> Youbama.com - more evolution of campaigning <

[LVZ]

http://www.youbama.com">
http://www.youbama.com/

I don't know where the evolution of campaigning will take us, but Youtube has already had a significant effect on campaigning. No longer will politicians think they can get away with racist, sexist, or just stupid remarks in their campaigning or other public appearances. Someone will be there to document it. GOP ex-Senator and Presidential hopeful George Allen of Virginia discovered that a bit too late.

No longer will one's past statements and positions go unnoticed when you say contradictory things and take contradictory positions to pander to your party's base or to react to whatever happens to be popular or convenient or "safe" at the moment.

No longer will campaigns be captive to back room deals among vested-interest "good ole boy" old guard politicians. No longer will politicians be able to play it safe and to get away with avoiding citizen and news media questions or to stick to carefully programmed campaign scripting. No longer will the dynamic of collecting the most money from special interest fat-cat donors automatically give you a difficult to overcome edge toward election.

The chaos and democratization of campaigning and politics may be hell or heaven for future candidates but they all better learn to deal with it. The smart ones will embrace it. Resistance is indeed futile.

::

[LVZ]

1. "spreading like wildfire"

Since our public launch on Monday, news about Youbama has been spreading like wildfire all over the web! Here are some of the latest posts:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/30/move_over_youtube_here_comes_y_1.html#more
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080131/cm_thenation/45278049
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-newmark/youbama-mebama_b_84130.html
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2008/01/30/catalejo/1201649345.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/29/youtube-digg-obama-youbama/

The goal of YouBama is to democratize the election campaign process.
All content is generated by citizens and voted on by citizens.

Think about it as the unofficial presidential campaign for Barack Obama. Voters can say what they want, how they want. Then they vote on the videos so the best ones rise to the top.

This site was created by two Stanford University students. We have no connection to the official Obama campaign. We have no sponsors or group affiliations. The site was built using open source software.
If you have any questions or comments please send an email to: [e-mail]

Upload a video and join the campaign today!

[LVZ]

2. from Washington Post ...

Yesterday, Stanford grads Chris Pedregal and Erik Park launched what amounted to their winter-break project: YouBama, a hub of a pro-Obama videos which users can vote up and down, Digg-style. Most of the videos are culled from YouTube. At the moment, the top video is of George Clooney's interview with Charlie Rose in which the Oscar-winning actor calls Sen. Barack Obama "the best candidate I have ever seen."

The Barocket, as Obama's Web presence has been dubbed, continues to take off.

While Sen. Hillary Clinton has consistently led national polls, she's well behind Obama when it comes to online popularity. On Facebook, Obama has more three times the number of Clinton supporters -- 299,000 to 83,000. Obama counts 240,000 MySpace friends to Clinton's 171,000. And according to TechPresident, the bipartisan group that covers online campaigning, Clinton's videos have been viewed more than 5 million times, about 8 million behind Obama's. He's become a YouTube sensation. On Monday, Obama's nearly 5-minute video response to President Bush's "State of the Union" address became the most viewed video in the world, now seen 600,000 times. Today, his is the most viewed channel on YouTube, ahead of channels that feature Super Mario Bros. games and goth girls. He's possibly the first politician to hold that top channel distinction, Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube, told The Trail.

"An Obama video becomes an automatic hit on YouTube when it's uploaded," Grove said.

Exactly what all online enthusiasm amounts to is difficult to measure. What is clear, however, is Obama's candidacy has mobilized a new generation online.The creators of YouBama said they simply wanted to provide a space where undecided voters can watch Obama supporters explain why they're voting for the Illinois senator. "Help add to Obama's momentum as we go into Super Tuesday!" Pedregal and Park wrote on the homepage. Videos are titled "Obama's not bought out" and "Experience v Unity."

Tech entrepreneur Craig Newmark, the Craig of Craigslist and an Obama supporter, uploaded a video yesterday, saying "If we work together and communicate and get Obama elected, we can help restore what this country was about."

"We didn't build this site to make money. It's an experiment. We support Obama, and we just wanted to be a part of this online movement," Pedregal, 21, told The Trail.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/30/move_over_youtube_here_comes_y_1.html#more

[GoldieAZ49]

3. Thank you

I will make and upload my video tonight

[LVZ]

4. I'll have to find Craig Newmark's (Craigslist) Obama video - it should be interesting ... n/t

[LVZ]

5. 130,000 views - former Chicago N.O.W. President switches from Clinton to Obama ...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs

http://youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom