign going to “Video your vote”.
It is a new world… so stay tuned to the 90 Day Challenge.