There may still be seventeen months between now and the 2008 US Presidential elections, but apparently there is never a time too soon to start campaigning. Given this cycle’s very early start (candidates started declaring as early as mid-January, 2007), many campaigns have been employing new ways to share their messages.
Take online video, for example. Senators Clinton and Obama both declared their intentions to run via web video. Senator McCain is gaining traction with his (albeit delayed) entry on the web, and YouTube has emerged as the new barometer of message success.
Look at the following Nielsen/NetRatings tracking statistics for YouTube:
YouTube videos about Republican presidential candidates accounted for 31 percent of the time spent at the site watching campaign-related videos in April, increasing 21 percentage points over March levels.
Videos about Democratic candidates accounted for 69% of all time spent on campaign videos in April, decreasing 20 percentage points since March.
“The Democrats have taken an early lead in the online race to the White House, leveraging Web 2.0 forums and technologies to their benefit,” said Jason Lee, media analyst, Nielsen/NetRatings. “Of course…not all coverage is positive. In March, the anti-Hillary Clinton ‘1984’ video drew significant traffic, which accounts in part for the Democratic lead in time spent for the month.”
“By April, John McCain videos accounted for 15% of total time spent on candidate-related YouTube content, but that content included McCain’s ill-received performance of ‘Bomb Bomb Iran’ and footage of the Senator snoozing during the 2007 State of the Union address,” Lee added.
Just a note, you need to relink the “it just works” links at the bottom of every page.
All fixed. Thank you!
My pleasure! It is a very interesting article, it shows how things are changing due to the internet. How innovative!