Influential players in technology and politics gathered in Washington, D.C. earlier this week to examine the innovative role technology and the Internet will play in the upcoming 2010 midterm elections.
The event, titled “Innovation+Democracy, 2010 Election Preview,” was presented by Google and Politico, and featured staff from Facebook and YouTube, columnists from the Washington Post and National Review, and both Republican (GOP) and Democratic insiders, including White House senior adviser David Axelrod.
Mike Allen of Politico interviewed Axelrod, who acknowledged the role technology and the Internet played in the election of President Obama in 2008. “I'm not sure that a Barack Obama could've been elected president of the United States, but for the fact that we were able to build a relationship with people all over the country through the Internet.”
When asked about the changes in how candidates were using YouTube's video technology and audience, Ramya Raghavan, a News and Public Interest manager with YouTube, spoke of “two significant changes” since the 2008 elections.
“The first is just in the massive spike in the number of candidates that are using the site,” with, in 2010, over 400 candidates in tight races “having official YouTube politician channels.” The second point was an increase in the government's use of the site. Of the current sitting members of Congress, “Ninety percent of Republicans have an official YouTube channel, and about 75 percent of Democrats have a YouTube channel.”
Adam Conner with Facebook's Privacy and Global Public Policy dept. spoke of broad recognition of the social networking site, and how politicians were also using their technology to reach constituents, but that candidates had yet to exploit the potentials the site offers.
A spokesman with Google Maps introduced a new 2010 U.S. elections ratings map developed by the corporation, which compounds data from various sources “to track the daily changes in the political landscape.” The map can be viewed at maps.google.com/elections2010.
In a Mashable column called “Social Media: The New Battleground for Politics,” Geoff Livingston referenced the impact of social media on not only the 2008 elections, but on recent British elections, and how “it only makes sense to see community listening, and crowdsourcing become the primary strategy of the 2010 GOP effort. In addition to these core social media tenets, the GOP is focusing on influencers and bloggers that are self-identifying as advocates,” he concluded.
